Book Image

pfSense 2.x Cookbook - Second Edition

By : David Zientara
Book Image

pfSense 2.x Cookbook - Second Edition

By: David Zientara

Overview of this book

pfSense is an open source distribution of the FreeBSD-based firewall that provides a platform for ?exible and powerful routing and firewalling. The versatility of pfSense presents us with a wide array of configuration options, which makes determining requirements a little more difficult and a lot more important compared to other offerings. pfSense 2.x Cookbook – Second Edition starts by providing you with an understanding of how to complete the basic steps needed to render a pfSense firewall operational. It starts by showing you how to set up different forms of NAT entries and firewall rules and use aliases and scheduling in firewall rules. Moving on, you will learn how to implement a captive portal set up in different ways (no authentication, user manager authentication, and RADIUS authentication), as well as NTP and SNMP configuration. You will then learn how to set up a VPN tunnel with pfSense. The book then focuses on setting up traffic shaping with pfSense, using either the built-in traffic shaping wizard, custom ?oating rules, or Snort. Toward the end, you will set up multiple WAN interfaces, load balancing and failover groups, and a CARP failover group. You will also learn how to bridge interfaces, add static routing entries, and use dynamic routing protocols via third-party packages.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
About Packt
Contributors
Preface
Index

Enabling SSH access


This recipe describes how to enable the Secure Shell service in pfSense, thus making remote console login possible.

SSH is a networking protocol that allows encrypted communication between two nodes. Enabling SSH will allow you to gain access to the pfSense console remotely, as if you were at the console.

How to do it...

  1. Navigate toSystem | Advanced.
  2. In the Secure Shell section of the page, check the Enable Secure Shell checkbox:
  1. With the current settings, you will be prompted for a username and password when logging into the console remotely. But by changing theSSHd Key Onlysetting toPublic Key Only, you can set it so that only logins with a public key will be allowed. See the next recipe for details on how to generate an RSA public key.
  2. Leave SSH port set to the default, port 22.
  3. When you are done, click on the Save button.

How it works...

Enabling Secure Shell in pfSense turns on pfSense’s internal SSH server, which causes pfSense to listen for login attempts on the SSH port (in this case, port 22).

There's more...

Using RSA keys for SSH login is an effective way of securing your system. You can also change the SSH port; this should result in fewer unauthorized login attempts, though you will have to remember the new SSH port.

See also

  • The Generating authorized RSA keys recipe in this chapter
  • The Enabling RSA key authentication recipe in this chapter