Make use of unused ethernet ports

[opojomo]

Hello all,

in my setup i have an opnsense with three ethernet ports. One port is used to connect to the WAN device (FritzBox) and another is used to be connected to my switch where all devices are directly and indirectly connected to.

This leaves me with one port unused. Is there a possibility to make use of this unused port? I was thinking about connecting it to the WAN device (WAN although has only 100Mbit download/ 40 Mbit upload), or connecting it to the switch, so traffic can go through both ports (1GB + 1GB = 2GB?)

Very thankful for your help.

Best regards

[FullyBorked]

You don't need to use a port just because it is there.  My years in IT tell me to follow KISS = (Keep it Simple Stupid).  For example I've had primary edge firewalls with 8-10 ports and only use two of them.

With that said, my setup has a quad port nic currently.  My ports are as follows: 1-LAN, 2-WAN1, 3-WAN2, 4-DMZ. 

Do you have a need for a secondary WAN as failover backup?  I use an LTE modem and a spare sim card as my backup. 

[rhubarb]

I set one up with a simple pass rule just in case I lock myself out of the other LAN port.

[pmhausen]

You can use a bridge interface to turn your OPNsense into a simple 2-port switch for LAN. Or you can bundle both ports with LACP (the "lagg" interface). Your switch needs to support this and be configured likewise.