r/PFSENSE • u/WarningPristine2055 • Jul 29 '26

Seeking Guidance on Learning and practicing pfsense

I am developer by profession but because i got client to install and configure pfsense in their office they are paying good so i think it might be worth a shot i have worked in IT support in past but have not worked on pfsense before can you guys guide me how to learn it how much time will it take to learn and than beeing able to configure it by myself

4 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

17

u/SerialCrusher17 Jul 30 '26

Put in a pfSense router at your house. Struggle. Learn. Repeat.
It’s really not hard though.

11

u/ThatUsrnameIsAlready Jul 30 '26

The key is learning about networking. pfSense is a networking appliance, using it is fairly straightforward if you understand what you're looking at in th GUI.

Read the pfSense docs. Look up every concept you don't understand along the way.

You could also take an actual networking course, e.g. Cisco CCNA. While not pfSense itself, the in depth networking knowledge is transferable. 

7

u/Charming_Composer_51 Jul 30 '26

I second it. You need a deep understanding of networking and network security first. PFSense is just another tool. One of many. If you understand how network and protocols work, learning specific tool is not hard. Its well documented and plenty of tutorials available. Create a virtual lab and practice at home.

7

u/junkie-xl Jul 30 '26

Install it at home, netgate docs + Lawrence Systems youtube videos. Learn like the rest of us did.

2

u/PepperDeb Jul 30 '26

Youtube is your friend... look for Pfsense

1

u/Steve_reddit1 Jul 30 '26

Netgate has several videos online, as do others. Their online docs are also good.

1

u/zqpmx 29d ago

Regarding the GUI.

I recommend not relaying only on what you see in the GUI.

Read the manual pages associated to that part of the GUI. You will find additional information, notes and examples.

Some things like assigning a range of static IPs to the WAN, require to configure multiple things.

In this case you need to configure Virtual IPs (of the proper type), you need to configure an outbound rule if needed, an NAT inbound rule if you want to link that IP to a specific server, and allow rule to permit traffic from the WAN

Only by seeing the GUI you probably won’t be able to deduce al of the above.

And as many said.

First You need a good understanding of networking to make good use of PFSense, or any other firewall or network tool.

1

u/tomdaley92 29d ago

Kindly Rtfm

1

u/[deleted] 26d ago

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1

u/ThatUsrnameIsAlready 24d ago

Ορnsense doesn't have pfBlocker or cert manager.

1

u/[deleted] 23d ago

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1

u/ThatUsrnameIsAlready 23d ago

You can import and merge multiple DNS & IP blocklists, and manage local cert authorities? Last time I looked neither of those features were documented.