This recipe describes how to configure the core system settings in PfSense.
All that's required for this recipe is a base installation of pfSense and access to the WebGUI. Some of these settings will have been configured during the installation process, but can be modified here at any time.
Browse to System | General Setup.
Enter a Hostname. This name will be used to access the machine by name instead of the IP address. For example, we can browse to
http://pfsense
instead ofhttp://192.168.1.1
:Enter your Domain:
DNS Servers can be specified here. By default, pfSense will act as the primary DNS server and these fields will be blank. However, other DNS servers may certainly be used. Please refer to the Specifying alternate DNS servers recipe in Chapter 2, Essential Services for more information.
Check Allow DNS server list to be overridden by DHCP/PPP on WAN. This ensures that any DNS requests that can't be resolved internally are passed on and resolved by the external DNS servers provided by your ISP.
Enter a Time zone and leave the default NTP time server as 0.pfsense.pool.ntp.org.
I'd recommend the default Theme, pfSense 2.0's new pfsense_ng. The top menus are now static and won't disappear if you scroll down through the content of the page, a great addition to the UI.