The pfSense Fundamentals Bootcamp 2023 Edition

Learn the Fundamentals of the pfSense Firewall and secure your Home Network or Business with Confidence!

Created by Stefan Rosanitsch | 4.5 hours on-demand video course

Hello, and welcome to the course I wish I had when I started out with pfSense. My name is Stefan, and I am an officially certified pfSense professional. I had the pleasure of learning what I know directly from Jim Thompson (the CTO and a Core Team Member of Netgate/pfSense).

After finishing this course, you will know everything you need to operate all the basic functions of a pfSense firewall with confidence. You will also learn how to navigate through your firewall with ease. You can use this knowledge if you want to implement a pfSense firewall into your home network, but you will also be able to integrate and operate a pfSense firewall in a business environment. This is a hands-on course – you are encouraged to follow through with all of the steps as I do them on your firewall.

Please note that you don’t need a physical appliance to follow along with this course. A computer with 8GB of RAM is enough to run a virtual machine with pfSense (covered in the course). Since integrating pfSense into my home network many years ago, I immediately fell in love with it. Back then, there were hardly any guides or tutorials for pfSense – so I decided to create my own – which has helped to turn my YouTube channel and my blog into one of the most popular resources for pfSense on the internet.

What you’ll learn

Operating a pfSense firewall with confidence by understanding all of the fundamental functions
How to install pfSense on VirtualBox and how to set up a pfSense lab
How to install pfSense on any physical (hardware) appliance from scratch
Configuring the pfSense DHCP server
Configuring pfSense DNS and changing DNS servers
Everything you need to know about firewall rules
Managing and backing up pfSense configuration files (including backup history!)
How to troubleshoot pfSense (restarting services, connecting with SSH, rebooting)
How to create new users
Creating widgets for your dashboard
How to install and configure OpenVPN from scratch
Installing and configuring Squid Proxy and ClamAV
How VLans work and how to set up VLans on pfSense