Run IPF in a virtual machine

Now, maybe this one is the silly question of the day, BUT…

Is it at all conceivable to run IPFire in a virtual machine, or does it require hardware NICs?

Hi,

Is it at all conceivable to run IPFire in a virtual machine, or does it require hardware NICs?

basically, IPFire is able to run in a virtual environment, but we do not recommend for productive environments. Please refer to the corresponding documentation for further information.

Thanks, and best regards,
Peter Müller

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Hi @gianluca,

as @pmueller said, it is advisable to use IPFire in a physical machine (see https://wiki.ipfire.org/hardware/virtual), however if you only want to test IPFire in a VM it is very easy :

When creating the VM, you must create 2 virtual network cards (or more), one of the cards will for example be assigned to the RED network and the other to the GREEN.

IMO, @gianluca, use a VM to test a firewall (without 2 network interfaces) it’s useful only if you want to take a view of the user interface.
You cannot really test anything related features, settings, behaviors, response of the system to your settings.

Don’t forget most of the times a computer do what you instruct to, not what you wish. The remaining times are called bugs.

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