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

Creating and using aliases


This recipe describes how to create, edit, and delete aliases. Aliases provide a degree of separation between firewall/NAT rules and values that may change in the future, such as IP addresses, networks, and ports. Using aliases whenever possible makes it much easier to maintain firewall rules.

How to do it...

  1. Navigate to Firewall|Aliases.
  2. Click on theAddbutton.
  3. Enter a name for the alias in theNametext field:
  1. Enter a brief (non-parsed) description in theDescriptiontext field.
  2. Select the type of alias to create in theTypedrop-down menu (the choices areHost(s), Network(s),Port(s),URL(IPs),URL (Ports), URL Table (IPs), URL Table (Ports). The differences between these types will be explained in theThere’s moresection.
  1. Finish the configuration based on theTypeselection. ForHost(s), you should enter a host; forNetwork(s), you should enter a network and CIDR, and forPort(s), you should enter a port or port range. If you need to specify more than one entry, click on theAddbutton...