Just a quick question, Looking at setting up a pfSense Router. but i have only 1 computer, i would like to know if there is a way to run pfSense and Windows Server 2016 on the same system?
There are many ways ;)
Probably easiest one is running Pfsense within a Virtual Machine on the Windows Server but you would need enough Network Cards in the Server. One for WAN, One for Pfsense/Server LAN minimum. And be familiar with passing through hardware to the Virtual Machine.
Virtualization is one way to go, but bear in mind that if the host system goes down you don't only lose access to the server, you'll also lose internet access.
Running a pfSense VM inside of Windows Server is the worst thing that you can do (for security, complexity and reliability reasons). A bare-metal hypervisor (like VMware ESXi) is the way to go if you want to do virtualization.
Having a physically separated (internet-facing) router is still the recommended way to go for most setups. You can get a pretty capable pfSense board (that only sips a few watts of power) for around $150 (or a second hand PC for much less than that, but the power bill will quickly close the gap).
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@Just.Oblivious I was thinking if @kelam already had the Windows Server then you probably wouldn't want to reinstall the whole machine as a VMWare machine.
I do agree if your looking at doing a clean build from scratch and want to run both on the same box something like ESXI would be better.
Just get one of those alix things or (I haven't tried that but it should be awesome) a zotac zbox. Or build something mITX on AM1. I tried the virtual router thing a few times myself and trust me it is not worth the hassle.
I use an alix board with my pfSense, have done for about 18months now.
works OK, I have a 80/20 connection and when it's at full load the GUI fails to respond but as soon as the load drops it works fine again. they are silent and low power with 3 LANs.
Yeah, I am running an APU.1D4 and it is fine (50/something) but I dislike having a modem and a router each with external power bricks hanging around. So I am looking to to change that in the near future. I am trying to get a Draytek vigorNIC 132 to work but somehow I can't get on the web interface...
Anyway, bottom line: virtualizing pfsense ... just don't.
Might not be the same issue you're having, but this might be useful
https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Accessing_modem_from_inside_firewall
For what exactly?
Without looking into it, I was thinking of doing an all-in-on NAS/Firewall/mailserver as well. One of the solutions I thought of was using unraid to virtuallize everything. I think unRaid is just a paid support version of KVM for Linux. If you want to just have one high powered box provide several purposes then going KVM on linux (for the pain) or unRaid (for the support) isn't bad. You can virtualize PFSENSE and add PCIe devices to it. Same with FreeNas or OSes, just virtualize it and add storage devices to it.
But with so many mini box PCs with fanless celerons (quad) there is no real reason to not have a second box.