pfSense and Netgate: was New Nginx documentation for beginners

[Eric Oyen]

Well,
Given the problems now being made apparent at F5/Netgate, it’s time to jump ship and start using OpenBSD and the PF firewall system. Btw, I have been using OpenBSD for a better part of 15 years and so far, my home lan has been well protected (except by the stupidity of the other appliance users here in the house). As for my own systems, I am on a separate subnet from the others and have made damned sure that my systems are malware free and fully firewall.

Btw, I have used Linux OS boxes before as firewalls with some success (and a small bit of trouble too). The last Linux OS box I used got rooted about 2 months into it’s being strictly a firewall. I set that box aside for later analysis and went back to using the OpenBSD unit as the primary firewall.

Since you are already familiar with PF Sense, it just makes sense to return to OpenBSD for fireballing your systems. 

I am thinking I need a serious upgrade in equipment soon. The old machine I am using for the firewall is about 12 years old and is getting long in the tooth. It’s performance isn’t exactly up to snuff when compared to more modern dedicated router hardware. These days, I am looking at the possibility of using a core i7 machine with 4 cores (don’t need any more than that), sufficient memory (about 4 GB) and a number of better quality Lan Cards and at least 3 Wi-Fi cards (with removable antennas) Between the cost of the machine and additional hardware, it’s almost as expensive as one of the top quality Cisco units, but with more capabilities.

Last item on my agenda here at the house other than upgrading the old openbsd machine for a new one, upgrading the lan cable to cat 6+ and then trying to get power over ethernet setup as well.

In any case, I have a lot of work I am planning and might need some help sourcing equipment at the cheapest possible cost (my budget is very slim these days.)

-Eric
From the Central Offices of the Technomage Guild, Infrastructure support and development Dept.

> On Jun 17, 2019, at 7:40 PM, Shawn Badger <shawn at badger.pro> wrote:
> 
> I have been using them for a while and I even have a support contract but I am nervous about this as well. After some deeper conversations with a sales person there who insisted "everyone is stealing their software" I informed them that the only reason I was using their system was because I was able to use it before I bought it and that it was open source. I really don't think that person understood the OSS concept at all.   That being said, i have never had any issues calling their tech support and getting help on any issues I have come across regardless of if it was a bug or self imposed.  I still recommend them for now, but if they start to crack down beyond the stupid warning I will be jumping ship and they will loose my business. This is just my 2 cents though.
> 
> 
> On Sat, Jun 15, 2019 at 12:22 AM Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com <mailto:slitt at troubleshooters.com>> wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Jun 2019 14:31:08 -0700
> Michael Butash <michael at butash.net <mailto:michael at butash.net>> wrote:
> 
> > Sort of off-topic, but curious our nginx user's thoughts on F5
> > purchasing them now.  I have customers that use nginx in place of
> > expensive adc/load-balancer products, like F5, and are now scared
> > that F5 is going to ruin it, or at least start charging for any/all
> > features as steeply as they do their mainstream appliance products.
> 
> While we're on the subject, I've used pfSense for over a decade and
> recently upgraded at least two versions. The new version has all sorts
> of admonitions that you can't sell pfSense because it belongs to
> Netgate, and if you bought it from Netgate you have to do this and
> that, and you can't use their trademark, and go to this page to buy it,
> blah blah blah blah blah. I've been totally satisfied with pfSense for
> over a decade, but am now considering moving to a straight OpenBSD/pf
> setup, or pfSense's competitor OPNsense, or even switch to a Linux
> firewall with IPTables, which I've always thought to be a multi-acre
> field of sharply thorned brambles.
> 
> Anyone else getting jittery about pfSense?
> 
> SteveT
> 
> Steve Litt 
> June 2019 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/thrive <http://www.troubleshooters.com/thrive>
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