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

Using ping


Ping is a command-line utility developed in the early 1980s, which has been included in every major OS since then. Ping tests the reachability of hosts on an Internet Protocol network. It measures the round-trip time for packets sent from a source node to a destination node to be echoed back to the source.

 

 

This recipe describes how to use the Ping utility in pfSense.

How to do it...

  1. Navigate to Diagnostics | Ping:
  1. In the Hostname text field, enter the hostname or IP address of the destination.
  2. In the IP Protocol drop-down menu, select IPv4 or IPv6 as required.
  3. In the Source address drop-down menu, select an interface to use as the source address, or leave it set to Automatically selected (default).
  1. In the Maximum number of pings drop-down menu, select the maximum number of ping attempts (1-10).
  2. Click on the Ping button.

How it works...

The Ping utility allows administrators to ping any machine on any interface, from any interface. Ping is indispensable, and having it built into the firewall...