It is relatively easy to create a VPN connection with pfsense, for example using OpenVPN which is built into the software. Once the installation is complete and validated pfsense must follow steps that are detailed later in this article. The VPN is configured to allow access to mobile users such as sales people have laptops and want to connect remotely to the company's internal network securely.

Continue reading "pfsense and OpenVPN for road warriors"

pfSense is a open source firewall with many interesting features. In particular, it provides the ability to pool multiple WANs which will load balance the connections and get away with a line break. The pfsense I installed pools and two ADSL lines and public Oléane SDSL line.

Besides its ability to router / firewall and pooling of lines, pfsense can set up a VPN (IPsec or OpenVPN), a DHCP server and is extensible via packages (Snort, Squid, FreeRADIUS, ntop, nmap, etc. ).

It is possible to monitor continuously flows up and down each line using a small program called monomon, very useful to immediately identify a line cut or uploads / downloads abnormal.

Two limitations to keep in mind, access to external FTP servers is only possible on the first line WAN and it is not possible to connect to FTP servers over SSL.

pfsense is downloadable as an ISO and can be run from CD-ROM or a flash card but can also be installed on the hard disk of the machine.

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