How To Install pfSense + Beginners Configuration Guide

[@SirFancyPantsMcee]

Thank you so much for the video! It helped out a lot. I had to reset my connections for the vims to see each other. So if anyone is having issues with connections try that out.

[@helpingninja]

Glad to help. Have a nice day man!

[@srvuk]

The first 4 minutes was generally fine but then you killed the whole point of the video by stating that you were not going to install it because it would disrupt your network. Either show it from start to finish or not, especially for beginner that want the step by step helping hand. And as a more general observation, slow down a little. Every single video feels like a race to the finish.

[@helpingninja]

Thank you for the feedback. I mean it. I'll try to do better next time.

[@annix493]

@@helpingninja This comment got WAY out of hand, so I’m going to summarize my two takeaways here: 1. Please go watch a few videos by “Macho Nacho” who covers a lot of Retro Gaming hardware mods/hardware installation. His pacing and structure (especially his timeline/chapter breakdown) I think would be a massively beneficial source for you to draw some inspiration from on this front. 
 2. Watch some Seinfeld. Your English is absolutely fantastic, unfortunately the English of many viewers probably is not. The final boss of English Fluency is: “You learned all the rules? Great! Now break them”. That show has many *many* episodes where the entire conflict is based around the specific use of a particular phrase, word, or tonal inflection. 
 3. I really enjoyed this video, to the point I’ve now watched several more on your channel and have sub’d/bell’d super hard. I’m not only excited to see your channel grow because you cover exactly the stuff I’m interested in, but even moreso:
 4. Good god I am genuinely happy to see you taking such a sincere and constructive approach to ideas/criticism in the comments here. It’s super refreshing to see people communicating in a thoughtful/caring way…..unfortunately, this observation (combined with me having had a slow morning) lead to the below comment. I am so sorry and/or you’re welcome. I would agree with @srvuk’s point about your pacing feeling rushed…𝙗𝙪𝙩, I think there’s more to be said about how this critique is really a complement, one I hope will help you be able to see your creative process from a different point of view. With any language beyond your mother tongue, the most difficult part of becoming fluent can be true self-confidence in your ability to communicate information clearly and accurately to another person. To get to that point is a huge achievement that shows an immense amount of hard work and dedication on behalf of the speaker. I hope this isn’t news to you (and I don’t think any Native Anglophone would disagree with me saying that), you are absolutely miles beyond that point. The abilities you show in this video are undeniable proof of it. Transforming a complex topic/task (by recontextualizing steps/concepts for the audience) proves both your subject matter expertise (𝘪𝘦: 𝘱𝘧𝘚𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦), but even more-so a 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 deep inherent understanding of how your audience will hear/learn/understand what you’re saying.

[@annix493]

@@helpingninja (…continued) How many years of English did it take to get you here? 4? 6? A Decade? More? All of that writing. The studying….the struggling. Yet finally, in a battle of wills against your own self, the unthinkable - success. The Legions of Grammar Goblins, Vowel Vampires and Self-Doubting Sirens remain only as this wet, squishy, corpse-made mountain you stand atop with newly stable footing. Victorious at last, the English world shines its light on the dawn of fluency, a new day that will never…….𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒑. What is this?! What’s happened?! It’s asthough Light itself has been called to retreat?! The world darkens, but in a new, weirder, dumber and darker𝘦𝘳 kind of way. This darkness is the final 5% of the English Language. It is a horrible, bad, no-good 5% and I hope you never meet it late at night in a dark alley. If your goal is to communicate with us pea-brained descendants of the 𝐁𝐫𝐢'𝐢𝐬𝐡, there is one final and very unfortunate lesson you need to learn: You know all the rules you’ve just dedicated years of your life to learning? No one else knows them. Our ability to express ourselves, to have our hearts known or even just understand one another? Vibes based. 100% vibes based. So much of English speech is unspoken, between the lines context and tonality that it’s incredibly difficult to nail down exactly what feels “off” sometimes. What I can tell you with absolute confidence however, is that you, as I said above, have absolutely nailed the art of effective technical communication. You include just the right amount of detail, and in a way that’s easy to understand. I want to be very clear that in no way am I suggesting that you change the content of *what* you’re saying, just a small tweak to *how* you say it. Have the confidence to know that the information you’re giving is valuable, and that your audience is watching your video because they specifically enjoy hearing that information from you. The impulse to get to the point (especially in a video like this) is a completely understandable one, many people just want to get to the point or will skip around to find the nugget of information they need. One way to counter this, is by including a simple table of contents (verbally, and visually) in your video itself (towards the beginning) as well as in your video description. From a pre-production point of view as well, this can really help structure your own thoughts when writing your script, making you feel (and sound!) more confident that every bit of information you’re providing is exactly what people needed to hear. As for moment-to-moment pacing, I would suggest playing around with how you construct your sentences. Take your listeners on a journey. Sometimes a sentence can carry heft, and weight, building anticipation for you to finally say…..something? nothing? It doesn’t much matter, truthfully. Just look at that last paragraph to see how you can (attempt, I’m no expert) use pauses, and sentence length give things a bit of energy. Yes. A single word can be a sentence, and no, I can’t promise this is a perfect engagement strategy. I can tell you though, that many studies on “Listener/Viewer Engagement” have shown people disengage the fastest by listening to someone speak at a consistent, standardized, monospaced pace (especially when speaking about highly technical subjects, without intentional dynamics in pacing, speed or structure).

[@helpingninja]

hey @annix493 first and foremost - thank you for taking time to compile such a long and comprehensive comment(s). Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Not only for the kind words, they most certainly are warming, but also for the constructive, non-offensive, criticism. I do realise there's a lot of work in front of me. And you help me pinpoint what is most pressing/obvious. Thank you for that. At the beginning I didn't realize I'll spend so much time and effort on this youtube thing. But as time goes by I realize that this "youtubing" brought me the things I wanted for a long time. Practice my english, spend time working on IT projects, connecting with likeminded people and so much more. I'll take every one of your advices to heart (watching macho nacho, seinfeld, etc tec) and I'll do my best to do at least a little bit better in 2024. Sometimes it can be demanding but it's also rewarding. So...I'm sorry for the imperfections and I'll hope your advice will help me do better in the future. Thanks again. Regarding this particular video (and others too), I do realize my mistakes. The video playback speed is artificially increased (by 5 to 10%) - I felt like it took me ages to say what I wanted to say and I didn't want everyone to loose time (and focus) while I struggle with my spoken english. And sometimes it may feel rushed bacause it simply is rushed :) For "reasons". It takes so much time and effort for me to create a video like this. Besides the usual things every (native english) youtuber meets I need to pre-write my scripts, check them for errors, record my words and screens separately, then match them toghether again. I don't want to go into details, but it's very demanding to be honest. But I'm not trying to excuse myself, I do enjoy the process and eventually the outcome. But I understand, that sometimes I might be too "exhausted" or "eager" to finally finish the video. It takes me at least 30 hours to create a video like this one - From idea to publishing. So I apologize it might sometimes feel rushed - it simply is. But I do have a way in mind on how to fix this. If and when the channel starts to generate enough money for a videoeditor I'll be able to save a lot of time that I'll be able invest into improving myself / my content. Have a great day friend and again Thank you!

[@chrisgrose3137]

Thank you big time I was stuck and you helped restore my sanity

[@helpingninja]

You’re more than welcome :)

[@kristof9497]

Thanks, bought the same Topton and will install pfSense.

[@helpingninja]

Hope everything will go smoothly :)

[@StoryPotter]

Hi i tried to install pfsense on Vmware but its only giving option to set wan connection and doest giving option to set LAN Connection on lan option its only coming as "a" it should give option like you ie01 ie02 like that but it doesnt

[@TheElevenBravo]

Great video! Helped a lot!!!!! Much appreciated, senor Ninja!-The accent.....Oh, the accent......is it Italian?

[@helpingninja]

Glad to help my friend! Not italian, czech :)

[@Kevin-cm4ow]

Huge question: I'm new to this and i just bought the new router you suggested, part of the equipment that came with it is the RF cables which i concluded you need to install inside the router to attach the WiFi antennae outside; my problem is where does the end of the RF cable connect inside the router, they looked like something to be smolded not attached (no that i could find where to attach it to) Please an explanation on how and where to put that in would be helpful. I haven't set up the antennae -yet which i feel would be important, since I'm not connecting the WAN Ethernet to anything

[@rinobito2]

Wait, great tutorial but im lost as to which system you installed the pfsense into. Does it need to be a seperate device? must it only be a router type device? if so on router, how did you proc the screen and the router to react that way. I was hoping that would be showed at the very start of the video on where or what exactly you placed that flash drive into.

[@ppal64]

Didn’t see what screen you used and how you connected to the box.

[@helpingninja]

Well, you can connect directly to it via hdmi. I've used hdmi capture card to record the video, but any monitor will do. But other than that you just configure it via web browser from different computer.

[@Sirius-me5zy]

Hi sir pfsense menu not responding, click interfaces nothing happened, can't even logout

[@antonshevchenko4151]

Laughed too hard for the “if you’re learning I’ll bet it will be 2” (at 9:55). That was a good one 😂 Seriously: the cc should say “I’ll bet it will be too”, not 2. Specifying 2 will make your internet not working properly

[@helpingninja]

Thank you, I'll fix the cc ;-)

[@helpingninja]

I checked, my cc are correct. You sure, you had selected my captions instead of autogenerated one?

[@antonshevchenko4151]

@@helpingninjanot sure whose cc that is. pasteboard.co/PS56mjAiLXvm.jpg

[@antonshevchenko4151]

@@helpingninjanot sure whose cc that is. pasteboard.co/PS56mjAiLXvm.jpg

[@antonshevchenko4151]

Yes. Confirmed yours is fine. Sorry about this. But the comment is still useful for others (who use automatic cc)

[@gb-vmyt]

thank you. Unfortunately, I have only one interface on this machine, so it picks that up for WAN and then I can't configure another interface for the LAN. how do I resolve this ?

[@helpingninja]

You're welcome. It's solvable...you can assign two virtual interfaces to one physical interface and go from there. Or you can connect your device to some kind of switch. But you'll need some network knowledge to resolve this.

[@1.8millionvolts87]

unrelated but you have a nice music taste

[@lanphanh]

Can we install PFsense on the Netgear Nighthawk x6S AC4000 Tri-Band Wi-Fi 5 Router?

[@helpingninja]

You can't.

[@Myst876]

hello sir how can i block mobile teethering from desktop or mobile and laptop or sharing their network using captive portal

[@helpingninja]

Hi, well honestly, I'm not sure. One thing is the filtering by mac address. But that might not solve your issue. The question is ... if you're approaching the issue from the right angle. Why do you want to block someone's phone if you trust him with his laptop? From my point of view - either you trust the user (not the device) or you do not. Why would you try to solve this on captive portal? If you want to restrict devices on the network I think a captive portal isn't the tool to use.

[@Myst876]

@@helpingninja because i want the limit of the connection whom to connect to the internet like teachers only.. but sometimes they used tethering to share the network to the students thats wat i want to block..

[@helpingninja]

@@Myst876 you won't be able to do that, because in this case the teacher's device seems on the network as only one device, acting similarly to a router. the only way to enforce this (besides the obvious "rule" told to teachers) is some enterprise-grade management of the devices, like Microsoft Intune - and the teacher's mobile phone would need to be your company's property. Via Intune, you can disable the creation of hotspots on all devices you deem fit. I don't know about any other way of doing this. Basically you can't do anything about it. If you block teachers phone ... why wouldn't any of the students create another hotspot lets say from their personal mobile phone. Try to think about this from different perspective - why do you want/need to ban access to internet when teachers are deliberately allowing students to do so?

[@Myst876]

@@helpingninja .in dhcp leases i see other mac address that was not allowed in the MAC captive portal.. i only allowed 43 mac address but in the dhcp leases show 68 active.. may should i need to limit their bandwith if they create tetehering then their internet is affected maybe it is ok?

[@Myst876]

..but thank you sir.. because im new in the pfsense.. so.ineed some advice and ideas to make it work appreciate your help sir

[@hamilton7181]

I'm a complete newbie so this may be a stupid question, but do we have to have a physical router, like a Topton, to be able to use the PF Sense software?

[@helpingninja]

Well, no :-) you can run pfsense as a virtual machine. It's freebsd-based operating system. So something like Proxmox or VirtualBox can be helpful if you want to play around with pfsense.

[@hamilton7181]

cool i appreciate your help, i notice some slightly negative remarks in the comment section which is a shame as you owe us nothing, you make these videos out of the goodness of your heart, most people could care less about helping out others, but you do and i wanna say thanks man@@helpingninja

[@Qupid-]

How would i forward ports from my vpn on my computer to my ps5 on my computer hotspot

[@helpingninja]

I'm sorry I don't quite understand what you are trying to achieve. Could you elaborate on it more?

[@anewbeginningquinn]

why my windows vm is not recognizing the ip address from pfsense ?

[@anewbeginningquinn]

i found out you need to put your VM into LAN mode for the network. but you never mentioned that

[@helpingninja]

@@anewbeginningquinn Hi there. What VM? I'm pretty sure I didn't mention any virtual machine at all. ;)

[@thiagozanella2591]

I did the exact step by step but the windows pc doesn't find the pfsense ip 😥

[@helpingninja]

It should work. Do you have all the cables in proper ports? I mean the LAN port on pfsense box?

[@SunshineDave]

How much RAM storage memory does the Topton n100 need to operate in this manner?

[@helpingninja]

"Close to none"...right now my pfsense (running for months) uses 551 MB of RAM

[@SunshineDave]

Just looking to buy one for this purpose and they don't come with any memory - so how much/which memory chip should I buy?@@helpingninja

[@MOMOL-fu2qj]

Very Fast Conversation, 5G

[@anand-nb4bb]

Hi Bro, I need your help. I have Ubuntu 18.04 on my laptop and it has a VPN settings configured on it. I think its managed through pfsense I use this VPN to connect to my work environment Now my query is that when I connect to this VPN I connect to my work network & am able to work inside it, but this disconnects the internet connectivity that is working on my base machine. I want the internet to be working on my base system as well & also should be able to connect to my work network as a lot of websites are blocked inside the work network. Split Tunneling is enabled on the VPN server but it seems my system is missing some configuration which is causing it to not work Can you please tell me what settings I need to do on my laptop VPN to make this work. Kindly help. Thanks & regards,

[@helpingninja]

Hi there, well this might be caused by several things. But my guess is that it is intentional. Whoever have configured your work VPN..I think they intentionally blocked internet access for employees. It's a security concern for the company. As the first step try to contact IT guy from your company and discuss your need to use internet while working on the companys vpn. Might be the easiest solution.

[@jaxjax7318]

if your internet does not connect right away... just wait and it will heal. Worst advice. you need to say try to ping google from wan. then make sure gateway is set for wan interface. and set DNS for the WAN. thats what did it for me. not waiting till the 2nd coming to have my problems solved.

[@aliencreation8744]

fren, thankyou for your video. I must ask, when you say router do you mean server?? Thankyou again.

[@hamilton7181]

i didn't know using balenaEtcher would overwrite the contents of the USB drive we use to install it, my gut tells me no, but is there anyway to reverse the flash install and retrieve the files i had on the USB?

[@DaveyBlade13]

Probably not but maybe. Formatting just turns 1 to 0’s. If the data was overwritten it’s very unlikely. Plenty of software out there to reverse a delete. Do some googling and test it out! Btw, if you using any software to write any image to a USB or any other drive, it’s 99.9999999% going to format and overwrite the data. I’m surprised you are setting up a firewall but you don’t know that 😂. But anyway best of luck, and I hope you get your data back!

[@helpingninja]

I'm sorry to say this...but I'm afraid you've lost your data.

[@logan_12]

It literally warns you, that all the data would be erased, it didn't pop up for you?

[@Ayisha.___100]

I am your subscriber. I watch your videos regularly. You m also have a dream because the game has not been played on PC But I couldn't play because I didn't have a device. It would have helped me a lot if you would have helped me as a brother.I am speaking from Bangladesh. I follow your videos regularly . I have a long time hobby that I would like to have a laptop but could not afford it due to lack of money 😒 ‌Up if you help me I could fulfill my most. Deprived of helping me

[@helpingninja]

I’m sorry I have no idea what are you trying to say.

[@Ayisha.___100]

@@helpingninja I am very happy that you have replied to my comment I will be very happy if you gift me a pc please kindly me as your regular subscriber

[@ProgressJokes]

this tech scares a bit. he looks so real

[@helpingninja]

Huh?

[@davidcopeland5789]

Nope, this didn't work. All I get is error messages. 5:07 How about some explanation with selecting the correct IP address. Just saying, "you should know your own network" doesn't help. The information here is superficial. It's just step 1, step 2, step 3. I can do that on my own. If I had the knowledge you require to fill in the blanks, I wouldn't need your help. It's as if you're talking to other experts in networking.

[@helpingninja]

Noted, I’ll try to do better next time. Thank you.