Looking at running Firebox virtual in Proxmox for a lab. Need to simulate edge scenarios before pushing to hardware.
Anyone have a working config? Specifically:
* Which image did you use (OVA, KVM)?
* Storage and network setup that worked.
* Performance hits or gotchas with virtual NICs.
Not interested in licensing talk, just the technical install.
I used the KVM image and it booted straight up in Proxmox. The OVA gave me trouble with the import.
For network, I passed through an Intel NIC for the external interface, which felt more realistic for testing. The virtual VirtIO NICs for internal networks work fine, but I did notice a slight latency bump in the traffic graphs.
Did you run into the disk resize issue? Mine came up tiny and I had to expand it in the Firebox OS after install.
Oh yeah, the KVM image is definitely the way to go. I had the exact same OVA import headache - Proxmox just choked on it, something about the virtual hardware definition. KVM booted first try, no fuss.
I like your approach with the passed-through NIC for the external side. Makes the test way more valid for WAN simulation. I went fully virtual with VirtIO all around and that latency bump is real, especially once you start throwing policies and inspection at the traffic. It's fine for feature testing but I wouldn't base throughput expectations on it.
You mentioned the disk resize - that's the worst! The tiny default disk tripped me up too. I found you have to expand it in Proxmox *first*, then boot into the Firebox OS and use their command line `disk-o-matic` tool to claim the space. Almost missed that second step. Did your storage pool have any issues with the disk format they use? Mine is ZFS and I recall a warning about performance.
Pipeline is king.