Dictionary

WireGuard VPN

WireGuard is a communication protocol and free and open-source software that implements encrypted virtual private networks (VPNs), and was designed with the goals of ease of use, high speed performance, and low attack surface.

OPNcentral

Is a centralized management plugin, it utilizes OPNsense’s restAPI to offer a range of centralized features.

GeoIP database

Is a database that maps IP addresses to geographical locations, such as a country, city, or region.

AMD EPYC

Is a brand of multi-core x86-64 microprocessors designed and sold by AMD, based on the company’s Zen microarchitecture.

IPsec

Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) is a secure network protocol suite that authenticates and encrypts packets of data to provide secure encrypted communication between two computers over an Internet Protocol network.

FreeBSD

FreeBSD is an open source operating system based on UNIX. The source code of FreeBSD is open source, which means that anyone can view and edit this source code. The operating system is widely used in servers, mainframes, workstations & embedded computers.

OSI

The Open Source Initiative defines open source software as software that is distributed with human readable source code in order to allow the user freedom to run, review, alter, enhance and modify the code for any purpose.

Firewall

A firewall is a computer network security system that restricts Internet traffic to, from, or within a private network. This software or special hardware software unit works by selectively blocking or allowing data packets.

Forward caching proxy

When using a forward proxy configuration, Caching Proxy machines are located between the client and the Internet. Caching Proxy forwards a client’s request to content hosts located across the Internet, caches the retrieved data, and delivers the retrieved data to the client.

Traffic shaping

Traffic shaping is used to optimize or guarantee performance, improve latency, or increase usable bandwidth for some kinds of packets by delaying other kinds.

MVC framework

The Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework is an architectural/design pattern that separates an application into three main logical components Model, View, and Controller. Each architectural component is built to handle specific development aspects of an application.

Company

Open source makes sense

Our community plays a pivotal role in shaping the ongoing development of our open-source OPNsense Software products. With over 250,000 participants worldwide, our community is not just a collective; they’re our partners in progress. This collaborative and continuous pursuit of improvement is at the core of our ethos.

Proud open-source sponsor

We recognize the importance and power of Open Source and wholeheartedly commit to supporting and promoting it.

We value community feedback immensely, actively engaging with users to ensure our products evolve in tandem with the dynamic digital landscape. By leveraging community testing, we maintain a rapid pace of software updates, enabling us to respond swiftly to emerging threats and efficiently develop our roadmap.

Features

Features developed through community collaboration seamlessly integrate into our paid versions, guaranteeing regular updates and proactive threat response.

The feature set of OPNsense includes high-end features such as forward caching proxy, traffic shaping, intrusion detection and easy OpenVPN client setup. The latest release is based upon FreeBSD for long-term support and uses a newly developed MVC-framework based on Phalcon.

OPNsense’s focus on security brings unique features such as the integrated security check for known vulnerabilities, which can be found in our firmware module.

The robust and reliable update mechanism gives OPNsense the ability to provide important security updates in a timely fashion.

Our team

We are developers at heart with innovation at the basis of our design philosophy. We facilitate the further growth and support of our products with technical excellence and commitment.

Together with our core team and a large and active user community, we are the proud makers of the OPNsense brand, celebrating its open-source character.

Core Team Members

Franco Fichtner

An experienced software architect with avid interest in operating systems and firewalls.

Ad Schellevis

Consultant, developer and engineer with a focus on quality. First time right.

Jos Schellevis

A creative thinker with over 25 years of experience in networking and telecommunications.

Our license

OPNsense is licensed under an Open Source Initiative approved license. OPNsense is and will be available with the simple 2-clause BSD license. We believe an open source project should provide the sources and the tools to build it.

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