Firewall

My home network used to be whatever my ISP router decided it should be. No VLANs, no proper firewall rules, no visibility into what was actually happening. When I started running Proxmox on the HP DL380 G6, one of the first things I wanted to fix was the network layer — and OPNsense running as a VM turned out to be exactly the right move. This post covers why I went down this route, what you need to make it work, and a step-by-step walkthrough of the setup. ...

Running OPNsense as a VM inside Proxmox is one of the best decisions I made when building my homelab. You get a full-featured firewall with the added benefits of snapshots, easy backups, and no dedicated hardware required. The setup is a bit more involved than installing on bare metal — mostly because of how network interfaces need to be configured in Proxmox. But once you understand the network topology, it clicks quickly. ...

Most people’s home network looks like this: an ISP-provided router sitting in the corner, doing everything — routing, DHCP, DNS, NAT, and whatever passes for a firewall in consumer networking gear. It works. Until it doesn’t. If you’re running a homelab, self-hosting services, or just care about what’s happening on your network, a proper firewall is one of the most valuable things you can add to your setup. And with tools like OPNsense, it’s more accessible than ever. ...