Book Image

Network Security with pfSense

By : Manuj Aggarwal
Book Image

Network Security with pfSense

By: Manuj Aggarwal

Overview of this book

While connected to the internet, you’re a potential target for an array of cyber threats, such as hackers, keyloggers, and Trojans that attack through unpatched security holes. A firewall works as a barrier (or ‘shield’) between your computer and cyberspace. pfSense is highly versatile firewall software. With thousands of enterprises using pfSense, it is fast becoming the world's most trusted open source network security solution. Network Security with pfSense begins with an introduction to pfSense, where you will gain an understanding of what pfSense is, its key features, and advantages. Next, you will learn how to configure pfSense as a firewall and create and manage firewall rules. As you make your way through the chapters, you will test pfSense for failover and load balancing across multiple wide area network (WAN) connections. You will then configure pfSense with OpenVPN for secure remote connectivity and implement IPsec VPN tunnels with pfSense. In the concluding chapters, you’ll understand how to configure and integrate pfSense as a Squid proxy server. By the end of this book, you will be able to leverage the power of pfSense to build a secure network.

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Table of Contents (7 chapters)
Preface
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Get in touch
Free Chapter
1
Introduction to pfSense
Introduction to pfSense
What is pfSense?
Benefits of pfSense
Use cases
pfSense features
Prerequisites for installation
Installing pfSense on a virtual machine
Launching the virtual machine
Configuring VM and completing the installation
Configuring pfSense
pfSense WebGUI walkthrough
Configuring pfSense as a DHCP server
Summary
2
pfSense as a Firewall
pfSense as a Firewall
What is a firewall?
Configuring pfSense as a firewall
Setting up firewall rules
Managing firewall rules
Summary
3
pfSense as a Failover and Load Balancer
pfSense as a Failover and Load Balancer
Load balancing and failover
Load balancing and failover across multiple WAN connections
Configuring Gateway Groups
Verifying load balancing across WAN connections
Failover across multiple WAN connections
Summary
4
Remote Connectivity with pfSense and IPsec
Remote Connectivity with pfSense and IPsec
What is IPsec?
Security Association
IPsec VPN tunnel implementation
Prerequisites
IPsec phases
Configuring IPsec tunnel
Configuring pfSense firewall rules
Summary
5
Using pfSense as a Squid Proxy Server
Using pfSense as a Squid Proxy Server
The proxy server
Installing the Squid proxy server
Configuring the Squid proxy server
Testing the Squid proxy server
Summary
6
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Configuring Gateway Groups

To configure pfSense as a load balancer or failover, you first need to create a Gateway Group. Let's do that now.

Before you start, let's first check if the client system has internet connectivity or not. Let's switch to the Windows 7 client system:

  1. Open a browser window and navigate to a site, say google.com, and check the connectivity. You can also check this by opening the Command Prompt. Execute the ping google.com -t command:

As you can see, the ping command is working fine.

  1. Now that you have verified the connectivity on the client machine, let's go back to the pfSense server.
  2. Go to System tab and click Routing:

In the Gateways tab, you can see that there are two gateways—WAN1 and WAN2, which are defined here. WAN1 is the default gateway. There is still another gateway for both, but it is for DHCP6, which is related...

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