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.
Table of Contents (7 chapters)

Configuring pfSense firewall rules

You've already set up the IPsec VPN tunnel, but pfSense will not allow any traffic through unless a firewall rule is established to pass it. So, let's look at the process of configuring a firewall rule to pass the IPsec traffic. Click on Firewall, and select Rules:

Notice that a new tab called IPsec is available here. Let's click the IPsec tab. You will see that there are no firewall rules defined here. So, click the first Add button to create a new rule:

Make sure that the Action is set to Pass, the Interface is set to IPsec, and the Address Family is set to IPv4.

Also, change the Protocol to Any to allow for any type of traffic over the secure IPsec tunnel.

Accept all the default values for the rest of the settings and click the Save button. Then, click the Apply Changes button.

Once it's done, let's go back and...