Absolute beginner. Documentation & Wizard question.

[AndrewMe]

(Dns question at the bottom.) I am an absolute beginer.  I really need good documentation on the latest release.  Can I pay for updated documentation? I reviewed the manual before for downloading software and saw that there were information buttons to the left of the input boxes. Thats why i chose Opnsense over that other firewall distro.  But the help buttons are not in the Wizard? I'm sure that someone who understands networking would not have a problem with any of this. I've been in technology for 30 years but I've never had to deal with networking. I'm in the first page of the wizard.  I have put in the addresses of the DNS servers I want to use but I don't know if the "Override DNS" check box should be selected?  The default is yes.  Is this overriding the DNS service from the cable company? Or the DNS server addresses that I just put in above? And where are the information help buttons I see in the manual?   Thanks

[franco]

Hi there,

You're right, the wizard doesn't provide info, it merely reuses the settings in the system and presents them in a condensed way. The option you are asking about is under System: Settings: General. It says:

Allow DNS server list to be overridden by DHCP/PPP on WAN

If this option is set, DNS servers assigned by a DHCP/PPP server on WAN will be used for its own purposes (including the DNS forwarder). However, they will not be assigned to DHCP and PPTP VPN clients.

There is a ticket here to improve the wizard for IPv6 below. I've added a note to add the hints in one form or another, too. So hopefully in 18.7 this will all be ok.

https://github.com/opnsense/core/issues/79


Cheers,
Franco

[overture]

+1
I'm also an OPNsense newb, an asus-merlin refugee with tech experience (sound designer with studio) and between jobs, on the bench, after days of attempts to get it right I finally navigated my way through the wizard with the results I was after. Only because my setup is pretty complex and I tried to jump the gun a bit.

Full-forward a few weeks, I'm facing a new challenge - how to vlan everything without creating bad firewall rules and without locking myself out. I wont hijack this thread. Only wanted to plus-one the need for more documentation

There is no documentation on vlans, bridging, firewall and nat to suite. There's some at pfsense but not enough either.

I already love opnsense and the open source community but am looking forward to the documentation being better. You will no doubt be seeing me a lot on this forum...probably saying "not this guy again"  I hope we get some help. I will always help others if I can, but I am a newb for now.

[franco]

Hi overture,

You are right about these missing points. We've released the documentation source to GitHub for everyone to contribute:

https://github.com/opnsense/docs

There have been a number of submissions, but mostly for plugins or a particular ISP setup. I'll bring this up internally with the core team to see how we can kickstart that effort or which areas are most dire (could be firewall rules + NAT).

There is good documentation from pfSense on these topics. It might be good to double-check:

https://www.netgate.com/docs/pfsense/

But over the years the GUI layout drifts and changes for both so it's not as useful as it used to.


Cheers,
Franco