About This Course

OPNsense is an easy-to-use open source Firewall based on FreeBSD 10.1 for long-term support. Obviously, the name of the project is derived from the words "open" and "meaning" and means "open source makes sense". OPNsense provides weekly security updates to quickly respond to threats. It includes many advanced features normally only found in commercial firewalls such as Forward Caching Proxy and Intrusion Detection. It also supports the use of OpenVPN.

This firewall uses an online intrusion prevention system. This is a powerful form of deep packet inspection, in which OPNsense not only blocks an IP address or port, but also checks and stops individual data packets or connections before they reach the sender. OPNsense also offers LibreSSL over OpenSSL.

In this lab guide, we will explore this open source firewall in a fundamental way.