How to Install and Configure pfSense 2.1.5 (Firewall/Router) for Your Home/Office Network

18. Once subpartitions has been created, you will see the installation process..

pfSense Installation Process
pfSense Installation Process

19. At last for installing the kernel, you can choose from the options as non-vga or symetmetric multiprocessing kernel. Here I’m going to choose non-vga and keyboard less.

Install Kernel
Install Kernel

20. After kernel has been installed, reboot the machine and configure the networking and more in next step as follows.

Reboot Machine
Reboot Machine
pfSense Rebooting
pfSense Rebooting

21. After rebooting, you will get the below screen with available interfaces to configure the network.

Configure pfSense Network
Configure pfSense Network

The first option is presented as VLAN’s, generally VLAN’s are not needed, they are needed for advance networking, simply here say No.

There are two interface’s em0 and em1, I have planned to assign em0 as WAN our external interface and em1 as LAN which for internal interface with firewall/NAT features enabled.

Enable Network Interfaces
Enable Network Interfaces

22. I don’t need a optional interface name, so just continue by pressing Return Key. It will ask for the confirmation Yes/No proceed with Y and press enter to continue.

Assigned Interfaces
Assigned Interfaces

23. After setting up interfaces, you will get the pfsense menu as show below.

pfSense Menu
pfSense Menu
  1. WAN IP address will be assigned from DHCP. If you need we can assign a static IP.
  2. LAN IP address will be default as 192.168.1.1, if you want to change choose option 2 and set interfaces IP address.

First let me define a Static IP, subnet mask in Bit count and gateway for the WAN and LAN. Disable the DHCP and continue by choosing Y.

Configure LAN Interface
Configure LAN Interface
Confirm Network Settings
Confirm Network Settings

24. Then for LAN interface, If we need DHCP for local area network from pfsense we can assign a range of address from pfsense. I have chosen 192.168.0.15 as my pfsense LAN address and for client machine’s I need to assign a IP address from DHCP in the range of 192.168.0.16 – 192.168.0.25.

pfSense LAN IP Address
pfSense LAN IP Address
Assign DHCP IP Range
Assign DHCP IP Range

25. After all the above settings are performed, it will prompt you a link to access pfSense webconfigurator interface to configure further steps.

pfSense WebGUI Access
pfSense WebGUI Access
Babin Lonston
I'm Working as a System Administrator for last 10 year's with 4 years experience with Linux Distributions, fall in love with text based operating systems.

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30 thoughts on “How to Install and Configure pfSense 2.1.5 (Firewall/Router) for Your Home/Office Network”

  1. Thanks for the tutorial. Now I have the following problem – when I select the disk with Windows 10 on which I would like to install pfSense, there is the following message: “This partition does not have a valid mountpoint (for the partition from which you intend to boot the operating system, the mountpoint should be “/”.

    This message is shown even if I have formatted the partition with free space for pfSense as EXT4. So I don’t know how to prepare a disk with Windows for the right pfSense installation, ao that I could during boot choose Windows or pfSense. Please could You help me via my e-mail? thank You very much in advance. Regards Fanda Waldorf

    Reply
    • I agree. I am a little confused by this as well. Shouldn’t you change you lan ip scheme to 192.128.1.x? I ask because I really think this is a good article and I am about to set this up in my lab, only it is being install on a Check Point UTM, and through console port. Thanks again!

      Reply
  2. I have a typo:

    pfsense1(LAN: 192.168.1.3 WAN:221.132.18.251) and pfsense2 (LAN: 192.168.1.2 WAN: 221.132.18.253). I’m config sync with LAN ok but with wan can’t sync, please help me. Thank.

    Reply
  3. If I am making pfSense as a network controller/firewall, should i run this on a dedicated machine or I can run it on a virtual machine installed on a main server? Thanks in advance

    Reply
  4. After installing pfsense.. do i shutdown and reboot my machine with windows? Will the pfsense still be runing at the background or do i need a totally seperate system for this? If i dont need, How do i configure my windows os to communicate with the pfsense installed in the hard disk

    Reply
    • @Thompson,

      Are you trying this in your desktop machine? Pfsense is a router if you configure network through pfsense it should UP continuously for uninterrupted internet connection.

      Reply
  5. This might have been helpful if this site had not put ‘https://www.tecmint.com’ at the bottom of each graphic. As it is now, I can’t read the last line in some of the pics.

    Reply
  6. I just heard about pfSense a couple of days ago, and that its great for all kinds of uses, including home networks. What kind of device should I install it on if I want it to cover my whole network? Can I install it on a router or what?

    Reply
  7. Dear Admin,

    This is very help full for those want to install pfSense. I want to know that can we use pfSense
    free of cost and without any license in corporate network.

    Reply
    • For Corporate network they are providing dedicated hardware, But open source can be used but there will be some performance issue while large number of handling.

      Reply
  8. Hi Sir,
    Just want to ask what if I have a static WAN Ip and gateway from my ISP, what should be my LAN settings?
    Thanks in advance

    Reply
  9. Great to see an article about pfsense. I think pfsense is often overlooked by Linux users. I have alternated using pfsense and ipfire for my home network. I use HP thin clients with expansion chassis for dual intel gb nic. (In the past I used older thin client with bulit in pci slot.) I have found both firewalls work very well in flash install. I currently use ipfire only because it allowed me to turn the built-in wifi into an access point. (I could not figure out how to do this with pfsense). Maybe you could future articles about flash install and configuration of pfsense for other readers? Thanks!

    Reply
    • @Rick,
      This is just the part one of the series, ther are more advance articles on pfSense to come under this series..stay tuned..

      Reply

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