PFSense Shell Command Line

jemu · Dec 13, 2018, 11:23 AM

How powerful is pfSense shell command line ? Is possible to do whatever we do in the Web Gui (such as vlan creation, setting up firewall rules etc etc) in pfSense shell command line.
For example in cisco routers/switches we have IOS commands which make Network Administrators masters and cisco routers/switches become slaves. Do we have similar in pfSense. If the answer is yes where can I get those commands for pfSense

Gertjan · Dec 13, 2018, 12:02 PM

No.

The pfSense shell :

pfSense - Netgate Device ID: 20cc46dfabc85c78e087

*** Welcome to pfSense 2.4.4-RELEASE-p1 (amd64) on pfsense ***

 0) Logout (SSH only)                  9) pfTop
 1) Assign Interfaces                 10) Filter Logs
 2) Set interface(s) IP address       11) Restart webConfigurator
 3) Reset webConfigurator password    12) PHP shell + pfSense tools
 4) Reset to factory defaults         13) Update from console
 5) Reboot system                     14) Disable Secure Shell (sshd)
 6) Halt system                       15) Restore recent configuration
 7) Ping host                         16) Restart PHP-FPM
 8) Shell

Option 8 - is a classic shell.
Cisco uses IOS commands, pfSense has a GUI.
With the Cisco GUI (if it has one) you couldn't do all the things you can do with the IOS commands.
pfSense : the other way around.

"Option 8" exists to see the OS file system and to interact with, start some basic or complex "FreeBSD" commands and yes, there are even some less known (and rarely used) made-by-pfSense scripts files.

You cant' manage pfSense purely from the command line.

See also threads like https://forum.netgate.com/topic/125603/cisco-vs-pfsense/9 (and Google can tell you more, as usual)