pfSense is an open source firewall/router distribution based on FreeBSD. pfSense is meant to be installed on a personal computer and is noted for its reliability[1] and offering features often only found in expensive commercial firewalls.[2] It can be configured and upgraded through a web-based interface, and requires no knowledge of the underlying FreeBSD system to manage.[2] pfSense is commonly deployed as a Perimeter Firewall, router, wireless access point, DHCP server, DNS server, and as a VPN endpoint.
The name was derived from the fact that it helps make the OpenBSD packet-filtering tool pf make more sense to non-technical users.[3]
History [edit]
The pfSense project started in 2004 as a fork of the m0n0wall project by Chris Buechler and Scott Ullrich.[4] From the beginning, it focused on full PC installations, as opposed to m0n0wall's focus on embedded hardware. However, pfSense is also available as an embedded image for CompactFlash-based installations. Version 1.0 of the software was released on October 4, 2006.[5] Version 2.0 was released on September 17, 2011.[6]
Features [edit]
| Install, update, packages, management |
- Live CD, update, NanoBSD/embedded, virtual machine, and USB installers available
- Packaged support/push-button installer for extensions, including the Squid proxy server, the Snort intrusion prevention/detection system, ntop, the HAVP antivirus package, IP blocklists, and the FreeSWITCH[7] telephony platform
- Multi-language
- Console, web-based GUI, SSH (if enabled) and serial management
- RRD graphs reporting
- Traffic shaping and filtering
- Real-time information using Ajax
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| Functionality and connectivity |
- Virtual Private Networks using IPsec, L2TP, OpenVPN, or PPTP
- PPPoE server
- High availability clustering; redundancy and failover including CARP and pfsync
- Outbound and inbound load balancing
- Quality of Service (QoS)
- Dynamic DNS
- Captive portal
- uPnP
- Multi-WAN
- VLAN (802.1q)
- DHCP server and relay
- IPv6 support (in v2.1 beta)
- Multiple public IPs/multi-NAT
- RADIUS/LDAP
- Multiple resolvers (DNS forwarder, unbound, TinyDNS, other)
- Aliases supported for rules, IPs, ports, computers, and other entities
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| Firewall and routing |
- Stateful firewall
- Network Address Translation
- Filtering by source/destination IP, protocol, OS/network fingerprinting
- Flexible routing
- Per-rule configurable logging and per-rule limiters (IPs, connections, states, new connections, state types), Layer 7 protocol inspection, policy filtering (or packet marking), TCP flag state filtering, scheduling, gateway
- Packet scrubbing
- Layer 2/bridging capable
- State table "up to several hundred thousand" states (1KB RAM per state approx)
- State table algorithms customizable including low latency and low-dropout
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Packages available as "push button installs" (as at March 2013) include: - Asterisk, Apache with mod-security, FreeSWITCHG (Voice over IP), jail, LCD panel support, spamd email tarpit, nmap, stunnel, Varnish accelerator, Multiple monitoring and statistics packages, file managers.
Hardware [edit]
Although the focus of pfSense development is on full-PC installation, a version is provided targeted for embedded use, and many companies produce embedded systems specifically designed to run pfSense.[8][9][10][11][12]
See also [edit]
References [edit]
- ^ Danen, Vincent (December 7, 2009). "DIY pfSense firewall system beats others for features, reliability, and security". TechRepublic. "If you want a high-availability and highly reliable firewall, pfSense is definitely something to seriously consider"
- ^ a b Miller, Sloan (June 26, 2008). "Configure a professional firewall using pfSense". Free Software Magazine (22). "No experience is needed with FreeBSD or GNU/Linux to install and run pfSense"
- ^ Buechler, Chris (June 21, 2007). "So what does pfSense stand for/mean, anyway?". pfSense Digest.
- ^ "pfSense Open Source Firewall Distribution - History".
- ^ Ullrich, Scott (October 13, 2006). "1.0-RELEASED!". pfSense Digest.
- ^ Buechler, Chris (September 17, 2011). "2.0-RELEASED!". pfSense Digest.
- ^ pfSense's FreeSWITCH
- ^ "pfSense Firewall".
- ^ "OPNsense - pfsense firewall appliances".
- ^ "StrongBochs pfSense features".
- ^ "pfSense firewall Kit".
- ^ "pfSense embedded and UTM appliance firewall italian Kit".
External links [edit]
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