PfSense

Infobox OS
name = pfSense



caption =
developer = BSD Perimeter LLC / Chris Buechler, Scott Ullrich
family = BSD
source_model = Free software
latest_release_version = 1.2
latest_release_date = February 25, 2008
kernel_type = Monolithic kernel
license = BSD License
working_state = Current
website = http://www.pfsense.org/

pfSense is a FreeBSD-based firewall tailored for use as a firewall and router. The project started in 2004 as a fork of the m0n0wall project, but focused towards full PC installations rather than the embedded hardware focus of m0n0wall.

Release History

October 4, 2006 pfSense version 1.0 was released [ [http://blog.pfsense.org/?p=97 pfSense Digest: pfSense 1.0 RELEASED!] ] .

October 20, 2006 pfSense version 1.0.1 was released [ [http://blog.pfsense.org/?p=98 pfSense Digest: pfSense 1.0.1 RELEASED!] ] .

February 25, 2008 pfSense version 1.2 was released [ [http://blog.pfsense.org/?p=170 pfSense Digest: 1.2 Release Available!] ] .

Features

pfSense includes almost all the features in expensive commercial firewalls, and more in many cases. Here is a list of features taken from the pfSense Features page.

* Firewall
* State Table
* NAT
* Redundancy
** CARP - CARP from OpenBSD allows for hardware failover. Two or more firewalls can be configured as a failover group. If one interface fails on the primary or the primary goes offline entirely, the secondary becomes active. pfSense also includes configuration synchronization capabilities, so you make your configuration changes on the primary and they automatically synchronize to the secondary firewall.
** pfsync - pfsync ensures the firewall's state table is replicated to all failover configured firewalls. This means your existing connections will be maintained in the case of failure, which is important to prevent network disruptions.
* Outbound and Inbound Load Balancing
* VPN - Ipsec, OpenVPN, PPTP
* PPPoE Server
* RRD Graphs Reporting
* Real Time Information - Using AJAX
* Dynamic DNS
* Captive Portal
* DHCP Server and Relay

ee also

* m0n0wall
* PF
* Untangle

References

External links

* [http://www.pfsense.com/ pfSense home page]
* [http://www.pfsense.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=40&Itemid=43 pfSense Features]
* [http://www.pfsense.org/screenshots/ pfSense Screenshots]
* [http://www.openbsd.org/faq/pf/ PF: The OpenBSD Packet Filter]