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)

Troubleshooting captive portals

pfSense's captive portal service has many options, which means that there are many more things that can go wrong with captive portal access. We can divide these issues into two general categories:

  • Authentication issues (client cannot authenticate, even with seemingly valid credentials)
  • Client can establish a captive portal connection, but some other aspect of the service is not working (for example, DNS is not functioning or websites are blocked)

We will first consider authentication issues. The authentication options are Local User Manager/Vouchers and RADIUS Authentication. If you are using the local user manager, you should confirm that you have created the user accounts correctly and, if Allow only users/groups with "Captive portal login" privilege set is checked, you should confirm that the users have this privilege. You can...