Book Image

Learn pfSense 2.4

By : David Zientara
Book Image

Learn pfSense 2.4

By: David Zientara

Overview of this book

As computer networks become ubiquitous, it has become increasingly important to both secure and optimize our networks. pfSense, an open-source router/firewall, provides an easy, cost-effective way of achieving this – and this book explains how to install and configure pfSense in such a way that even a networking beginner can successfully deploy and use pfSense. This book begins by covering networking fundamentals, deployment scenarios, and hardware sizing guidelines, as well as how to install pfSense. The book then covers configuration of basic services such as DHCP, DNS, and captive portal and VLAN configuration. Careful consideration is given to the core firewall functionality of pfSense, and how to set up firewall rules and traffic shaping. Finally, the book covers the basics of VPNs, multi-WAN setups, routing and bridging, and how to perform diagnostics and troubleshooting on a network.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)

Bridging

You can bridge two interfaces in pfSense by combining two or more interfaces and thus forming a single broadcast domain. In such a case, two ports on pfSense act as if they are on the same switch, except that firewall rules still apply in controlling traffic between interfaces. The most important consideration when bridging interfaces is to prevent looping. As mentioned earlier, this can be done using the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP).

Older versions of pfSense had filtering turned off by default, but this is no longer the case, and the default behavior of pfSense is to apply firewall rules to bridges. There is no way to selectively disable filtering in the current version of pfSense, but if you want to disable filtering completely, you can navigate to System | Advanced and check the Disable Firewall checkbox. Of course, you should only do this if you intend to use pfSense...