pfSense Digest

In a couple weeks, several of the developers will be coming together here in Louisville for another Hackathon, where we get together and work on various things related to the project for a week, as we’ve done approximately every 18 months since the project’s inception. This year we’ll have 7 developers, from 4 different continents. There isn’t a set agenda, though 2.1 release and IPv6 will be two items (of many) of focus. We like to make sure we can feed everyone, and provide coffee, beer, etc. for 7 days. Plus we’ve covered some travel expenses.

Whether you can just spare a few bucks for a fine beverage at Heine Brothers or Highland Coffee (both of which should be sponsors with the amount we spend there in a week), or enough for a few dozen pizzas, every bit helps!

Donate Here

Thanks!

After our coming session at EuroBSDCon 2011, we are planning to host a session in the US this year. It will be either one or two full days, and I’m leaning towards two but open to suggestions. It would likely be held in our home base of Louisville, KY, easily reachable by air or road.

In our past training sessions at BSDCan and EuroBSDCon, we’ve had between 15 and 70 people. This year looks like we’ll have about 40 at EuroBSDCon. We will have to charge more than the BSD conferences charge for a single tutorial, as they have sponsors who help cover the costs involved. I don’t know how much yet though. I need to get some kind of an idea of how many would attend, so I know what kind of venue. We won’t be selling out the Yum Center with 22,000 seats, but I’m not sure if we need space for 10 or 50. I would limit it to some reasonably low number, like 75 at most and maybe less. If this is something you would definitely travel to attend (depending on dates, cost), let me know in the comments or email.

Live streaming

Some people just can’t afford to travel, so we’ll also do what we can to provide live streaming, or at a minimum it will definitely be recorded for later purchase. Streaming capabilities may be dependent on the facility. We do have multiple 4G cards with pretty impressive performance, so that should suffice if nothing else. I expect we will find a way to offer this via live streaming on the Internet available for purchase. Those people will not be able to interact like those in person, simply watch and listen, and we’d probably bring up a special IRC channel for it.

To get an email when these things get finalized, make sure you’re on our announcements mailing list.

Thanks!

I’m proud to announce the release of version 2.0. This brings the past three years of new feature additions, with significant enhancements to almost every portion of the system. The changes and new features are summarized here. This is by far the most widely deployed release we’ve put out, thanks to the efforts of thousands of members of the community. We also have hundreds of customer systems that have been running 2.0 in production for months and years in some cases. More than 108,000 unique IPs have downloaded snapshots in 2011 from snapshots.pfsense.org alone, not counting downloads from the mirrors.

Upgrade considerations

It is very important to read the upgrade guide before performing an upgrade.

Download

Files for new installs available here on the mirrors.

NOTE: With 2.0 release and newer versions, we’re now also building the oft-requested nanobsd embedded version with VGA! You’ll find alternate builds with VGA in the filename, which are the VGA-enabled versions. Only use these on hardware with VGA video. The regular serial version must be used on all hardware that has only a serial port, like the popular PC Engines and Soekris models amongst others, as they will not boot or function correctly otherwise.

Update files for upgrades available here on the mirrors.

Documentation

Every page in 2.0 has a help link via the question mark on the top left of each page, which takes you to a page on the documentation site with information pertaining to that screen. Almost every page links to some level of detail, and that will be growing by the day in the weeks and months to come.

There is a growing amount of documentation available in the 2.0 category of the documentation site. An updated book is in the works, but no release date yet determined. More info on that will come soon. Currently the best source of info in the world on the project is still our existing book, and the updated information available via help links in the web interface and the 2.0 category. Much more to come.

Training

We’re having a full day 2.0 training session at EuroBSDCon 2011 on October 6. We’re also in the planning stages of a one or two full day training session to be held in the US, probably in our home base of Louisville.

Credits

This release is the result of years of work from dozens of people on the development alone, plus thousands who have helped with testing snapshots.  Most importantly are those who financially support the project. As I will cover more in a future post, this release would have never happened if not for having adequate financial support to employ multiple people full time to work on the project. Hundreds of companies have contributed and we’re very grateful for their support. I would like to thank our largest supporters here individually.

• Netgate – hardware resellers of pre-installed pfSense systems
• Hacom -  hardware resellers of pre-installed pfSense systems
• ApplianceShop - hardware resellers of pre-installed pfSense systems

Helping the project

There are many ways you can help the project, detailed on the website. Our biggest need is money to keep people employed working on the project. We’re currently in need of contributions for IPv6 development in 2.1, and more immediately, we’re having Hackathon 2011 in a couple weeks, bringing developers from around the world together in Louisville. Please help cover our expenses for both of these by donating today.

Thank you!