New to OPNSense

[cardins2u]

Hi There! I'm new to OPNSense. I just installed it on to a VMWare and like it so far. I'm thinking about switching over from PFSense. Before I do I would like to get more insight.

I'm not here to state which firewall is better then the other. What is important is the development path and continuous updates. I'm a fan of PFsense and loved it for years but has come to a point where its boring to wait once a year update with PFsense. That expose us to lots of threats.

What's different in OPNSense?
What's your main reason why you switch?
What's your experiences so far with OPNSense?

any other info would be relevant no mater what the answer is. It would help me determine if I should begin to switch all my networks and customers over to OPNSense.

Thank you

[bartjsmit]

https://docs.opnsense.org/fork/thefork.html
https://opnsense.org/about/road-map/

Personally, I came to OPNsense from m0n0wall http://m0n0.ch/wall/index.php

Bart...

[fabian]

What's different in OPNSense?

• more frequent updates (every week to two weeks usually - only longer if the project team is on vacation) and two major releases every year (January, July)
• Phalcon MVC framework
• An API for the new pages (for example the web proxy, firmware, ...)
• Many languages supported
• HardenedBSD
• ...

What's your main reason why you switch?

I did not switch - I built a new device and started to use this one with OPNsense because the old hardware was too weak and I had to reinstall a new OS anyway. I am an OPNsense user nearly since the project has started and the best thing is that if I don't like something, I can create a patch and after one or two weeks, the issue is fixed everywhere. No CLA needed - just creating a pull request on GitHub. OPNsense also supports many different languages (I maintain german).

What's your experiences so far with OPNSense?

Except some issues, OPNsense runs stable and fast - most issues are upstream problems (for example defects in packages, undocumented API changes in the release notes etc.).

any other info would be relevant no mater what the answer is. It would help me determine if I should begin to switch all my networks and customers over to OPNSense.

You cannot import a current pfSense configuration file so you would have to create more or less the whole configuration again. That may be a lot of work so it may be a better idea to use OPNsense on new devices while keeping the old devices on pfSense (until they are about to be replaced or there are issues with some software on it where the two distributions are different).

[cardins2u]

@fabian,

thanks for the reply. I converted everything to OPNSense. So far I like it. Everything smooth and Web Proxy just works and literally everything else works without much tweaking. Love it!


Is there a package to keep track of monthly bandwidth?

[fabian]

depending on the traffic you are interested in you can use netflow (included) or some proxy log analyser (sarg, lightsquid)

[cardins2u]

Looking for something similar to bandwidthd or ntopng from pfsense

[fabian]

then you probably are interested into netflow (in reporting).

[cardins2u]

it works out nicely. Anyway we can increase the 100mb netflow limit. i have 500SSD on this router