Book on PFSense 2.0
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I know that this book is the one advertised by PFSense
http://www.amazon.com/pfSense-Definitive-Christopher-M-Buechler/dp/0979034280/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1307466387&sr=8-1However, it's a bit older and a lot has changed in 2.0. There is this book called PFSense 2 Cookbook
http://www.amazon.com/pfSense-2-Cookbook-Matt-Williamson/dp/1849514860/ref=pd_sim_b_2
But I don't know it's quality… Anyone have an idea? My CEO is going to buy the book for me and I want to make sure I get the one that is most up to date but still high quality.
Any thoughts?
THanks.
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I recommend you get your CEO to purchase version 1.2.3 rather than PfSense 2 Cookbook, because it would give you a better understanding of the OS. Version 2.0 is still in Beta and a lot of things are changing as you can see in these forums. If you do decide to buy the Cookbook it will be outdated before the final OS is released and you would have no choice but to buy the official book once its released.
Sleeps
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Really? I never used 1.2.3 however, I've heard they are entirely different. I've SSH'd into the box and edited some stuff via the XMl rather than the webgui and it didn't seem to be too much I could do at the OS level?
Or is this where I'm mistaken and why I should purchase the book? I'm sure he would purchase both if I needed it. So that's what I'm going to do unless someone else has a difference of opinion. Plus.. I don't mind helping support such a great project.
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The definitive guide is a book that's worth having even if your not using pfSense at all! It does have references to 2.0 features.
See this thread for opinions on the other book.Steve
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We will be putting out an updated book for 2.0.
A lot of the material in the 1.2.3 book still applies to 2.0. There have been a lot of additions, sure, but the fundamentals are still the same. The Definitive Guide was written by one of the pfSense project founders (Chris) and a pfSense Developer/Consultant (Me), so you are getting the information right from the project, with full understanding of the source and OS, not from someone who may not be quite as familiar with the system.
I have a copy of the 2.0 book you linked to, and it's sat on a shelf since my initial read of it. I still pull out the 1.2.3 book and refer to it several times a week (and I even wrote half of it ;-)
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Thank you :) That is what I needed to know.
So I will be ordering the 1.2.3 book & will purchase the 2.0 book when it comes out :)
Thanks for all your hard work on this stuff! It's much appreciated… My CEO just wanted an automatic WAN failover. When I was able to build one that did that, plus replace our old router/firewall, as well as do load balancing, traffic graphs, and all the other great stuff by using old hardware we already had, and not even having to pay for the software... Needless to say it got me some brownie points with my CEO for adding way more features than the requirements called for as well for doing it at a grand total cost of $0.00. So much appreciation and will try to show some love back by purchasing the official books written by members of the project.