pfSense basics

Objective

Simple cheat sheet or quick notes follwing some recent pfSense deployment.

Prerequisites

A working Ubuntu server or instance with SSH connectivity and internet access, that’s it.

User

Default credentials for a pfSense software installation:

Reset password

To revert the password to default, you need to have access to the console (CLI), once you have the access choose option #8, this will open the shell access, and here you will write the following command: /etc/rc.initial.password.

Security Rules

Quick and Easy with EasyRule

EasyRule available in GUI and CLI allow quick add of firewall rules.

To Block use : easyrule block wan <IP_SRC>
To Pass from a source a protocol with destination port : easyrule pass wan tcp <IP_SRC> <IP_DST> <PORT>
To Pass from a source protocol only : easyrule pass wan icmp <IP_SRC> <IP_DST>

So I my case where we needed to access the GUI from the WAN, we can run the following easyrule pass wan tcp any any 443 or also easyrule pass wan tcp any any 22.

For the ssh connectivity, we can then use port forwarding ssh -L 6543:<LAN_IP>:443 root@<WAN_IP> then using a web browser with https://localhost:6543

Do not try - Disable pf

One solution also, disable completly pf with pfctl -d.
Action seems to be temporary and should be enabled whenever a firewall rule change is made through GUI.

Documentation & Links

The official Netgate Documentation

What’s next

We’ll see.