Suricata and Netmap

The OPNsense IDPS implementation is based on the Suricata project, a truly open source I(DP)S that's supported by the Open Information Security Foundation (OISF). Suricata is an excellent open source NIDS solution with superb support for signatures from companies such as Proofpoint, for example. On OPNsense, Suricata has Netmap support, which means fewer CPU resource requirements to detect threats, which results in good performance. The Netmap framework is driver-dependent, and it is essential to check whether the network device that's being used supports it before activating a feature that uses Netmap. In this chapter, we will do that while enabling IPS mode.

Note

We discussed how to implement Netmap in OPNsense in Chapter 2, Installing OPNsense. There, you can find the Netmap devices that are supported on FreeBSD.

The OPNsense project steps closer to the OISF, so you can always expect a better Suricata implementation on it. The Suricata and...