I saw a diagram for a network. After the default gateway the next device was labeled “Router or Firewall”, meaning it could be either device. After that device (whichever they end up choosing) they had divided the network into two subnets with a switch on one and a WAP on the other.
So my question:
Would a computer w/ pfsense on it be considered a “hardware fire wall”, “router”, or computer with firewall software acting as some crazy uber router???
Also, would a pfsense box work as a good candidate for that second device?
A computer running pfsense would not be a hardware firewall. A hardware firewall is a piece of equipment that has firmware embedded onto a (usually) custom designed system board. Think Cisco PIX, or any of the myriad of other vendors that offer a true hardware based firewall solution.
With enough interfaces pfsense could be turned into a poor man's router. In the sense that you could set up multiple vlans and at least one DMZ. However to my knowledge pfsense won't act like a traditional network router would. However if I'm mistaken someone please correct me.
It's a software firewall and a router and a bunch of other stuff (dns, dhcp etc.) so I guess you could go with option three - das uber router.
In pfsense you can use the firewall to decide what traffic is able to be passed between the networks connected to it. Whereas if it were just a router then traffic could move freely between the networks. Basically like a switch, except where a switch uses mac addresses to switch traffic a router uses IP addresses.
Or at least that's my understanding of it I don't have any experience with any 'real' network hardware.