pfSense: The Definitive Guide |  | Authors: Christopher M. Buechler, Jim Pingle
Creator: Michael W. Lucas
Publisher: Reed Media Services
Category: Book
List Price: $36.50
Buy New: $32.85
as of 7/31/2010 06:43 CDT details
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Rating:  17 reviews
Media: Paperback
Pages: 516
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.1
Dimensions (in): 9.6 x 7.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0979034280
EAN: 9780979034282
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Product Description
Written by pfSense co-founder Chris Buechler and pfSense consultant Jim Pingle, this Definitive Guide to pfSense covers installation and basic configuration through advanced networking and firewalling with the popular open source firewall and router distribution. This book is designed to be a friendly step-by-step guide to common networking and security tasks, plus a thorough reference of pfSense's capabilities. The book covers hardware and system planning, installation and upgrades, backups, firewalling fundamentals, port forwarding and Network Address Translation, bridging, Virtual LANs (VLAN), Multi-WAN, Virtual Private Networks (VPN) using IPsec, PPTP, and OpenVPN, traffic shaping, load balancing, wireless networking and captive portal setups, redundant firewalls and High Availability, system monitoring, logging, traffic analysis, sniffing, packet capturing, troubleshooting, and software package and third-party software installations and upgrades.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 17
So that's what it's all about... November 9, 2009
Michael J. Wise
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
I've been using pfSense for two years in a business environment and have been eagerly awaiting the release of this book. As with many open-source projects, my knowledge of pfSense has come primarily from first-hand experience and gleaning from other users experiences in forums. While this has certain advantages, it can't compare to a formal, organized breakdown of the product by people in the know and this guide delivers. I have had time to peruse the content and read in depth into several issues for which I could not find answers elsewhere. The discussion of various aspects of the platform goes beyond the simple setup model of other IT guides and actually discusses underlying dynamics, issues and their sources, and best practices beyond the vanilla setup. The writing is reasonable, even, and understandable. If you are using pfSense, this is an indispensable resource. I wish that I had access to this years ago as it would have saved numerous hours of development time.
A must have reference for pfSense! November 10, 2009
S. Christian (Carrollton, TX United States)
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
The timing of the release of this book comes at an excellent time. I have only been experimenting with pfSense for my home firewall for a few days now. I wanted something more powerful then the consumer solutions were able to offer and with pfSense and some old spare hardware, I have found my answer. I can now get many of the same features I expect from the enterprise grade firewall and router hardware I use at work, now at home for a tiny fraction of the price. I have spent the last 7 hours since receiving the book reading and going through the configuration steps on my firewall. Without this book to help guide me through the process, it would have taken much longer to get where I am now. I now have a decent understanding on how pfSense works and how to configure most of what I need. In a few more days, I should have finished reading the book and gone through the rest of the setup and configuration process and be up to speed with pfSense. I plan to roll pfSense out as a solution to several specialized needs at work and also for several tech savvy friends and co-workers that want something more then Linksys or Dlink can provide.
The book walks you through the process and explains what everything means and how it relates to the overall system. If you are currently using or thinking about using pfSense as a router/firewall solution, you need to check this book out. This book is going to save many hours of frustration and searching for the answers online. Two thumbs up! This is the must have reference for pfSense users!
-- Ubergeek / Systems Administrator
Oustanding Resource November 15, 2009
Bryant Zimmerman (Grand Rapids, MI United States)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This book is well written. It pulls together the critical information you need to know when getting a pfSense router up and running. I love that they took the time to explain some of the basic networking concepts this makes it great for someone with out extensive routing and firewall experience. I especially like how they covered bandwidth shaping as a user of pfSense for the last two plus years this was one of my biggest challenges in getting settings the way I wanted them. The book was worth it for me just on that chapter alone. I am ordered several copies so that my support technicians can have it for reference as well. I have also recommended it to customers that we have built pfSense routers for. If you are using pfSenes this book is a must have resource. If you want to play with an open source router solution buy the book it makes pfSense a no brainer.
Bryant Zimmerman / Network Systems Engineer (ZK Tech Inc.)
A Goldmine of Information November 16, 2009
O. Hansen (WA, USA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
As one of the other reviewers stated, this book goes to the trouble of explaining why certain things work the way they do and what your options are when something isn't quite how you expected it. I have only read the setup chapter and browsed through some of the other chapters to see what is there. I have been using pfSense for over a year at work and am a huge fan of the system as it has remained a rock-solid application. I am very excited to use the book to help me improve the network as we implement VLANs and more.
For experienced administrators, I would recommend trying out pfSense and then buying this book when you see how many options are available to you. For new users, this is a great starting point and will walk you through the initial setup phase and choosing hardware so I recommend picking this up before you start. There is plenty of information for all in this book and it's a great way to help support the further development of the project!
Excellent book on pfSense November 16, 2009
David M. Shauger (Atlanta, GA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I am only half way done with the book, but I have to say its fantastic. I haven't been able to put it down and keep writing notes on key insights it has given me. The authors did a fantastic and thorough job of dealing with pfSense. Concepts that are difficult to grasp using the online docs and forums are perfectly clear to me in the book. Its a much larger book than I expected for the price. They do expect you to be up on your vocabulary. I haven't seem anything undefined that I didn't already know, but there could be more definitions as words are added into the discussion for the first time in the book.
Please get the book if you are interested in pfSense, its well worth it!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 17
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