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

Configuring a WAN interface from the console


This recipe describes how to configure the WAN interface from the Console menu.

Getting ready

In order to complete this recipe, the WAN interface must have previously been assigned to one of the available network interfaces.

How to do it...

  1. On the console menu, type2and pressEnter.
  2. pfSense will prompt you for the number of the interface you want to configure. For the WAN interface, this will be1, so type1and pressEnter.
  1. pfSense will ask you if you want to configure the IPv4 WAN address through DHCP. In most cases, you will want to typey, because the WAN interface address will be assigned by your ISP via DHCP. Typeyand press Enter.If you entern, pfSense will prompt you for a WAN IPv4 address, and then the subnet bit count:
  1. pfSense will ask you whether you want to configure the IPv6 WAN address through DHCP6. You can typeyif your ISP supports IPv6 addressing, or typen, in which case IPv6 addressing for the WAN interface will be disabled.
  2. pfSense will ask you whether you want to revert to HTTP for the webConfigurator protocol. Unless you have a reason for not using HTTPS for the web GUI, typenand pressEnter.
  3. The configuration process is now complete. The settings will be saved and pfSense will reload them.

How it works...

This recipe describes how to configure the WAN interface via the console instead of through the web GUI. Note that the options are much more limited than they are in the web GUI. For example, you only have the option to configure an IPv4 address via DHCP or use a static address. None of the other options, such as PPP or PPPoE are available. Also, with IPv6, the only option is DHCP6. If you require more options that are available here, use the web GUI.

See also

  • TheAssigning interfaces from the consolerecipe
  • TheConfiguring a LAN interface from the consolerecipe
  • TheConfiguring optional interfaces from the consolerecipe
  • TheConfiguring VLANs from the consolerecipe
  • TheConfiguring a WAN interfacerecipe