The basic firewall configuration begins with connecting the Netgate® applianceto the Internet. The Netgate appliance should be unplugged at this time.
Connect one end of an Ethernet cable to the WAN port (shown in theInput and Output Ports section) of the Netgate appliance. The other end of the samecable should be inserted into a LAN port on the ISP Customer Premise Equipment(CPE) device, such as a cable or fiber router. If the CPE device provided by theISP has multiple LAN ports, any LAN port should work in most circ*mstances.
Next, connect one end of a second Ethernet cable to the LAN port (shown in theInput and Output Ports section) of the Netgate appliance. Connect the other end tothe computer.
What next?¶
To connect to the GUI and configure the firewall in a browser, continue on toInitial Configuration.
To connect to the console and make adjustments before connecting to the GUI, seeConnecting to the USB Console Port.
Warning
The default IP Address on the LAN subnet on the Netgate firewall is192.168.1.1/24. The same subnet cannot be used on both WAN and LAN,so if the default IP address on the ISP-supplied modem is also192.168.1.1/24, disconnect the WAN interface until the LAN interfaceon the firewall has been renumbered to a different subnet (like192.168.2.1/24) to avoid an IP Address conflict.
To change an interface IP address, choose option 2 from the ConsoleMenu and walk through the steps to change it, or fromthe GUI, go through the Setup Wizard (opens at first boot, also found atSystem > Setup Wizard) and change the IP address on Step 5. Complete theWizard and save the changes.
