Where is the documentation?
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Derelict - Not necessarily. Some people, even with a fully complete manual in hand or a set of instructions just can't get things working.
Maybe he is like that?
Let him enjoy his SUSE Firewall/UTM (If there is such a thing)
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The doc wiki does need some updating but anyone who claims it lacks categorization or lacks in size is definitely trolling.
https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Special:Categories
98(!) different categories that can be used to lookup docs, and 490 different articles in total.
We are working to update much of the old stuff and add in some new things, but the book will always be the preferred reference. Some things lend themselves better to a book style, others lend themselves better to a wiki style. The two will always complement each other.
Some recent big updates:
https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/VPN_Capability_OpenVPN - OpenVPN Remote Access How-To updated for 2.1.x
https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Writing_Disk_Images - A complete rewrite of the instructions for writing disk images (e.g. memstick and NanoBSD)
https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Low_Throughput_Troubleshooting - An entirely new article on troubleshooting slow connections
https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Asymmetric_Routing_and_Firewall_Rules - A new article expanding info on dealing with asymmetric routing
https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Forcing_Interface_Speed_or_Duplex_Settings - Removing cruft from 1.2.x and bringing the info current
https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Filter_Log_Format_for_pfSense_2.2 - A doc detailing the precise format of the raw firewall log on 2.2And that's just a few of ones that I've created or updated in the last month, not counting all the updates by cmb plus a few community contributors.
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Dude was an iptables troll, dare I say dick.
I disagree. If you look at his other posts he made useful contributions to other threads. He expected a high level of documentation and for whatever reason he didn't find what he was looking for.
Steve
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I disagree. If you look at his other posts he made useful contributions to other threads. He expected a high level of documentation and for whatever reason he didn't find what he was looking for.
Steve
With all due respect, I concur with Derelict. In this particular topic, he was being a dick.
He states he's been doing this for 20 years, but he can't figure out the basics of installation and use without pristine docs? Then he whines because no one held his hand configuring a bunch of advanced stuff? Wants to do squid, squidguard with custom blacklists, captive portal, qos for voip, reverse proxy etc, but can't buy the book or take the time to learn? I suppose if I went to the opensuse site there would be a step by step walkthrough showing me how to do all of that stuff with the current version…
Sorry for the rant, but the guys attitude rubbed me the wrong way. -
derelict and dotdash can both go get over themselves. I was not being a troll or attempting to "be a dick". Well, at least not dotdash - derelict deserved the comment I made directly to him. Sorry that the two of you have less than stellar capabilities of understanding how to deal with the public and with potential customers.
The pfSense documentation is sorely lacking for 2.1.5. Period. I have raised up numerous times a couple of issues that I encountered with things like understanding dependencies for packages, uninstallation of packages failing with no way to seemingly correct it, and a got zero information from everyone that just keeps touting how "98 categories" of areas to look in the docs is supposed to be the end-all, be-all of documentation.
I am NOT familiar with BSD in any of its forms directly. I don't know the package model, I don't know if the filesystem follows LSB, I don't know who creates or maintains the individual packages, whether THEY conform to LSB, and there is NO DOCUMENTATION to take a new user through the full installation and configuration of the product.
Could I reverse engineer it at the file level? Sure. Will it take me a lot of time? Yep. See comments above.
The problem is that I've been snake-bitten plenty of times before by managing things directly at the file level and then having that break the web interface controls. Clearly, a lot of time has gone into the admin interface to abstract things away from what's going on under the hood. If I start rooting around down at the file level, my gut tells me I'm going to break the web interface controls for at least one particular item, and that defeats the purpose of looking for a product that has a great web interface.
With regard to the Cisco example: You apparently missed comments that I have made where I directly stated that having good online docs and a book that's even better is something I would be all for. I used some really good on line documents a long time ago to get my postfix mail servers configured exactly the way that I wanted them. Then, I went out and learned a ton more from one of the great books that was available.
Yeah… You've got a great community here. On top of having little in the way of documentation for the current version of the product, plenty of people to tell a potential user that they don't know what they're talking about, don't have a clue, and then start calling them names. Kudos to not just the members, but the admins that allow (and dare I say even encourage?) this sort of behavior.
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All I can say is that when I first looked at pfsense I was also not familiar with it, but somehow was able to make everything I need work.
The feeling I get is as if you are a windows user taking his first look at linux and being upset that its not windows.
Don't know what to say except that if your point is that there is a learning curve for advanced features, you are right.
I'm sure its the same with all projects and products.
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True, the wiki is not the end-all, be-all of documentation, and I didn't state that it was. It doesn't claim to be. But to say there is a lack of documentation is demonstrably incorrect. Between the wiki and book and other resources inside the GUI and around the forum there is a lot of documentation.
It may not have been the exact documents you were looking for, but plenty of documentation does exist.
The reason you're not getting info on how to fix your package issues here in this thread is that is not the topic of this thread and it's also not in the packages forum. Post a single question in its own thread in the right place and you'll probably get a relevant response.
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Yes, the documentation is lacking. Point taken. But there is a lot of documentation for 2.1x that is still valid. I maintain, that for someone with firewall experience, the install and basic configuration are not overly complex. I also think that when you require advanced features, you need to invest some time in research and testing, and maybe some money to buy a good reference book. pfSense is primarily a firewall, and UTM features are outside of 90+% of common installs, so docs and forum help on those topics are going to be particularly sparse. Perhaps something like Untangle (is it still called that?) would be a better fit. Designed for UTM, and Linux based to boot.
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I look at it this way. If I can make all that stuff work on pfsense (and I have), anyone can.
I just used the online documentation, and some youtube video and a little experimentation.
I've never seen the book. I'm sure it would have made things easier though.
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You can expect the documentation to get even better as time goes on, as we get bigger and bring on more personnel and have more time to focus on documentation once we're not all constantly overloaded providing support. It's an ongoing never-ending process. It's good enough for most, but there will always be gaps. Especially in troubleshooting since it's very unpredictable.
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Yeah… You've got a great community here. On top of having little in the way of documentation for the current version of the product, plenty of people to tell a potential user that they don't know what they're talking about, don't have a clue, and then start calling them names. Kudos to not just the members, but the admins that allow (and dare I say even encourage?) this sort of behavior.
There is a saying… "If you run into a jerk in the morning, well he was just a jerk. If you run into jerks all day long, you're the jerk."
You came storming into the forum with nothing but complaints. The people here help others free of charge on their own time, and you managed to pretty much alienate all of us with your attitude. The admins here have been nothing but nice to you, but others are responsible for their own comments. You don't take any responsibility for your end in this unfortunate exchange. You have a chip on your shoulder and I don't see how that helps you get ahead.
Considering how all the docs are poor, the product itself is inscrutable and the forum members are hostile snobs, I wouldn't expect to see you still around.
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Yep. All my fault. Got it.
Guess the posts that I put before this one and all of the direct forum searches and searches via Google don't really matter.
Hey, Admins…kill my account. I won't bother returning.
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yes oddly enough your first post 5 days ago (https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=83065.msg454681#msg454681), only got 5 replies with suggestions.
then you decided not to continue that thread.then you started this thread to blame the entire community, for having crappy documentation.
then you are surprised that you are being called a troll.
sorry for
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There is something I would wish for:
I wish there was a automatic server that builds a PDF of the https://doc.pfsense.org site.
This way you can have a more or less up to date offline documentation of pfSense available to download whenever you want.
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Interesting suggestion. I bet there's a 'wiki downloader' of something similar that would do it, probably better. It might even be syncable.
Steve
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Would this do ? http://www.httrack.com/
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Would this do ? http://www.httrack.com/
No. This just downloads a website which wget can do.
Something fully automated by a server that makes a organized PDF document on the fly.
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It's the sort of thing I would expect to exist but a quick google doesn't show much that's promising. The search gets bogged down by code to download the whole of wikipedia though. ::)
Steve
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It's the sort of thing I would expect to exist but a quick google doesn't show much that's promising. The search gets bogged down by code to download the whole of wikipedia though. ::)
Steve
Sadly, I think it would have to be created inhouse by pfSense. And its not that easy to implement.
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There are mediawiki plugins to generate such a document on the server side, though I'm not sure if it would be a good idea to implement or not. People might mistake that for the actual book. Not to mention it would take quite a bit of space/cpu time to generate.
