Well,
Given the problems now being made apparent at F5/Netgate, it’s time to jump 
ship and start using OpenBSD and the PF firewall system. Btw, I have been using 
OpenBSD for a better part of 15 years and so far, my home lan has been well 
protected (except by the stupidity of the other appliance users here in the 
house). As for my own systems, I am on a separate subnet from the others and 
have made damned sure that my systems are malware free and fully firewall.

Btw, I have used Linux OS boxes before as firewalls with some success (and a 
small bit of trouble too). The last Linux OS box I used got rooted about 2 
months into it’s being strictly a firewall. I set that box aside for later 
analysis and went back to using the OpenBSD unit as the primary firewall.

Since you are already familiar with PF Sense, it just makes sense to return to 
OpenBSD for fireballing your systems. 

I am thinking I need a serious upgrade in equipment soon. The old machine I am 
using for the firewall is about 12 years old and is getting long in the tooth. 
It’s performance isn’t exactly up to snuff when compared to more modern 
dedicated router hardware. These days, I am looking at the possibility of using 
a core i7 machine with 4 cores (don’t need any more than that), sufficient 
memory (about 4 GB) and a number of better quality Lan Cards and at least 3 
Wi-Fi cards (with removable antennas) Between the cost of the machine and 
additional hardware, it’s almost as expensive as one of the top quality Cisco 
units, but with more capabilities.

Last item on my agenda here at the house other than upgrading the old openbsd 
machine for a new one, upgrading the lan cable to cat 6+ and then trying to get 
power over ethernet setup as well.

In any case, I have a lot of work I am planning and might need some help 
sourcing equipment at the cheapest possible cost (my budget is very slim these 
days.)

-Eric
From the Central Offices of the Technomage Guild, Infrastructure support and 
development Dept.

> On Jun 17, 2019, at 7:40 PM, Shawn Badger <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> I have been using them for a while and I even have a support contract but I 
> am nervous about this as well. After some deeper conversations with a sales 
> person there who insisted "everyone is stealing their software" I informed 
> them that the only reason I was using their system was because I was able to 
> use it before I bought it and that it was open source. I really don't think 
> that person understood the OSS concept at all.   That being said, i have 
> never had any issues calling their tech support and getting help on any 
> issues I have come across regardless of if it was a bug or self imposed.  I 
> still recommend them for now, but if they start to crack down beyond the 
> stupid warning I will be jumping ship and they will loose my business. This 
> is just my 2 cents though.
> 
> 
> On Sat, Jun 15, 2019 at 12:22 AM Steve Litt <[email protected] 
> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Jun 2019 14:31:08 -0700
> Michael Butash <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> 
> > Sort of off-topic, but curious our nginx user's thoughts on F5
> > purchasing them now.  I have customers that use nginx in place of
> > expensive adc/load-balancer products, like F5, and are now scared
> > that F5 is going to ruin it, or at least start charging for any/all
> > features as steeply as they do their mainstream appliance products.
> 
> While we're on the subject, I've used pfSense for over a decade and
> recently upgraded at least two versions. The new version has all sorts
> of admonitions that you can't sell pfSense because it belongs to
> Netgate, and if you bought it from Netgate you have to do this and
> that, and you can't use their trademark, and go to this page to buy it,
> blah blah blah blah blah. I've been totally satisfied with pfSense for
> over a decade, but am now considering moving to a straight OpenBSD/pf
> setup, or pfSense's competitor OPNsense, or even switch to a Linux
> firewall with IPTables, which I've always thought to be a multi-acre
> field of sharply thorned brambles.
> 
> Anyone else getting jittery about pfSense?
> 
> SteveT
> 
> Steve Litt 
> June 2019 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/thrive <http://www.troubleshooters.com/thrive>
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