pfSense is a firewall/ router computer software distribution based on

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free-software Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). The first version was released in 1993 developed from 386BSD, one of the first fully functional and free Unix clones on affordable ...

. The

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

pfSense Community Edition (CE) and pfSense Plus is installed on a physical computer or a

virtual machine In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization or emulator, emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide the functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve ...

to make a dedicated firewall/router for a network. It can be configured and upgraded through a web-based interface, and requires no knowledge of the underlying FreeBSD system to manage.

Overview

The pfSense project began in 2004 as a fork of the

m0n0wall m0n0wall was an embedded firewall (networking), firewall distribution of FreeBSD, one of the Berkeley Software Distribution, BSD operating system descendants. It provided a small image which could be put on flash memory, Compact Flash cards as w ...

project by Chris Buechler and Scott Ullrich. Its first release was in October 2006. The name derives from the fact that the software uses the packet-filtering tool, PF. Notable functions of pfSense include

traffic shaping Traffic shaping is a bandwidth management technique used on computer networks which delays some or all datagrams to bring them into compliance with a desired ''traffic profile''. Traffic shaping is used to optimize or guarantee performance, improv ...

VPNs Virtual private network (VPN) is a network architecture for virtually extending a private network (i.e. any computer network which is not the public Internet) across one or multiple other networks which are either untrusted (as they are not con ...

using IPsec or

PPTP The Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) is an obsolete method for implementing virtual private networks. PPTP has many well known security issues. PPTP uses a TCP control channel and a Generic Routing Encapsulation tunnel to encapsulate P ...

captive portal A captive portal is a web page accessed with a web browser that is displayed to newly connected users of a Wi-Fi or wired network before they are granted broader access to network resources. Captive portals are commonly used to present a landing o ...

stateful firewall In computing, a stateful firewall is a network-based firewall that individually tracks sessions of network connections traversing it. Stateful packet inspection, also referred to as dynamic packet filtering, is a security feature often used in n ...

network address translation Network address translation (NAT) is a method of mapping an IP address space into another by modifying network address information in the IP header of packets while they are in transit across a traffic Router (computing), routing device. The te ...

, 802.1q support for VLANs, and dynamic

DNS The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed name service that provides a naming system for computers, services, and other resources on the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various informatio ...

(

DDNS Dynamic DNS (DDNS) is a method of automatically updating a name server in the Domain Name System (DNS), often in real time, with the active DDNS configuration of its configured hostnames, addresses or other information. The term is used to desc ...

). pfSense can be installed on hardware with an

x86-64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit extension of the x86 instruction set architecture, instruction set. It was announced in 1999 and first available in the AMD Opteron family in 2003. It introduces two new ope ...

processor architecture. It can also be installed on

embedded hardware An embedded system is a specialized computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is em ...

using Compact

Flash Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional aliases * The Flash, several DC Comics superheroes with super speed: ** Flash (Jay Garrick) ** Barry Allen ** Wally West, the first Kid Flash and third adult Flash ...

or SD cards, or as a virtual machine.

Release Cadence and Support

Since 2021, pfSense Plus editions have followed an annual major version release cadence. The CE version of the software has followed an annual minor version release cadence. Based on their list of unsupported software, pfSense only supports the current and previous version of both the CE and Plus editions.

OPNsense

In January 2015, the OPNsense project was started by forking the version of pfSense at that time. In November 2017, a

World Intellectual Property Organization The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO; (OMPI)) is one of the 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN). Pursuant to the 1967 Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO was created to pr ...

panel found Netgate, the copyright holder of pfSense, utilized

OPNsense __NOTOC__ OPNsense is an open source, FreeBSD-based firewall and routing software developed by Deciso, a company in the Netherlands that makes hardware and sells support packages for OPNsense. Launched in 2015, it is a Fork_(software_development) ...

' trademarks in bad faith to discredit OPNsense, and obligated Netgate to transfer ownership of a

domain name In the Internet, a domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services, and more. ...

to Deciso.

WireGuard protocol support

In February 2021, pfSense CE 2.5.0 and pfSense Plus 21.02 added support for a kernel WireGuard implementation. Support for WireGuard was temporarily removed in March 2021 after implementation issues were discovered by WireGuard founder Jason Donenfeld. The July 2021 release of pfSense CE 2.5.2 version re-included WireGuard.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pfsense 2004 software BSD software Firewall software Free routing software FreeBSD Gateway/routing/firewall distribution Operating system distributions bootable from read-only media Products introduced in 2004 Routers (computing) Wireless access points Network operating systems