In this book, we have used the latest stable version of pfSense, which is 2.4.3. The minimum hardware requirements, as of the latest version, are 500 Mhz CPU and 512 MB of RAM. The recommended requirements are a bit higher than these such as 1 Ghz CPU and 1 GB of RAM.

For some of the topics, you may need to take some initial steps, such as signing up for services and launching a virtual machine.

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/NetworkSecuritywithpfSense_ColorImages.pdf.

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "Enter the desired Name of the VM, select BSD from the Type drop-down menu, and select FreeBSD (64-bit) from the Version drop-down menu."

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

ping 192.168.1.1 -t

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For example, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example: "In this scenario, pfSense acts as a DHCP Server, Firewall, and NAT device. It can play these roles distinctly or all at the same time simultaneously."