[SOLVED] NOOB question

[Senorfluff]

Hi OPNsense community!
I've been planning to set up the software for about a year or so and I'm finally taking the plunge.
I'm a novice to a lot of this network stuff but learning as I go.  I came to OPNsense because I want to have the opportunity to expand my network into some more basic controls rather than just one network with everything piled inside it.
SO, my first basic NOOB question is... If I install the software to its defaults (I have already done this) and then run updates (Also done this) and then change the root password (duh)...
Is the router ready to go "out of the box"?  Will it do everything that I want and need an "off the shelf" router to do? Basic routing... DHCP... DNS... NAT... etc.
Or do I need to change a bunch of settings in order for it to just work.
Sorry to be asking what appears to be a dumb question.  As I don't know enough to know what I don't know... I'm looking for it to just work... and then I can get into more advanced (for me) as needed and desired.
Thanks for all contributions and work that so many put in.

[cookiemonster]

What I've found is that it helps to have the wan and lan interfaces plugged in when installing so that the routines set a lot of it up. Then for DNS it will also be defaulting to normal values. The same goes for DHCP and NAT.
But just in case just go over the basics in the manual and there should be very little to change, and some of it will be for preference.
https://docs.opnsense.org/manual/install.html#initial-configuration

[Senorfluff]

Thanks Cookie!
I did read the instructions many times thank you for your reassurance!
Got everything connected now and all appears to be in order!

[Senorfluff]

I did have one additional question.
Looking at the firewall logs there appears to be quite a few ~6-7% of all entries being  blocked on the wan side by a default rule. They tend to be the same up and port a number of times, but also random different ones. I’m glad to see things being blocked and figure this may be a case of just seeing something I couldn’t see before… likely my other routers also blocked these. Is this common or typical? I assume some of these requests might be services that have not been properly re-NAT’d through opnsense yet. Any advice or resources on how to better learn to interpret and narrow down what these blocks are up to?
Thanks in advance!

[cookiemonster]

Yes it is typical and desirable. The default deny rule on WAN is to block any incoming packets to the firewall that were not initiated on the LAN side.
Suppose you have someone running automated scripts to penetrate the firewall from the open internet. That's the job of the firewall, to block them. It should be reassuring to see them.
On the other hand the opposite is true. If you have traffic you want to allow into your internal LAN netowork, it won't flow until you explicitly enable it.
To narrow down, just look with the information button (i) at the end of the row. It will show the source ip, destination ip, source port and most importantly the destination port.

[Senorfluff]

Thanks for the clarification.  Being new to firewalls generally I didn't realize how much was "out there".  Glad I'm "in here" now inside my OPNsense!