does learning pf help setup pfsense?
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new to pfsense, I work in it and have done other things/firewalls. I picked up a pf book and started reading thinking it would help with getting the config the way I wanted for my network (home lab and the only things my gf wants, streaming and getting online from her laptop). from what I've seen/read, the install is pretty straight forward. of course the real work is being able to tweak things they way I want. am I wasting time reading a book on pf and should just start using pfsense now or is there value in reading the pf now?
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i guess it depends on the book ...
if the book explains what to expect from stateful firewalls and how things work in an abstract way, then it might be useful if you are into that stuff.i doubt it'll be of much help when installing & configuring pfSense as a end-user for 99% of the time.
When you go into the advanced 1% or want to start debugging or bugfixing pfSense, then that book might come in handy
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@tsawyer I've been using pfSense for about 8 years and have helped out here on & off for more than 6 years. I've never read a pf book and don't think it would be that useful to you except as an intellectual exercise. You almost never need to work with pf directly from cli.
Do your basic setup step by step. Get one thing working at a time. Make one change at a time. Figure out generally what you want to accomplish and then read up/watch video or ask here how to do it. A lot of new users make the mistake of deciding (incorrectly) how to do it and then asking specific questions to get them to the inferior result.
