Yes of course. So BSD Truenas is dead? That is a True shame, as BSD is rock steady reliable and runs on truly ancient hardware just fine.

Even if the virtualized router is down, I’ll still have access to the physical server over the network until the DHCP lease expires. The switch does the work of delivering my packets on the LAN, not the router.

Yes, of course it depends on your network topology. If you have a link in the same subnet you’re good (and can configure a static IP if need be). But if you’re using vlans you can get in a pickle if the router is down. In my setup everything on the user side is segregated so if the router goes down I have to take a dedicated management laptop and plug into the host management network directly on the management switch where i keep a port empty. This maintains segregation and in practices means I take my ancient Acer Aspire One used for nothing else into the server room that looks strangely like a laundry room and plug it in.

It works great as long as you have a method to access the server directly when the router machine is down. A laptop set to a static IP on the same subnet will let you access the host when you b0rk something. Keep a backup config on that machine It’s pretty great though. Just remember pfsense won’t support more than 7 external interfaces when you start getting crazy with vlans

Super lame. BSD is very preferable for core systems like this.

Core is still getting updates?i got one last week.