pfSense is a firewall software used to monitor and control incoming and outgoing network traffic based on predetermined security rules, pfSense installs a physical computer or virtual machine. This step by step tutorial covers how to install pfSense 2.5.2 firewall.
Minimum Hardware Requirements for installing pfSense 2.5.2
- CPU: 64-bit amd64 (x86-64) compatible
- RAM: 1GB
- Disk drive: 8 GB or larger
- Network interface: One or more
Demo environment (Virtual)
- CPU: 64-bit
- RAM: 4GB
- Disk drive: 60GB
- Network interface: 2
Download pfSense 2.5.2
- URL: https://www.pfsense.org/download/
- Version: 2.5.2
- Architecture: AMD64 (64-bit)
Install pfSense 2.5.2
Create a bootable DVD or USB installation media, insert it, and start your Computer. For VirtualBox, Hyper-V and VMware users only need to attach the ISO file during VM creation.
1. Read the License terms and agree to them and press Enter key.
2. Select Install – Install pfSense and press Enter key.
3. Select Continue with default keymap and press Enter key.
4. Select Auto (ZFS) Guided Root-on-ZFS and press Enter key.
5. Select Proceed with Installation and press Enter key.
6. Select Stripe – No Redundancy and press Enter key.
7. Select the disk on which you want to install pfSense 2.5.2and press Enter key.
8. Select YES and press Enter key.
It will ask you to format the selected disk, if it’s the new disk you should format or if it contains any important data you should take a backup before formatting the disk.
9. The installation should start, wait for it to finish.
10. Select No and press Enter key.
11. pfSense 2.5.2 has been installed, reboot the machine and configure the networking and more in the next step.
12. Type n and press Enter key. In our example, we did not configure VLAN.
13. Type xn0 and press Enter key. In our example, we configured the xn0 interface as WAN
14. Type xn1 and press Enter key. In our example, we configured the xn1 interface as WAN.
15. Type y and press Enter key.
16. Choose option 2 and press Enter key to change the LAN IP Address
- WAN IP address will be assigned from DHCP.
- LAN IP address will be default as 192.168.1.1
17. Type 2 and press Enter key.
18. Type IP Address for LAN and press Enter key.
- LAN IP: 192.168.2.1
19. Type subnet mask (as in CIDR notation) and press Enter key.
- CIDR: 24
20. Press Enter key.
21. Press Enter key.
22. Type n and press Enter key. In our example, we did not configure DHCP Server on LAN.
23. Type y and press Enter key.
24. Press Enter key
After finishing the LAN IP address configuration, you are able to access the pfSense web interface. Open a browser software, enter the IP address of your pfSense firewall, and access the web interface. Enter User name and Password and click sign in.
Default Username and Password
- Username: admin
- Password: pfsense
