PacketFence is a fully supported, trusted, Free and Open Source network access control (NAC) system.PacketFence can be used to effectively secure networks – from small to very large heterogeneous networks.

Boasting an impressive feature set including a captive-portal for registration and remediation, centralized wired and wireless management, 802.1X support, layer-2 isolation of problematic devices, integration with IDSs and vulnerability scanners.

Features:

• Out of band Deployment

  PacketFence’s operation is completely out-of-band which allows the solution to scale geographically and to be more resilient to failures. When using the right technology (like port security), a single PacketFence server can be used to secure hundreds of switches and many thousands nodes connected to them..

• Inline Deployment

  While out-of-band is the preferred way of deploying PacketFence, an inline mode is also supported for unmanageable wired or wireless equipment. Deploying PacketFence using the inline mode can also be accomplished in minutes! Note also that the inline mode can coexist very well together with an out-of-band deployment.

• 802.1X Support

  Wireless and wired 802.1X is supported through a FreeRADIUS [External] module which is included in PacketFence.

• Voice over IP support

  – Also called IP Telephony (IPT), VoIP is fully supported (even in heterogeneous environments) for multiple switch vendors (Cisco, Edge-Core, HP, LinkSys, Nortel Networks and many more).

• Wireless integration

  PacketFence integrates perfectly with wireless networks through a FreeRADIUS [External] module. This allows you to secure your wired and wireless networks the same way using the same user database and using the same captive portal, providing a consistent user experience. Mixing access points (AP) vendors and wireless controllers is supported.

• Registration of Devices

  PacketFence supports an optional registration mechanism similar to “captive portal” solutions. Contrary to most captive portal solutions, PacketFence remembers users who previously registered and will automatically give them access without another authentication. Of course, this is configurable. An Acceptable Use Policy can be specified such that users cannot enable network access without first accepting it.

• Detection of abnormal network activities

  Abnormal network activities (computer virus, worms, spyware, traffic denied by establishment policy, etc.) can be detected using local and remote Snort [External], Suricata or commercial sensors. Beyond simple detection, PacketFence layers its own alerting and suppression mechanism on each alert type. A set of configurable actions for each violation is available to administrators.

• Proactive vulnerability scans

  Nessus [External] or OpenVAS [External] vulnerability scans can be performed upon registration, scheduled or on an ad-hoc basis. PacketFence correlates the Nessus/OpenVAS vulnerability ID’s of each scan to the violation configuration, returning content specific web pages about which vulnerability the host may have.

• Statement of Health

  While doing a 802.1X user authentication, PacketFence can perform a complete posture assessment of the connecting device using the TNC Statement of Health protocol. For example, PacketFence can verify if an antivirus is installed and up-to-date, if operating system patches are all applied and much more – all without any agent installed on the endpoint device!

• Remediation through a captive portal

  Once trapped, all network traffic is terminated by the PacketFence system. Based on the nodes current status (unregistered, open violation, etc), the user is redirected to the appropriate URL. In the case of a violation, the user will be presented with instructions for the particular situation he/she is in, reducing costly help desk intervention.

• Isolation of problematic devices

  PacketFence supports several isolation techniques, including VLAN isolation with VoIP support (even in heterogeneous environments) for multiple switch vendors.

• Command-line and Web-based management

  Web-based and command-line interfaces for all management tasks. Web-based administration supports different permission-levels for users and authentication of users against LDAP or Microsoft Active Directory.

Advanced Features:

• Flexible VLAN Management and Role-Based Access Control
• Guest Access – Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
• Portal Profiles
• More Built-in Violation Types
• Automatic Registration
• PKI and EAP-TLS Support
• Expiration
• Device Management
• Firewall Integration
• Bandwidth Accounting
• Floating Network Devices
• Flexible Authentication
• Microsoft Active Directory Integration
• Routed Networks
• Gradual Deployment
• Pass-Through
• High-Availability
• Supported Hardware
• Standards-Based
• Extensible / Easily Customizable

Minimum Hardware Requirements

The following provides a list of the minimum server hardware recommendations:

• Intel or AMD CPU 3GHz
• 8 GB of RAM
• 100 GB of disk space(RAID-1 recommended)
• 1 Network card (2 recommended)

PacketFence reuses many components in an infrastructure. Thus, it requires the following ones:

• Database server (MySQL or MariaDB)
• Webserver (Apache)
• DHCP server (ISCDHCP)
• RADIUS server (FreeRADIUS)

Depending on your setup you may have to install additional components like:

• NIDS(Snort/Suricata)