How to Install and Configure pfSense
2.1.5 (Firewall/Router) for Your
Home/Office Network
http://www.tecmint.com/how-to-install-and-configure-pfsense/
pfSense is an open source network firewall/router software distribution
which is based on the FreeBSD operating system. pfSense software is
used to make dedicated firewall/router for a network and it is considered for
its reliability and offers many features which mostly found in commercial
firewalls. Pfsense can be included with many third party free software
packages for additional functionality.
As we are using many popular firewall’s in industry level such as Cisco
ASA, Juniper, Check Point, Cisco PIX, Sonicwall, Netgear, Watchguard
etc.. We can use the pfsense in free of cost with rich web interface to
configure all our network components. pfsense supports traffic shapper,
virtual ip, Load balancer and much more. It has several Diagnostics tool by
default.
This article will guide you through the basic instructions on how to install
and configure pfSense version 2.1.5 in a home/office network and offers
few basic recommendations which is based on my experience.
Hardware Requirements
1. Pentium II Processor, 256MB RAM, 1GB of HDD Space, CD-ROM.
2. 2 Ethernet Card’s, Pfsense ISO file.
My Environment Setup
Hostname : pfSense.tecmintlocal.com
WAN IP Address : 192.168.0.14/24 gw 192.168.0.1
LAN IP Address : 192.168.0.15/Default will be 192.168.1.1
HDD Size : 2 GB
pSense Version : 2.1.5
pfSense Installation and Configuration
1. First visit the pfSense download page and select your computer
architecture and platform. Here I’ve chosen “i368 (32-bit)” as my computer
architecture and platform as “LiveCD with installer“, but in your case it would
be different, make sure to select and download correct architecture for your
system.
2. After selecting the architecture and platform, you will get a list of mirrors
to download, make sure to select nearest mirror link to download the image
from there.
3. After download completes, the downloaded image must be burn to an
CD/DVD media as an ISO image before we start using it. You can use any
CD/DVD burning software to burn the image to CD/DVD media.
If incase, you don’t have an CD/DVD drive, you can use Unetbootin tool to
create a Live bootable USB media or if you don’t want to follow all these
procedures, just go the pfSense download page, there you will get pre-
created bootable pfSense images for you USB media, just go there and
grab the “Live CD with installer (on USB Memstick)“. Don’t forget to select
USB console type before downloading…
4. Now switch on or reboot the target machine, place pfSense CD/DVD or
USB stick and set the BIOS options to your booting method (CD/DVD or
USB) according to your choice and choose the boot options by pressing a
keyboard function keys, usually F10 or F12, pfSense will start booting….
5. As the pfSense starts booting, a prompt is displayed with some options
and a countdown timer. At this prompt, press 1 to get install pfsense by
default. If we don’t choose any option it will start to boot option 1 by default.
Boot pfSense
6. Next, press ‘I‘ to install fresh copy of pfsense, If we need to start a
recovery use R, to Continue using Live CD choose C within 20 seconds
count.
Install pfSense
7. On the next screen, it will ask you to ‘Configure Console‘, just press
‘Accept these settings‘ to move forward for installation process.
Configure Console
8. If you’re new to pfsense, choose ‘Quick/Easy Install‘ option to take make
things easier or choose ‘Custom Install‘ to get advance options during
installation process (recommended for advance users).
pfSense Custom Install
9. Next, select the disk on which you want to install pfsense.
Select pfSense Install Disk
10. Next, it will ask you to format the selected disk, if it’s new disk you
should format or if it contains any important data you should take backup
before formatting the disk.
Format Disk
11. Choose the cylinder size and heads, here I’m using the default settings
option ‘Use this Geometry‘ to move forward for the installation.
Select Geometry
12. On the next step, it will prompt you a warning about disk format, if you
sure about that the disk has no data, just move forward with the selection.
Format Data on Disk
13. Now it’s time to partition the disk.
Disk Partitioning
14. Next, select the partitions you want to have on the disk and enter a raw
size in sectors, then accept and create the partition using the specified size
or you may move forward with default options.
Select Partition Size
Confirm Partition
Partition Created
15. Once partition created successfully, it’s time to install bootblocks to get
install the boot loader for pfsense.
Install Bootblocks
Bootblock Installation Completed
16. Select a partition to install the pfsense, which also called as slice in
BSD.
Select a Partition
Note: A warning alert will be displayed, telling that during installing pfsense
partition will be overwritten. Click on ‘Ok’ button to continue..
Data Loss Warning Alert
Format Confirmation
17. Next, setup the subpartitions (also well known as ‘partitions’ in BSD
tradition) to create the subpartition.
Setup Subpartitions
18. Once subpartitions has been created, you will see the installation
process..
pfSense Installation Process
19. At last for installing the kernel, you can choose from the options as non-
vga or symetmetric multiprocessing kernel. Here I’m going to choose non-
vga and keyboard less.
Install Kernel
20. After kernel has been installed, reboot the machine and configure the
networking and more in next step as follows.
Reboot Machine
pfSense Rebooting
21. After rebooting, you will get the below screen with available interfaces
to configure the network.
Configure pfSense Network
The first option is presented as VLAN’s, generally VLAN’s are not needed,
they are needed for advance networking, simply here say No.
There are two interface’s em0 and em1, I have planned to assign em0 as
WAN our external interface and em1 as LAN which for internal interface
with firewall/NAT features enabled.
Enable Network Interfaces
22. I don’t need a optional interface name, so just continue by pressing
Return Key. It will ask for the confirmation Yes/No proceed with Y and
press enter to continue.
Assigned Interfaces
23. After setting up interfaces, you will get the pfsense menu as show
below.
pfSense Menu
1. WAN IP address will be assigned from DHCP. If you need we can assign a
static IP.
2. LAN IP address will be default as 192.168.1.1, if you want to change choose
option 2 and set interfaces IP address.
First let me define a Static IP, subnet mask in Bit count and gateway for the
WAN and LAN. Disable the DHCP and continue by choosing Y.
Configure LAN Interface
Confirm Network Settings
24. Then for LAN interface, If we need DHCP for local area network from
pfsense we can assign a range of address from pfsense. I have chosen
192.168.0.15 as my pfsense LAN address and for client machine’s I need
to assign a IP address from DHCP in the range of 192.168.0.16 –
192.168.0.25.
pfSense LAN IP Address
Assign DHCP IP Range
25. After all the above settings are performed, it will prompt you a link to
access pfSense webconfigurator interface to configure further steps.
pfSense WebGUI Access
26. Open the given link using http protocol and enter the usernamd as
‘admin‘ and password ‘pfsense‘.
Access pfSense Web
27. Once you logged in, a setup wizard window appears that will guide you
through the initial configuration of pfSense.
pfSense Setup Wizard
pfSense Subscription
28. On the next screen, enter the hostname, and domain for pfsense, by
following provide a Primary DNS server and secondary DNS and click
Next.
Fill General Information
29. Choose the timezone and click next.
Select Timezone
Configuring WAN
30. On this screen, configure WAN interface, if you have a PPOE
connection or if you need to use this pfsense machine as a router, you
need to choose PPOE from the drop menu or else simply select ‘static‘ and
set the static IP address, gateway and click ‘Next‘ to continue…
Configure WAN Interface
Configuring LAN
31. We’ve already configured LAN network in terminal mode, just move
forward by choosing NEXT.
Configure LAN Interface
32. Next, change the admin password, which is used to access the
WebGUI and SSH.
Set pfSense Password
33. After setting admin password, click on reload to make changes.
Reload pfSense Changes
Reload in Progress
pfSense Configured
34. Click on the link, will take you to pfsense webconfigurator GUI
Dashboard as shown in below picture.
pfSense WebGUI
Conclusion
pfsense can be used as router or firewall with many advanced features
such as traffic shapper, Load Balancer and much more. It can be used in
small scale to large scale environment. Hope this setup help you to build
your own router and firewall for your environment. Give your valuable
feedback in comment section for future help regarding this topic.
