Pfsense question

I am creating a pfsense firewall. Using an old lenovo i had sitting around. I have an intel nic on it and lan side i have a realtek nic. I an interested if that is all I have what is preferred in and out? Realtek for lan and intel for wan? or vice versa?

@PhaseLockedLoop

Assuming the realtek nic is supported, it probably doesn’t matter. In general though, maybe the intel is more reliable so put it on the lan side? If wan fails, you lose internet, but if lan fails, you’re locked out of the pfsense web admin.

There could be other considerations I’m not thinking of, but that’s my first notion.

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If you want to get creative, you could set up both interfaces as a failover bond to a vlan-capable switch and configure it as a router on a stick. That way either interface could fail and you’d retain both internet and lan…

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I would put the more reliable intel NIC on your LAN. The wan can fail. Its not ideal but you say old lenovo?

Is the intel NIC integrated?

Which ever NIC is integrated. That is going to be generally the more reliable one

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Intel nic is integrated.