Regardless of which hardware is chosen, installing pfSense to the hardware is a straightforward process but does require the user to pay close attention to which network interface ports will be used for which purpose (LAN, WAN, Wireless, etc). pfSense Network Diagram Downloading pfSense Before starting into the installation, it is important to conceptualize the end goal before beginning the configurations. This is great from a security standpoint but not from a usability standpoint.

The default behavior for many firewalls is to block everything, good or bad. PfSense is often frustrating for users new to firewalls. In this section, we will see the installation of pfSense 2.4.4 (latest version at the time of writing this article). 2 or more Intel PCI-e network interface cards.Modern multi-core CPU running at least 2.0 GHz.To support the extra software packages on the pfSense firewall, it is recommended that the following hardware be provided to pfSense: In the event that a home user would like to enable many of the extra features and functions of pfSense such as Snort, Anti-Virus scanning, DNS blacklisting, web content filtering, etc the recommended hardware becomes a little more involved. Serious Home User Hardware Suggestions (and Enterprises) 2 or more PCI-e network interface cards.For those looking to build or purchase a more capable system to run more of pfSense’s advanced features, there are some suggested hardware minimums: Hardware Minimums

The required hardware for pfSense is very minimal and typically an older home tower can easily be re-purposed into a dedicated pfSense Firewall. The distribution is free to install on one’s own equipment or the company behind pfSense, NetGate, sells pre-configured firewall appliances. PfSense is a FreeBSD based open source firewall solution. Projects like IPfire, Snort, Squid, and pfSense all provide enterprise level security at commodity prices! Thankfully, there are dedicated projects in the open source community that are making great strides in the home user security solutions arena. Investing even a hundred dollars into a dedicated firewall is often beyond the scope of most home networks. Home user’s though are at a monetary disadvantage. Many organizations spends hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars trying to install the latest and greatest security solutions to protect their infrastructure and data. Almost daily, a new zero day, security breach, or ransomware occurs leaving many people wondering if it is possible to secure their systems. The Internet is a scary place these days.

Firewall pfsense hardware