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General Discussion / Making the switch
« on: July 05, 2017, 02:27:47 pm »
Hello all,
I’m fairly new to the whole firewall appliance idea. Granted networking isn’t anything new to myself (the very basics anyways), played around and successfully implemented a Cisco (isdn) router years ago. Just like alot of home users, I’ve used dd-wrt and tomato without problems (nothing crazy configured). As the years passed, I begin to feel that those options just weren’t enough especially with the Snowden revelations and all that has come afterwards. So began my quest to find something better, just by sheer luck, I stumbled across pfsense and opnsense. Why I choose pfsense to begin with, well I’m at a loss. I purchased a dell desktop that would become my firewall, added an additional nic and off I went. In the beginning, I kept everything simple; no Ips/Ids, no vlans, just barebones. As I begin to learn, services were added, such as; openvpn client (don’t like the idea of my isp tracking my online presence), snort (well because I thought it was cool, using suricate now), pfblocker/dnsbl (no ads), and finally a single vlan (for gaming consoles and IOT). Anyways, getting to the point, begin to notice a not so friendly community (especially on reddit). Lots of negativity flowing there towards those who question pfsense decisions and directions. For that matter, you don’t dare criticize the software or the lack of lending a helping hand when those new need assistance (lots of post go without help on the official forums to). Now I understand those offering help are doing so by their own accord and I definitely appreciate that. Just plain tired of a select few netgate employees berating those opinions that differ. So begins my search for a new and helpful community (I’m fairly confident setting up pfsense and what’s needed on my side). Yesterday afternoon, I finally made the decision the time had come to move over to something better. Downloaded and installed opnsense, unfortunately it wasn’t long before I felt overwhelmed, namely because of the GUI layout differences. Struggled to make much progress, got the vpn up but wasn’t able to push anything out the interface (firewall rule in place directing all lan traffic that way). Fiddled around for a hour or so without making any progress and time was of essence. Jumped back to pfsense and threw my on backup configuration only to be greeted by a non responsive box. Finally managed to get things squared away, had to restore one thing at a time. So here I am, asking if anyone would mind pointing me in the right direction to making the switch to opnsense permanent. If needed I can provide any pertinent information pertaining to my current pfsense setup. I know everyone is busy and the last thing you need is someone looking for you to hold their hand (hopefully that’s not the case for me).
Thanks in advance, I greatly look forward making this happen.
Rob
I’m fairly new to the whole firewall appliance idea. Granted networking isn’t anything new to myself (the very basics anyways), played around and successfully implemented a Cisco (isdn) router years ago. Just like alot of home users, I’ve used dd-wrt and tomato without problems (nothing crazy configured). As the years passed, I begin to feel that those options just weren’t enough especially with the Snowden revelations and all that has come afterwards. So began my quest to find something better, just by sheer luck, I stumbled across pfsense and opnsense. Why I choose pfsense to begin with, well I’m at a loss. I purchased a dell desktop that would become my firewall, added an additional nic and off I went. In the beginning, I kept everything simple; no Ips/Ids, no vlans, just barebones. As I begin to learn, services were added, such as; openvpn client (don’t like the idea of my isp tracking my online presence), snort (well because I thought it was cool, using suricate now), pfblocker/dnsbl (no ads), and finally a single vlan (for gaming consoles and IOT). Anyways, getting to the point, begin to notice a not so friendly community (especially on reddit). Lots of negativity flowing there towards those who question pfsense decisions and directions. For that matter, you don’t dare criticize the software or the lack of lending a helping hand when those new need assistance (lots of post go without help on the official forums to). Now I understand those offering help are doing so by their own accord and I definitely appreciate that. Just plain tired of a select few netgate employees berating those opinions that differ. So begins my search for a new and helpful community (I’m fairly confident setting up pfsense and what’s needed on my side). Yesterday afternoon, I finally made the decision the time had come to move over to something better. Downloaded and installed opnsense, unfortunately it wasn’t long before I felt overwhelmed, namely because of the GUI layout differences. Struggled to make much progress, got the vpn up but wasn’t able to push anything out the interface (firewall rule in place directing all lan traffic that way). Fiddled around for a hour or so without making any progress and time was of essence. Jumped back to pfsense and threw my on backup configuration only to be greeted by a non responsive box. Finally managed to get things squared away, had to restore one thing at a time. So here I am, asking if anyone would mind pointing me in the right direction to making the switch to opnsense permanent. If needed I can provide any pertinent information pertaining to my current pfsense setup. I know everyone is busy and the last thing you need is someone looking for you to hold their hand (hopefully that’s not the case for me).
Thanks in advance, I greatly look forward making this happen.
Rob