Remote-access Guide

pfsense ssh remote access

by Carmen Schmeler Published 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago
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By default pfSense does not allow SSH access from the WAN side. If for some reason you do need SSH access externally I would recommend you consider creating a VPN (IPsec, OpenVPN etc.) in pfSense first and connect to this then tunnel your SSH session through the VPN.

Enable SSH via GUI
  1. Navigate to System > Advanced, Admin Access tab.
  2. Check Enable Secure Shell.
  3. Set SSHd Key Only to Public Key Only to allow only key-based SSH authentication.
  4. Enter a port number in SSH Port if the SSH daemon should listen on a non-default port. Leave the field blank for the daemon to use port 22.
  5. Click Save.
Jul 1, 2022

Full Answer

How to setup a proxy server using pfSense?

PFsense - Outbound Proxy Configuration

  • Pfsense 2.4.4-p3 PFSense - Outbound Proxy Configuration Open a browser software, enter the IP address of your Pfsense firewall and access web interface. ...
  • Username: admin
  • Password: pfsense After a successful login, you will be sent to the Pfsense Dashboard. ...
  • Proxy URL - The IP address of the Proxy server.

More items...

How to setup failover in pfSense?

pfSense dual WAN failover configuration steps 1. Configure two WAN interfaces 2. Establish dual WAN group 3. Add firewall rules required for the dual WAN set-up 4. Reconfigure Squid Proxy service 5. Configure default gateway auto failover 6. Best practice: Configure DNS servers Configuring pfSense 2.3 dual WAN failover 1.

How to install OpenVPN on pfSense?

on PFSense Simply navigate to VPN – OpenVPN and click on their Clients’ tab. The form will then pop up once you click the ‘+Add’ button. In this window you’ll open a tool to edit OpenVPN, which has sections such as General information, User Authentication Settings, Cryptographic settings, Tunnel settings, and Advanced Configurations.

How to setup pfSense SSL certificate authority?

Install the authority certificates. First, you need to import the root and intermediates certificates in pfsense. Go to System - Cert Manager then in the CAs tab. Click the + icon at the bottom right of the list. Choose Import an existing Certificate Authority in the Method drop-down list. Paste the certificate in Certificate Data and click Save.

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How do I access my pfSense remotely?

To enable the service, log into the web interface of the pfSense router.Access the advanced settings page in the system menu.Check the box labeled 'Enable Secure Shell'Change the default port by entering a new port number in the 'SSH Port' box.More items...•

Can you SSH into pfSense?

PFSense - Allow SSH external connections By default, the PFsense firewall does not allow external SSH connections to the WAN interface. In our example we are going to create a firewall rule to allow the SSH communication. Access the Pfsense Firewall menu and select the Rules option.

How do I access pfSense web interface from LAN?

To access the pfSense webconfigurator, open a web browser on a computer connected to your firewall and enter https://[your LAN IP address]. By default, it is 192.168. 1.1. Enter your username and password in the login page.

How do I access pfSense console?

PFSense - Enable Console Login Open a browser software, enter the IP address of your Pfsense firewall and access web interface. The Pfsense web interface should be presented. On the prompt screen, enter the Pfsense Default Password login information. After a successful login, you will be sent to the Pfsense Dashboard.

How do I access pfSense from outside?

The following article explains the steps necessary to enable external access to pfSense GUI using a Dynamic DNS domain from DuckDNS.org.STEP 1 – Create a new DuckDNS domain. ... STEP 2 – Change pfSense password. ... STEP 3 – Allow remote access to WAN port 443. ... STEP 4 – Add DuckDNS as a DynDNS service in pfSense.More items...•

Does pfSense have an API?

5 days agopfSense API is a fast, safe, REST API package for pfSense firewalls. This works by leveraging the same PHP functions and processes used by pfSense's webConfigurator into API endpoints to create, read, update and delete pfSense configurations.

How do I find my pfSense IP address?

Type '2' and press enter, to access the section of the pfSense® menu where you can edit the IP address of the LAN interface. You should then see a list of network interfaces, including their current assignments (LAN, WAN , OPT1, etc) and the method used to assign their address (dhcp or static).

Does pfSense support WireGuard?

WireGuard is available as an experimental add-on package on pfSense Plus 21.05, pfSense CE 2.5. 2, and later versions.

What is the Webgui?

The Web GUI is a web-based application that processes network events from one or more data sources and presents the event data to users in various graphical formats in a web browser.

What is the default login for pfSense?

The default credentials for a pfSense® software installation are: Username. admin.

What is pfTop?

pfTop is available from the GUI and the console menu. It offers live views of the firewall ruleset, state table information, and related statistics.

How do I log into Netgate?

Type 192.168. 1.1 (the most common IP for Netgate routers) in the address bar of your web browser to access the router's web-based user interface. You should see 2 text fields where you can enter a username and a password. The default username for your Netgate router is admin.

Is SSH UDP or TCP?

TCPIs SSH over TCP or UDP? SSH usually runs over TCP. That being said, RFC 4251 specifies that SSH transmission layer protocol “might also be used on top of any other reliable data stream”. SSH protocol's default settings are to listen on TCP port 22 for connections.

What is the default login for pfSense?

The default credentials for a pfSense® software installation are: Username. admin.

What port does SSH use?

port 22By default, the SSH server still runs in port 22.

How do I create an SSH key?

Open a terminal and use the ssh-keygen command with the -C flag to create a new SSH key pair. Replace the following: KEY_FILENAME : the name for your SSH key file. For example, a filename of my-ssh-key generates a private key file named my-ssh-key and a public key file named my-ssh-key.

How to test PFSense SSH?

To test the Pfsense SSH configuration from a computer running Windows: Download the last version of the PUTTY application, and test the communication using the following parametes: If you use older versions of the Putty software, you will not be able to connect to the PFsense firewall.

How to access PFSense firewall?

Open a browser software, enter the IP address of your Pfsense firewall and access web interface .

Can you verify the status of all services from PfSense?

Here, you are able to verify the status of all services from the Pfsense firewall.

Can a computer SSH with a firewall?

In our example, any computer is able to perform S SH communication with the firewall.

Can you test remote connection to WAN?

You may test the remote connection to the WAN interface and also to the LAN interface.

Does PFSense allow SSH?

By default, the PFsense firewall does not allow external SSH connections to the WAN interface. In our example we are going to create a firewall rule to allow the SSH communication. Access the Pfsense Firewall menu and select the Rules option. Click on the Add button to add a rule to the Top of the list. On the Firewall rule creation screen, perform ...

Who has SSH access?

By default only admin and root have SSH access. Additional users with limited access may be granted the User - System - Shell account access privilege to login via SSH.

What is SSH used for?

SSH is typically used for debugging and troubleshooting, but has many other useful purposes.

What port does the daemon use?

Leave the field blank for the daemon to use port 22

Is it safe to move a daemon to an alternate port?

Moving the daemon to an alternate port is also a good practice, but moving the port alone is not sufficient protection. The firewall will automatically block users who attempt to authenticate unsuccessfully. This behavior, and settings to control it, are described in Login Protection.

Does sudo have root privileges?

Additional users do not have full root privileges in the shell, so the system does not display the console menu for those users. Many commands and other files are inaccessible as well. For a normal user to get much use from the shell, the Sudo Package can delegate additional privileges to run commands as root or other users.

Can SSH be accessed on LAN?

With a default ruleset, SSH may only be accessed by clients on the LAN. If SSH access must be allowed for clients the WAN, the best practice is to restrict access to Key-based authentication to avoid issues with brute force attacks.

What is VPN in PfSense?

There are several VPN options available in pfSense software, such as. IPsec. OpenVPN. SSH tunneling. Once a VPN is in place, reach the GUI safely using a local address on the firewall, such as the LAN IP address. The exact details vary depending on the VPN configuration.

What is an alias in a firewall?

1. Example alias for networks allowed to access management interface. 2. Example alias for ports allowed to access management interface. Now add a firewall rule allowing the sources defined in the management alias to the destination of the firewall, with the port used or alias created for those using multiple ports.

What is a username in pfSense?

username refers to the username on the remote server, not your local workstation, and the IP address should be that of your pfSense VM ( which will forward the traffic to the ap VM).

How to log in with a password instead of SSH key?

From your workstation run the command ssh -o PreferredAuthentications=password -o PubkeyAuthentication=no username@ip-address, this tells the SSH client on your machine to try to log in with a password instead of your SSH key. You should see the Permission denied (publickey) error, that’s what we want to see, password login is disallowed. Now try ssh root@ip-address, you should see the same error, but also on your lnav window you should see [sshd] Found ip-address... with your workstations IP address. Try to log in as root again from your workstation and you should see [sshd] Ban ip-address in the lnav window, try it a third time and you will find that the connection times out because fail2ban has blocked the request.

What is SSH in security?

SSH, or secure shell, is an encrypted protocol used to communicate with remote servers safely. The practical uses of SSH are widely discussed in other guides. In this article, we'll examine the underlying encryption and connection procedures that make.

How to install SSH client in Windows 10?

If you are on Windows 10 run this from PowerShell, if you get a “no such command” error, you need to install the SSH client. Open the Settings app and search for “Manage Optional Features”, scroll down to “OpenSSH Client”, and click Install.

How to open sshd_config file?

Run the command sudo nano /etc /ssh/sshd_config to open up the configuration file, you’ll want to modify or add the following lines.

What does sshd(8) do?

sshd (8) reads configuration data from /etc/ssh/sshd_config (or the file specified with -f on the command line). The file contains keyword-argument pairs, ...

What happens if you open port 22?

Fact: Just having the SSH port 22 open to the internet will result in brute force attempts on your server. Fact: If a brute force bot or unauthorized human successfully logs in to your server, you are going to have a really bad day. We will implement the three most effective measures against SSH brute force attacks:

What port is OPNSense on?

To allow the communication on the WAN interface, you will need to create a firewall rule to allow connections on the TCP port 22 of the OPNsense firewall.

Can you test remote connection to WAN?

You may test the remote connection to the WAN interface and also to the LAN interface.

What is pfSense based on?

The pfSense® project is a powerful open source firewall and routing platform based on FreeBSD. Developed and maintained by Netgate®.

How much Gbps is PFSense?

The biggest shockers, if you will, are the pfsense vs ubuntu performance diference in point to point. and the pfsense point to point (2,5 Gb ps) to pfsense NAT (3,2 Gb ps).

Is SSH tunelling a quick and dirty answer?

ssh tunelling is indeed the quick and dirty answer, otherwise add a vpn.

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Testing The Service Locally

  • At this point, the service should be running. To test it out, you can attempt connecting with a client such as Putty. Putty is a very popular (and free) SSH client that is simple to use. The program only consists of a single file, Putty.exe. After you run Putty, enter the LAN ip or hostname of the …
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The Console Menu

  • If the connection was successful, you will be prompted for a username, enter root. The server will also prompt you for a password. The password will be the same one you use to access the web interface as the admin user. To access the shell, select option number 8.
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Changing The Admin / Root Password

  • To change the root password for the system, open the user manager in the system menu. Click the edit button next to the admin user to assign a new password. If you want, you can also set up additional user accounts here as well.
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Enabling Access from The Internet

  • In order to access the SSH service from outside of the local network, you must create a firewall rule to permit the traffic to pass. Without a firewall rule to permit the traffic, the packets would simply be dropped by the firewall. To allow the traffic, click on 'Rules' in the firewall menu.
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Creating A Firewall Rule

  • Create a new firewall rule by clicking on the plus symbol on the lower right-hand side of the firewall rules page. This will open the firewall rule editor page. The default action for a new rule is 'pass,' which will allow the traffic. 1. Set the interface to WAN. 2. Make sure the protocol is set to TCP, which is the protocol SSH runs on. 3. In the destination settings, select a type of 'WAN add…
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Applying The Changes

  • The new firewall rule will not be activated until the changes have been applied. Click on the 'Apply Changes' button to enable the new rule in the system. After applying the new rule, you should be able to access the SSH service by pointing the client to the WAN IP address of the pfSense box. I like to set up dynamic DNSinstead of having to keep track of IP addresses.
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Setting Up Key Based Authentication

  • Even if you've changed the listening port for SSH, the service can still be discovered by port scanning. Once discovered, bots can launch brute force attacks against the server to try to find accounts with weak passwords. To make the service much more secure, you can enable key-based authentication. With key authentication enabled, hackers can attempt to guess password…
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Generating A Public / Private Key Pair

  • To take advantage of key-based logins, we must create a pair of keys. The public key will be entered into pfSense and the private key will be stored on the client. The easiest way to generate a key pair is to use the Puttygen program. Click the generate button then move the mouse around to create some randomness for the key.
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Adding The Public Key to The Server

  • After generating the key pair, the public key needs to be added to the user account on pfSense. 1. Open the user manager in the system menu. 2. Click the 'E' button next to the user you want to add the key for. The root user is called admin in the user manager. 3. Click the checkbox In the authorized keys section labeled 'click to paste an authorized key.' 4. Paste the public key that w…
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