Improves Resilience and Manageability for Rapidly Expanding User Base

March 9, 2021 (AUSTIN, TX) Netgate, the leading provider of open-source secure networking solutions, today announced its latest version of TNSR software, Release 21.03. TNSR is a high-performance software router based on FD.io’s Vector Packet Processing (VPP), of which Netgate is a leading contributor. TNSR moves beyond VPP’s extraordinary packet processing performance by integrating it with other open-source technology including Free Range Routing (FRR), strongSwan, Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK), and more to provide a turnkey high-performance software router which enables businesses and service providers to address today’s edge networking needs far less expensively than with legacy brand solutions.

Release 21.03 adds numerous system resilience and manageability improvements driven by over 1,750 new users who have downloaded the product since Netgate commercially reset the product back in September 2020. Customers are exercising the product in both labs and production environments - which often exposes necessary configuration, monitoring and deployment refinements for a rapidly-evolving networking infrastructure product.

A few of the more noteworthy improvements that users will recognize and appreciate include:

  • The command line interface (CLI) now includes an option to show configuration contents as a set of CLI commands
  • The product’s dataplane now enables users to allow-list / configure individual VMbus/NetVSC devices, sets the default maximum transmission unit (MTU) to 1500 bytes and is updated to VPP Release 21.01
  • The system diagnostics tool has been expanded to support a much richer set of commands and outputs
  • Asynchronous cryptography infrastructure in VPP is now enabled for IPsec
  • The new router plug-in interacts more smoothly with DHCP server implementation, enabling output features such as NAT and ACL to be applied to packets directly from a host

Additional improvements to the operation of DHCP, DNS, NAT, RESTConf have been incorporated.

“Since our last release in October 2020, our TNSR user base has more than doubled”, said Jim Thompson, CTO. “The sheer growth in users allows us to more rapidly sharpen the features and functionality of a high-performance software router - especially where high resilience and manageability are concerned. This release marks another significant product improvement for both our current and future customers.”

TNSR is available for deployment on Netgate’s SG-5100, XG-1537, XG-1541 appliances; as a bare metal image for non-Netgate appliances and virtual machines; as software instances on AWS and Microsoft Azure Marketplaces; and from AWS Solution Providers and Microsoft Azure partners. Additionally, for users who would like to use or evaluate TNSR prior to commercial deployment, a fully-featured, free Home + Lab instance is available here.

For more information on Release 21.03 see our associated blog. To learn more about TNSR in general, visit tnsr.com. For additional questions, contact Netgate at +1 (512) 646-4100, or sales@netgate.com.

About Netgate

Netgate is dedicated to developing and providing secure networking solutions to businesses, government and educational institutions around the world. Netgate is the only provider of pfSense® products, which include pfSense software - the world’s leading open-source firewall, router, and VPN solution. TNSR extends the company’s open-source leadership and expertise into high-performance secure networking – capable of delivering compelling value at a fraction of the cost of proprietary solutions.

Netgate is a registered trademark of Rubicon Communications, LLC in the United States. TNSR is a registered trademark of Rubicon Communications, LLC in the United States and other countries. pfSense is a registered trademark of Electric Sheep Fencing, LLC in the United States and other countries.

All other brands or product names are the property of their respective holders.