After running pfSense as a transparent firewall on my VMware ESXi 5 whitebox lab setup for nearly a year, I decided to setup pfSense as my home internet router.
To do that I needed an additional NIC in my whitebox, so I bought a second Intel Pro/1000 GT.
After installing the NIC, VMware booted as normal and the NIC was immediately recognized. Only a few hours later, my whitebox crashed with a kernel panic.
The VMware ESXi 5 host reported a “Spin count exceeded” and “possible deadlock” in the purple diagnostic screen. Continue reading »