pfSense® CE

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pfSense®CE Configuration Recommendations

phil May 7, 2020

pfSense® CE Configuration Recommendations

Overview

pfSense® CE is an open source routing and firewall software which is based on FreeBSD. An article covering installation can be found at this link. This article offers some basic recommendations to configure pfSense® CE on the Vault. Some of these recommendations had been in other articles, but for ease of use, we are consolidating them here in one article. This article includes the following areas of interest:

Thermal Monitoring
Enable Cryptographic Hardware assist with AES-NI and BDS
Power Management with PowerD
Enable Optional (OPT) ports

At the bottom of this article, there is a table with downloadable configuration files for each of the Vaults that include the settings described below.

Thermal Monitoring

The Vault has a solid state, fanless design. The case is designed to dissipate the heat generated by the unit. Although the case may be warm to the touch, it most likely indicates that the system is functioning correctly. However, Thermal Monitoring can be used to verify the Vault is operating under normal thermal conditions. Intel based CPUs have built in thermal monitoring and pfSense® CE can access it to display temperatures on the dashboard. The following article will describe how to enable and monitor the thermal sensors.

Enable Thermal Monitoring

Enabling Thermal Monitoring is done through the pfSense® CE WebUI.

Browse to the pfSense® CE Dashboard, default 192.168.1.1 on the LAN port
Select “System –> Advanced” and click on the “Miscellaneous” tab

pfsense system advanced System->Advanced

Scroll down to “Cryptographic & Thermal Hardware”
Click on “Thermal Sensors.”
From the drop down, choose “Intel Core* CPU…”

System->Advanced->Miscellaneous->Cryptographic & Thermal Hardware

Click “Save” button at the bottom of the page
Verify success message is displayed at the top of the page
Thermal monitoring of the CPUs is now enabled

Display Thermal Sensors on the Dashboard

The preceding steps enabled thermal monitoring. The following steps will show how to display thermal monitoring on the dashboard.

Select the Dashboard
Click the “+” icon in the upper right corner
Verify the “Available Widgets” box appears
Click the “+” next to Thermal Sensors

pfsense thermal sensors Dashboard->Available Widgets

Verify the Thermal Sensors box is displayed at the bottom of the dashboard

Dashboard with Thermal Monitoring, Idle

The screenshot above shows an example of the FW4B that is essentially idle for over 40 minutes. Note that the core temperatures range from 51 to 53 degrees C. This is well within normal range.

Dashboard with Thermal Monitoring, Iperf 40 Minutes

The screenshot above shows an example of the same FW4B that is running an iperf test at linerate for over 40 minutes. Note that the CPU usage has increased from 3% to 30% and core temperatures range from 55 to 58 degrees C. Although this may seem high, and the case may be warm to the touch, it indicates that the case is functioning correctly and dissipating the heat. The Intel TJmax core temperatures from ark.intel.com for each of the processors is displayed in the table below.

Platform	CPU	TJmax
FW1	J1900	105 C
FW2	J1800	105 C
FW2B	J3060	90 C
FW4A	E3845	110 C
FW4B	J3160	90 C
FW6A	3865U	100 C
FW6B	7100U	100 C
FW6C	7200U	100 C

Cryptographic Hardware Support (AES-NI and BDS)

The FW2B, FW4A, FW4B and FW6 series of the vault have cryptographic hardware support built into the CPU. Cryptographic Hardware support is critical for the performance of VPNs and other features that encrypt and decrypt packets as they traverse the unit. By default, it is not enabled in pfSense® CE.

Enable Cryptographic Hardware Support

Enabling Cryptographic Hardware Support is done through the pfSense® CE WebUI.

Browse to the pfSense® CE Dashboard, default 192.168.1.1 on the LAN port
Select “System –> Advanced” and click on the “Miscellaneous” tab

pfsense system advanced System->Advanced

Scroll down to “Cryptographic & Thermal Hardware”
Click on “Cryptographic Hardware.”
From the drop down, choose “Intel Core* CPU…”

System->Advanced->Miscellaneous->Cryptographic & Thermal Hardware

Click “Save” button at the bottom of the page
Verify success message is displayed at the top of the page

At this point cryptographic hardware support should be enabled.

Power Management with PowerD

All of the Vault series use Intel CPUs that have Power Management features that allow the selection of power management modes. The power management modes trade performance vs. power by adjusting the frequency based on system load. PowerD is a power control utility built into pfSense® CE, which is inherited from the underlying FreeBSD operating system. In this section, we will enable PowerD and select the optimum performance vs. power settings.

Enable PowerD

In this example we will enable PowerD within the pfSense® CE WebUI.

Browse to the pfSense® CE Dashboard, default 192.168.1.1 on the LAN port
Navigate to the System tab and select Advanced from the drop down menu

pfSense System Advanced - enable PowerD

pfSense® CE Dashboard

Verify the Advanced page is displayed
Select the Miscellaneous tab
Verify the Miscellaneous page is displayed
Scroll down to the section labeled Power Savings
To enable PowerD, check the box next to Enable PowerD
Verify Hiadaptive is selected for the power modes as shown in the image below

pfSense advanced Misc

PowerD Settings

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save
Verify a message stating “The changes have been applied successfully” is displayed at the top of the page.

At this point, PowerD should be enabled for optimum power management.

Configuring Optional Ports

This article covers how to configure the Optional Ports in pfSense® CE. The Optional Ports are labeled “OPTx” on the Vault. The configuration has the same type of default settings as the LAN port. Those settings include:

An IP Address of 192.168.x.1
- OPT1 192.168.2.1
- OPT2 192.168.3.1
- OPT3 192.168.4.1 (FW6 only)
- OPT4 192.168.5.1 (FW6 only)
Enabling the OPT port to be a DHCP Server
Firewall rules to allow “Any” traffic originating on this port to pass without being blocked

Configuring Optional Ports – IP Address

Browse to the pfSense® CE Dashboard, default 192.168.1.1 on the LAN port
Navigate to the Interfaces tab and select Assignments from the drop down menu

Interface->Assignments

Verify the Interface Assignments page is displayed and add the next available interface

Interfaces->Interface Assignments

Verify OPT1 is added and Select Save

Interface->Interface Assignments OPT1

Select OPT1

Interfaces->Interface Assignments->OPT1 Select

Verify the OPT1 General Configuration page is displayed and configure as follows:

General Configuration->Enable – Check the box
General Configuration->IPv4 Configuration Type – Select Static IPv4
Static IPv4 Configuration>IPv4 Address – Set 192.168.2.1 /24
Select the Save Button

Interfaces->OPT1 Configure

Verify the OPT1 Configuration has been changed and Apply Changes

Interfaces->OPT1 ApplyChanges

Verify changes have been applied successfully

Interfaces->OPT1 Success

Configuring Optional Ports – DHCP Server

Navigate to the Services tab and select DHCP Server from the drop down menu

Services->DHCP Server

Verify the Services->DHCP Server page is displayed and Select OPT1

Services->DHCP Server Select OPT1

Verify Services->DHCP Server->OPT1 page is displayed and configure as follows:

General Configuration->Enable – Check the box
General Configuration->Range – 192.168.2.100 to 192.168.2.199

Services->DHCP Server Configure OPT1

Select the Save button and verify the changes have been applied successfully

Services->DHCP Server OPT1 Success

Configuring Optional Ports – Firewall Rules

Navigate to the Firewall tab and select Rules from the drop down menu

Select Firewall->Rules

Verify the Firewall Rules page is displayed and Select OPT1

Firewall->Rules Select OPT1

Verify Firewall OPT1 page is displayed and select the Add Button

Firewall->Rules OPT1 Add Rule

Verify Firewall->Rules->Edit for OPT1 page is displayed and configure as follows:

Edit Firewall Rule->Action- Pass
Edit Firewall Rule->Interface- OPT1
Edit Firewall Rule->Address Family – IPv4
Edit Firewall Rule->Protocol – Any
Save the changes

Firewall>Rules Configure OPT1

Verify the configuration and Apply the changes

Firewall->Rules->OPT1 Apply Changes

Verify success message

Firewall->Rules->OPT1 Success

OPT1 has now been configured with static IP address 192.168.2.1, it is a DHCP server, and any traffic coming into this port is allowed to pass.

Configuring Optional Ports – Verify Configuration

OPT1 has been configured so it needs to be tested to verify the configuration changes are correct. Follow the instructions below to test the changes:

Connect a PC to OPT1
Verify the PC gets an IP address in the range of 192.168.2.100-199
From the PC, browse to a site outside of the local network
Verify an external web page is displayed correctly on the PC

At this point OPT1 is up and running. To configure OPT2 repeat the same steps as OPT1, but use IP address 192.168.3.1. For an FW6 with OPT3 and OPT4, repeat the same steps using IP addresses 192.168.4.1 and 192.168.5.1.

Configuration Files

The steps above were described to manually configure the Vault as indicated. It is important to understand the steps required, however, it is very convenient to load a configuration file rather than manually configure each item.

We have included configuration files in the table at the bottom of the page. These configuration files have

Thermal Monitoring Enabled
Cryptographic Hardware Support Enabled
Power Management Enabled
OPT Ports Enabled with Static IP Address, DHCP Server, and Basic Firewall Rule

Note: These configuration files have the default admin password retained. The additional ports assigned use default firewall rules, same as what pfSense® configures for the LAN port.

How to Restore a Config File

Verify pfSense® has been installed correctly
Verify the correct configuration file has been downloaded from the table below and pfSense® will be able to access it
Log into the WebGUI. This is 192.168.1.1 by default.
The default pfSense® login user is ‘admin’ and password is ‘pfsense’
Click Diagnostics on the top of the GUI
From the drop-down menu click Backup & Restore

pfSense backup & restore — pfSense® Setup Wizard page

Click Choose File
Select the appropriate config, click open
Click Restore Configuration

pfSense backup & restore settings — pfSense® Backup & Restore page

Verify the Vault reboots
Log back into the WebGUI with the default credentials
Verify OPT1 and OPT2 (OPT3 /OPT4 additionally on the FW6x) now appear on the Interfaces widget

It is now recommended to change the default ‘admin’ password
Verify the newly assigned ports are functioning and DHCP is handing out IP addresses

If you experience any issues, please feel free to reach out: [email protected]. You can find additional information in our Knowledge Base, or reference pfsense.org directly.

Configuration Files

Model	pfSense® Version	Notes	Download	Release
FW1	2.4.5	Enabled: Thermal Monitoring PowerD OPT1, OPT2 DHCP Default Firewall Rules	config-pfSense.Basic-FW1-200506.xml	May 6, 2020
FW2	2.4.5	Enabled: Thermal Monitoring PowerD	config-pfSense.Basic-FW2-200506.xml	May 6, 2020
FW4A	2.4.5	Enabled: Thermal Monitoring PowerD AES-NI OPT1, OPT2 DHCP Default Firewall Rules	config-pfSense.Basic-FW4A-200506.xml	May 6, 2020
FW2B	2.4.5	Enabled: Thermal Monitoring PowerD AES-NI	config-pfSense.Basic-FW2B-200506.xml	May 6, 2020
FW4B	2.4.5	Enabled: Thermal Monitoring PowerD AES-NI OPT1, OPT2 DHCP Default Firewall Rules	config-pfSense.Basic-FW4B-200506.xml	May 6, 2020
FW6(A,B,C)	2.4.5	Enabled: Thermal Monitoring PowerD AES-NI OPT1, OPT2, OPT3, OPT4 DHCP Default Firewall Rules	config-pfSense.Basic-FW6-200506.xml	May 6, 2020

How to Configure pfSense® CE for 4G LTE Failover

phil October 16, 2019

Overview

pfSense® CE is an open source routing and firewall software which is based on FreeBSD. It has a variety of packages easily downloaded and configurable within the GUI itself. https://www.pfsense.org/getting-started/ There are multiple articles regarding pfSense® CE on the Protectli Knowledge Base at this link. This article describes how to configure pfSense® CE for 4G LTE Failover using Protectli 4G LTE Products and Service. The example uses pfSense ® CE version 2.4.4-p3. Protectli 4G LTE Products and Services can be found at this link. 4G LTE Failover with the Vault requires at least 3 Ethernet ports, 1 each for WAN, LAN, and OPT1. Therefore a 4 or 6 port version of the Vault is required. In addition, it requires that the Protectli 4G LTE modem has been provisioned and is active on the cellular network. This article assumes the default configuration of pfSense ® CE with the WAN getting an IP address via DHCP and the default LAN static IP address of 192.168.1.1 and is a DHCP server.

Enable Interfaces

By default the WAN interface is configured to receive an IP address via DHCP and the LAN interface has static IP address 192.168.1.1 and is a DHCP server. Only the OPT1 interface needs to be configured.

Install pfSense ® CE on the Vault. (See Knowledge Base link if needed)
Connect the WAN and LAN ports to the devices or ports that they are normally connected to
Connect the OPT1 port to the LAN port of the 4G LTE modem
Browse to the pfSense ® CE GUI and login
Select Interfaces->Interface Assignments
Add OPT1 and select the default Network port (em2 or igb2)
Select “OPT1” to configure the port
Select General Configuration->Enable->Enable interface check box
Select General Configuration->IPv4 Configuration Type->DHCP to get the IP address of OPT1 from the 4G LTE modem

pfSense OPT1 interface — Interfaces->OPT1

Select the SAVE button at the bottom of the page
Select the APPLY CHANGES button when it appears at the top of the page
Select Status->Dashboard and verify that the Dashboard is displayed
Select the red “+” sign in the upper right corner of the GUI and enable the “Interfaces” widget
Verify the WAN, LAN, and OPT1 interfaces are up with IP addresses in the “Interfaces” widget
Select the red “+” sign in the upper right corner of the GUI and enable the “Traffic Graphs” Widget
Verify the Traffic Graphs widget is displayed and shows WAN, LAN, and OPT1

At this point the interfaces have been enabled and are active. Now the WAN and OPT1 interfaces need to be configured as Gateways and form a Gateway Group so that they can failover and revert.

Configure Gateways

Select System->Routing->Gateways
Verify WAN_DHCP is displayed
Select Edit Icon
Set Edit Gateway->Monitor IP to 8.8.8.8 This is the Google DNS address. pfSense ® CE will monitor this address to determine if this connection is up

Select the SAVE button at the bottom of the page
Select the APPLY CHANGES button when it appears at the top of the page
Select System->Routing->Gateways
Select ADD button
Add OPT1 Interface
Verify the Name is OPT1_DHCP
Set Edit Gateway->Monitor IP to 1.1.1.1 This is the Cloudflare DNS address. pfSense ® CE will monitor this address to determine if this connection is up

pfSense routing gateways OPT1_DHCP — OPT1 Gateway

Select the SAVE button at the bottom of the page
Select the APPLY CHANGES button when it appears at the top of the page

At this point the WAN and OPT1 interfaces have been configured as Gateways. Now they need to be configured as a Gateway Group so that they can operate as a single entity, failover and revert.

Configure Gateway Groups

Select System->Routing->Gateway Groups
Select ADD button
Set Edit Gateway Group Entry->Group Name to “Group_WAN_OPT1” or desired name
Set Edit Gateway Group Entry->Gateway Priority->WAN_DHCP->Tier to “Tier 1” (highest priority)
Set Edit Gateway Group Entry->Gateway Priority->OPT1_DHCP->Tier to “Tier 5” (lowest priority)
Set Edit Gateway Group Entry->Trigger Level to “Member Down” (Failover when link is down)
Set Edit Gateway Group Entry->Description if desired

Select the SAVE button at the bottom of the page
Select the APPLY CHANGES button when it appears at the top of the page

At this point interfaces are enabled, Gateways configured and a Gateway Group with WAN and OPT1 has been configured. The last step is to set the LAN Firewall rule to select the Gateway Group as the Gateway, rather than treat WAN and OPT1 as individual interfaces.

Configure LAN Firewall

Select Firewall->Rules->LAN
Select Edit for “Default allow LAN to any rule”
Select ADVANCED button
Set Advanced Options->Gateway to “Group_WAN_OPT1” or the name given to the Gateway Group above

pfSense firewall rules — LAN Firewall Group

Select the SAVE button at the bottom of the page
Select the APPLY CHANGES button when it appears at the top of the page

At this point, everything has been configured. We need to verify the Gateway status.

Verify Gateway Status

Select Status->Gateways
Verify WAN_DHCP and OPT1_DHCP Gateways are online

At this point, everything has been configured, gateways are up. We need to verify that the 4G LTE Failover functions as desired.

Verify 4G LTE Failover

The Vault has been configured to failover from WAN port to OPT1 port in the event the WAN port goes down. When the WAN port comes back, traffic should revert back to the WAN port. pfSense® CE monitors the gateway connectivity via the “Monitor IP” address configured earlier to determine whether the connection is “up” or not. “Up” means full connectivity to the Monitor IP address. This means that even if the Ethernet link is up, but the unit cannot ping the Monitor IP address, the Gateway is considered down and will failover to another gateway in the Gateway Group. The detection time and failover is typically on the order of 15-20 seconds because pfSense® CE monitors the connectivity at the system level as opposed to just the Ethernet link level.

The following steps can be used to verify the 4G LTE Failover is working correctly.

Generate significant traffic from the LAN port to the Internet, for example, using a PC connected to the LAN port, browse to a web site and play a video
Select Dashboard and monitor the Traffic Graphs
Verify the WAN and LAN ports have similar high levels of traffic
Disconnect the WAN port from the Vault
Verify the video continues to play
Verify the OPT1 and LAN ports have similar high levels of traffic and the WAN port shows no traffic (as noted, about 15-20 seconds to failover)
Reconnect the WAN port to the Vault
Verify the video continues to play
Verify the WAN and LAN ports have similar high levels of traffic and the OPT1 port shows little traffic (about 15-20 seconds to revert)

At this point, 4G LTE Failover should be up and running on The Vault. However, if you experience any issues, please feel free to reach out to us: You can submit a ticket here, or find more information in our Knowledge Base.

How to Setup pfBlockerNG

Luke Green August 23, 2019

Overview

pfBlockerNG is a very powerful package for pfSense® which provides advertisement and malicious content blocking along with geo-blocking capabilities.

Installing pfBlockerNG

Access the pfSense WebGUI (default 192.168.1.1)
Click on the System tab, then Package Manager

From the Package Manager menu select the Available Packages tab
Scroll down and find pfBlockerNG-devel and click Install

Verify pfBlockerNG is now installed by going to the Firewall drop down menu
Open the pfBlockerNG menu and start the wizard

At the Component Configuration page of the wizard select the WAN interface for inbound. For outbound typically LAN is used. CTRL+Click any additional interfaces you want included.
Leave the DNSBL default
Click Finish and allow pfBlocker to update
If you would like multiple LAN segments to be included in with DNSBL check the setting Permit Firewall Rules and select the interface (ctrl+click) you would like included.

pfSense DNSBL Configuration — DNSBL Configuration

By Default pfBlockerNG will setup basic advertisement and IP blocking from defaults feeds
We recommend also including the DNSBL feed from BBcan177(creator of pfBlockerNG) as well as the Cryptojackers feed

Add by clicking the + next to the feed name
In the feed configuration click Enable All and change Action to Unbound
Click Save DNSBL Setting

pfBlockerNG DNSBL settings — Feed Configuration

Repeat this process for any other feeds you would like to add

pfBlockerNG DNSBL settings continued — Cryptojackers Feed

Once the feeds are added, it is important to reload and update

Now browse a few websites and then check the pfSense dashboard to verify the pfBlockerNG widget is showing data

You might come across false positives possibly breaking certain sites. The solution is adding addresses to a Whitelist

To add an item to the whitelist access the pfBlockerNG Reports either by clicking on one of the packet stats (arrow below) or through the pfBlocker menu

pfBlocker also has built in GeoIP blocking. This allows you control over geographic regions connecting to your network. You can find this in the pfBlockerNG menu under IP>GeoIP. Careful blocking too much, websites host content and media on servers around the world. Unintentionally blocking some of these IP addresses could result in broken sites or unavailable downloads.

pfBlockerNG GeoIP blocking — GeoIP Blocking

You should now have network wide advertisement and malicious content blocking. If you need additional assistance, please feel free to reach out: [email protected]. You can find more information about pfSense on the Vault in our Knowledge Base, or at pfSense.org

How to Enable LAN Bridge with pfSense®

Luke Green July 17, 2019

Overview

This article covers how to enable a LAN bridge in pfSense®. LAN bridges act as a switch using the optional ports on the Vault. While not optimal compared to using a separate physical switch, it works if needed.

Note: If the port being used for the web interface is added to the bridge, then physical access to the unit will be necessary.

How to Create a LAN Bridge in pfSense®

In this example we will be assigning the LAN interface to a bridge utilizing the Vaults additional ports, OPT1 and OPT2. The idea of this example can be used across all the Vault models with small variation.

Access the webGUI. The default IP address: 192.168.1.1, username: admin, password: pfsense
Verify the Vaults optional interfaces(OPT1, OPT2, etc) are assigned with default settings.
To assign simply click Add next to the port you wish to assign. Click Save.

pfSense LAN Bridge — pfSense® Interface Assignment Menu

To enable the each interface, click the on the interface label(OPT1,OPT2,etc) in the left column.
Click Enable, leave all other settings default. Save and Apply Changes

pfSense LAN Bridge OPT1 — pfSense® Interface Configuration Menu

In the Interfaces menu select the Bridges tab and click Add
Select OPT1 and OPT2 using Ctrl+Click. Don’t select the LAN interface. Click Save.

pfSense LAN Bridge OPT1 OPT2 — Bridge Configuration Menu

Navigate back to the Interface Assignments tab and change the LAN interface port to BRDIGE0
Note: At this point once the settings are saved the web interface connection will be lost. Swap the Ethernet connection to one of the optional ports(OPT1,OPT2) added into the bridge to regain access

pfSense LAN Bridge - interface assignments — Assigning BRIDGE0

Assign the port previously used as LAN to OPT3 and enable it as done in the steps earlier
Navigate back to the Bridges menu and add(Ctrl+Click) OPT3. Save
Navigate to System > Advanced > System Tunables
Select net.link.bridge.pfil_member and change its value to 0. Save
Select net.link.bridge.pfil_bridge and change its value to 1. Save

Click Apply Changes at the top

Reboot
Verify bridged ports are functioning

At this point you should have a functioning LAN bridge in pfSense®. If you need additional assistance, please feel free to reach out: [email protected]. You can find more information about pfSense on the Vault in our Knowledge Base, or at pfSense.org

How to Install pfSense® CE 2.4 on the Vault

phil January 10, 2019

Overview: Install pfSense® CE

Note: pfSense® CE is open source software developed for the benefit of the community. If you are using pfSense® CE with the Vault, please consider supporting the pfSense project. https://www.pfsense.org/get-involved

Note: pfSense® CE version 2.4.5 is now available. Protectli recommends using the latest released version.

Verify Hardware Recommendations

pfSense® CE has good documentation regarding general hardware recommendations on their web site. See https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/book/hardware/minimum-hardware-requirements.html to verify that the proper memory and storage is available for the intended application.

Install pfSense® CE

Obtain the Installation Image and Uncompress it

There are two ways to install pfSense® CE on the Vault. Because the Vault has a COM (serial console) port, users can install pfSense® CE using only the COM port, OR, users can install pfSense® CE the more ‘traditional’ way by using a VGA or HDMI monitor, along with a USB keyboard.

The easiest way to install pfSense® CE that is most likely to be error-free is with a VGA (FW1, FW2, FW4A series) or HDMI (FW2B, FW4B, FW6 series) monitor and a USB keyboard, using the VGA version of the installer
If the user chooses to install pfSense® CE with the serial console port on the Vault, the user MUST use the serial version of the installer.
If the user encounters an issue whereby the installation appears to stop and not proceed, please double check to ensure you’re using the correct version of the pfSense® CE installer with your chosen installation method.

The pfSense® CE installation image (IMG) can be downloaded from https://www.pfsense.org/download/. The same image can be used to install pfSense® CE on any of the Vault platforms. It is important to choose the correct options when downloading the image including “Version”, “Architecture”, “Installer”, and “Console.” The proper selections are as follows for installing the Vault using a VGA monitor and USB Keyboard:

Version: The latest available (2.4.5 as of this edit)

Architecture: AMD64 (64 bit)

Console: VGA or Serial as needed (see note above; VGA or HDMI monitor = VGA installer; COM port = serial installer)

Installer: USB Memstick Installer

install pfSense® USB Memstick Installer — *pfSense® CE* Download Page

Your download should begin immediately and when it is completed you should have a compressed IMG file (an example file name is: pfSense-CE-memstick-2.4.5-RELEASE-amd64.img.gz) downloaded that is ~800MB in size.

Now that the compressed image file has been downloaded, you will need to use a program like “7zip” or “winzip” on Windows to decompress the file. The resulting file should look the same, except that the file name will now end in “.img” instead of “.img.gz”.

Burn the installation image to a USB drive

The easiest way to transfer the installation image to a USB drive is by using software called “Rufus” on Windows or “Etcher” on Mac OSX. See this link for detailed instructions on how to create a bootable USB drive using Rufus or Etcher.

Note: If installing using a VGA monitor and USB keyboard on a Vault FW1x, FW2x, or FW4x, be sure to use a USB stick and a USB keyboard with a plug that is relatively skinny. The 2 USB ports on the Vault are very close to each other and if either the USB stick or the USB keyboard plug is too wide, you will not be able to plug both in at the same time, which will prevent you from doing the installation.

Verify the BIOS mode

Note: There is an important issue and workaround in some versions of pfSense® CE version 2.4 due to the fact that it is based on FreeBSD 11.2. See this link. The issue affects the FW1, FW2, and FW4A platforms. See the BIOS Compatibility table at the bottom of this article. If UEFI is required, follow the steps below to set UEFI mode.

Verify the Vault is powered down
Verify the monitor is connected
Verify the USB keyboard is plugged in (you can skip this step if you are using the serial installer)
While powering up the Vault, press “DEL” key and verify that it boots to the BIOS.

Select “Advanced” tab

Select “CSM Configuration”

Com3 PuTTY CSM configuration — Advanced->CSM

Select “Boot option filter”

Com3 PuTTY boot option filter — Boot Option Filter

Select “UEFI only”
Press RETURN then “F4” to save and exit the BIOS
Power off the unit

Install pfSense® Operating System on the Vault

Insert the USB installation drive into the USB port on the Vault
While powering up the Vault, press “F11” key and verify that it boots to the BIOS boot options screen.

NOTE: If using the serial installer, F11 commonly will not show the boot options menu. In this case, use the “DEL” key to enter the BIOS. In the BIOS, a specific boot device can be chosen from the “Save & Exit”, or rightmost tab.

Select the USB drive UEFI partition to boot from if UEFI was configured, else just select the USB drive
Verify the Vault boots and begins the installation process
Follow the on screen installation prompts to install pfSense® CE

For detailed installation information, see the procedures presented on the pfSense® CE website at this link.

pfSense® CE Dashboard

For more detailed configuration instructions, the documentation page at: https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/index.html

Once rebooted, the Vault should be up and running. Follow any on screen instructions for logging in to pfSense® CE.

If you experience any issues, please feel free to reach out: [email protected].

BIOS Compatibility

The table below shows the compatibility of tested releases of pfSense® CE and BIOS on each of the Vaults.

Vault	pfSense® CE Version	BIOS - Legacy	BIOS - UEFI	BIOS - coreboot
FW1	2.4.5	Fail, Use UEFI	Tested	N/A
FW2	2.4.5	Fail, Use UEFI	Tested	N/A
FW2B	2.4.5	Tested	Tested	Tested
FW4A	2.4.5	Fail, Use UEFI	Tested	N/A
FW4B	2.4.5	Tested	Tested	Tested
FW6A	2.4.5	Tested	Tested	Tested
FW6B	2.4.5	Tested	Tested	Tested
FW6C	2.4.5	Tested	Tested	Tested
FW1	2.4.4	Fail, Use UEFI	Tested	N/A
FW2	2.4.4	Fail, Use UEFI	Tested	N/A
FW2B	2.4.4	Tested	Tested	Tested
FW4A	2.4.4	Fail, Use UEFI	Tested	N/A
FW4B	2.4.4	Tested	Tested	Tested
FW6A	2.4.4	Tested	Tested	Tested
FW6B	2.4.4	Tested	Tested	Tested
FW6C	2.4.4	Tested	Tested	Tested
FW1	2.4.3	Tested	Tested	N/A
FW2	2.4.3	Tested	Tested	N/A
FW2B	2.4.3	Tested	Tested	Tested
FW4A	2.4.3	Tested	Tested	N/A
FW4B	2.4.3	Tested	Tested	Tested
FW6A	2.4.3	Tested	Tested	Tested
FW6B	2.4.3	Tested	Tested	Tested
FW6C	2.4.3	Tested	Tested	Tested

OpenVPN Performance on The Vault

phil August 20, 2018

Overview

Depending on individual use cases, different hardware firewalls may be useful for different types of network applications and as such, Protectli offers different hardware with varying capabilities. Frequently, it is useful for a customer to know the performance characteristics of specific hardware before making a decision to purchase. This article aims to provide a baseline of OpenVPN performance for several different Vaults, as tested in a lab environment, so the customer can make an informed decision as to what products best suit their needs.

Basic Performance

In a basic setup, The Vault is capable of routing/switching packets at wire speed on all ports for all models. For a 1 Gbps ethernet interface, the actual throughput is ~940 Mbps due to overhead in an IP packet. The test network consists of 2 computers running Ubuntu 18.04 version of Linux and 2 Vaults running pfSense® CE version 2.4.3. One of the Ubuntu computers is running iperf3 as a server, the other is running iperf3 as a client.

IP LAN

IP LAN

OpenVPN

OpenVPN is a set of protocols that is used to authenticate and encrypt/decrypt packets to provide secure transport of packets through the network. An OpenVPN “tunnel” encrypts the entire packet, not just the payload, and is commonly used to create Virtual Private Networks (VPN).

Configuring OpenVPN

When configuring OpenVPN tunnels (and other secure connections) multiple parameters must be configured. The set of parameters is known as a “cipher suite”. The main parameters for OpenVPN consist of an Encryption method and a Message Authentication method. The configuration must be identical at each end of the tunnel in order to make a connection. With OpenVPN, one side of the tunnel is the “server” and the other end is the “client”. Multiple clients can be connected to a single server for a hub and spoke type of architecture.

The diagram below shows an OpenVPN tunnel. The difference between the LAN example above and the OpenVPN tunnel is that the entire packet is encrypted “end-to-end” between the Vault/Firewalls and the data can travel through the network securely.

OpenVPN performance diagram

OpenVPN Tunnel

OpenVPN Performance

Adding an OpenVPN tunnel introduces “overhead” which is added when a packet enters a tunnel and stripped off when a packet leaves the tunnel. This process adds additional data to each packet, but is not part of the payload. Therefore, when running performance measurement tests, the indicated traffic throughput will be less than throughput achieved without an OpenVPN encrypted tunnel.

In addition to the pure impact on the payload due to additional overhead, the device that adds the overhead must also encrypt the data. Similarly, the device at the other end of the tunnel receiving the packet must decrypt the data before sending it onward. Encryption and decryption of the packet requires significant processing power and affects the throughput of the devices. The latest versions of The Vault include Intel’s AES-NI hardware support which facilitates faster encryption/decryption with less impact on CPU performance.

The performance varies depending on the parameters of the many different cipher suites. For example, a cipher suite that uses AES128 may perform better than AES256 due to easier encryption/decryption. It would be difficult if not impossible to test all possible cipher suites.

In order to test performance, pfSense® CE 2.4.3 was installed on the Vaults and OpenVPN tunnels were configured with the following cipher suite:

AES256 bit encryption algorithm with 128 bit blocks using the Cipher Block Chaining mode (CBC) operation
Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) 256 bit Message Authentication

The main configuration page for VPN->OpenVPN->Servers is shown below.

OpenVPN servers

OpenVPN Server

The main configuration page for VPN->OpenVPN->Clients is shown below.

OpenVPN clients

OpenVPN Client

In this example, data from LAN network 192.168.10.0 is “tunneled” to LAN network 192.168.20.0 over the WAN interface. In the reverse direction, data from LAN network 192.168.20.0 is “tunneled” to LAN network 192.168.10.0 over the WAN interface. The results of performance tests run on the Vaults that contain AES-NI hardware support are shown in the table below.

Vault Model	Unencrypted LAN (Mbps)	Encrypted IPsec AES-256-GCM/SHA256 (Mbps)	Encrypted OpenVPN AES-256-CBC/SHA256 (Mbps)
FW2B	940	240	110
FW4B	940	250	115
FW4A	940	280	120
FW6A	940	880	380
FW6B	940	880	550
FW6C	940	880	580

Conclusions for OpenVPN Performance

OpenVPN is a critical set of protocols used to provide secure communication through the Internet. There are many different cipher suites that can be used depending on the requirements of the user. The configuration used may impact the performance and therefore the throughput of the devices in the network. This tutorial is an aid to selecting the best Vault for your application.

As always, if there are any questions, feel free to reach out to us! You can submit a ticket here, find more information in our Knowledge Base or check OpenVPN.net as reference.

IPSec Performance on The Vault

phil August 8, 2018

Overview

Depending on individual use cases, different hardware firewalls may be useful for different types of network applications and as such, Protectli offers different hardware with varying capabilities. Frequently, it is useful for a customer to know the performance characteristics of specific hardware before making a decision to purchase. This article aims to provide a baseline of IPSec performance for several different Vaults, as tested in a lab environment, so the customer can make an informed decision as to what products best suit their needs.

Basic Performance

IP LAN diagram

IP LAN

IPsec

IPsec is a set of protocols that is used to authenticate and encrypt/decrypt packets to provide secure transport of packets through the network. An IPsec “tunnel” encrypts the entire packet, not just the payload, and is commonly used to create Virtual Private Networks (VPN).

Configuring IPsec

When configuring IPsec tunnels (and other secure connections) multiple parameters must be configured. The set of parameters is known as a “cipher suite”. The parameters consist of a Key Exchange method, an Encryption method and a Message Authentication method. The configuration must be identical at each end of the tunnel in order to make a connection. An operating system or IPsec implementation will typically support multiple ciphers for each of Key Exchange, Encryption, and Message Authentication that can be combined to form many different cipher suites.

OpenSSL, which is an open source software library, provides a large number of ciphers. The list of ciphers supported can be displayed with the command “openssl ciphers –v”. The cipher suite is described by combining the methods together into a single string. For example, the cipher DH-RSA-AES256-SHA256 indicates:

Diffie-Hellman (DH) Key Exchange using a Rivest, Shamir, Adelman key (RSA) with 
Advanced Encryption Standard 256 bit (AES256) encryption 
and Secure Hash Algorithm 256 bit (SHA256) message authentication.

There are various standards and recommendations that dictate the required cipher suite for different applications that is beyond the scope of this article.

The diagram below shows an IPsec tunnel. The difference between the LAN example above and the IPsec tunnel is that the entire packet is encrypted “end-to-end” between the Vault/Firewalls and the data can travel through the network securely.

IPSec diagram

IPsec Tunnel

IPsec Performance

Adding an IPSec tunnel introduces “overhead” which is added when a packet enters a tunnel and stripped off when a packet leaves the tunnel. This process adds additional data to each packet, but is not part of the payload. Therefore, when running performance measurement tests, the indicated traffic throughput will be less than throughput achieved without an IPSec encrypted tunnel.

In order to test performance, pfSense® CE 2.4.3 was installed on the Vaults and IPsec tunnels were configured with the following cipher suite:

Diffie Hellman (DH) Key Exchange using Pre-Shared Key (PSK)
AES256 bit encryption algorithm with 128 bit blocks using the Galois/Counter Mode (GCM) operation
Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) 256 bit Message Authentication

The configuration pages at VPN->IPsec->Tunnels are shown below.

pfSense IPSec tunnels

IPsec Tunnel Configuration

IPsec Tunnel Configuration

IPsec Tunnel Configuration (Remote End)

The max throughput as tested over the IPsec tunnel for a 1 Gbps Ethernet interface is ~880 Mbps, which is expected due to the overhead added by the IPsec configuration. The results of performance tests run on the Vaults that contain AES-NI hardware support are shown in the table below.

Vault Model	Unencrypted LAN (Mbps)	Encrypted IPsec AES-256-GCM/SHA256 (Mbps)	Encrypted OpenVPN AES-256-CBC/SHA256 (Mbps)
FW2B	940	240	110
FW4B	940	250	115
FW4A	940	280	120
FW6A	940	880	380
FW6B	940	880	550
FW6C	940	880	580

Conclusions on IPSec Performance

IPsec is a critical set of protocols used to provide secure communication through the Internet. There are many different cipher suites that can be used depending on the requirements of the user. The configuration used may impact the performance and therefore the throughput of the devices in the network. This tutorial is an aid to selecting the best Vault for your application.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us! You can submit a ticket here, find more information in our Knowledge Base, or visit the pages at IETF as reference.

pfSense® CE

pfSense® CE Configuration Recommendations

Overview

Thermal Monitoring

Enable Thermal Monitoring

Display Thermal Sensors on the Dashboard

Cryptographic Hardware Support (AES-NI and BDS)

Enable Cryptographic Hardware Support

Power Management with PowerD

Enable PowerD

Configuring Optional Ports

Configuring Optional Ports – IP Address

Configuring Optional Ports – DHCP Server

Configuring Optional Ports – Firewall Rules

Configuring Optional Ports – Verify Configuration

Configuration Files

Configuration Files

Overview

Enable Interfaces

Configure Gateways

Configure Gateway Groups

Configure LAN Firewall

Verify Gateway Status

Verify 4G LTE Failover

Overview

Installing pfBlockerNG

Overview

How to Create a LAN Bridge in pfSense®

Overview: Install pfSense® CE

Verify Hardware Recommendations

Install pfSense® CE

Obtain the Installation Image and Uncompress it

Burn the installation image to a USB drive

Verify the BIOS mode

Install pfSense® Operating System on the Vault

BIOS Compatibility

Overview

Basic Performance

OpenVPN

Configuring OpenVPN

OpenVPN Performance

Conclusions for OpenVPN Performance

Overview

Basic Performance

IPsec

Configuring IPsec

IPsec Performance

Conclusions on IPSec Performance

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