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)

NAT

Network Address Translation (NAT), as the name implies, is a means of mapping one address space into another address space. It is often equated with port forwarding, a subcategory of NAT that allows a computer on a public network, such as the internet, to connect to a computer on a private network (for example, our LAN) by remapping the IP address and port. This is the form of NAT that you are most likely to use. But there two are other forms of NAT, which we will cover in this section. Outbound NAT allows traffic from internal networks whose destination is an external network to reach their destination. 1:1 NAT is a form of remapping public IP addresses to private IP addresses in such a way that each public IP address corresponds to one private IP address.

Port-forwarding

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