Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised May 30, 2026

PacketFence

PacketFence is an open-source network access control (NAC) system that provides the following features: registration, detection of abnormal network activities, proactive vulnerability scans, isolation of problematic devices, remediation through a captive portal, 802.1X, wireless integration and User-Agent / DHCP fingerprinting.

Last revised
May 30, 2026
Read time
≈ 1 min
Length
300 w
Citations
1
Source
PacketFence
DeveloperCommunity headed by Inverse Inc.
Initial releaseDecember 22, 2004 (2004-12-22)
Stable release
14.0.0 / September 6, 2024 (2024-09-06)
Written inPerl, Golang, JavaScript
Operating systemLinux
Size14.2MB
TypeNetwork access control
LicenseGNU General Public License
Websitepacketfence.org
Repository

PacketFence is an open-source network access control (NAC) system that provides the following features: registration, detection of abnormal network activities, proactive vulnerability scans, isolation of problematic devices, remediation through a captive portal, 802.1X, wireless integration and User-Agent / DHCP fingerprinting.

The company that develops PacketFence, Inverse Inc. was acquired by Akamai Technologies on February 1, 2021.1

PacketFence version 10 supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and its derivatives, notably CentOS, and Debian Stretch. Inverse Inc. has also been releasing a version of PacketFence dubbed the "Zero Effort NAC", a standalone virtual appliance with a preconfigured PacketFence installation for easy NAC deployment.

PacketFence version 11 added support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and it's derivatives, notably CentOS, and Debian Bullseye.

Further reading

Further reading

References

References

  1. "Akamai Technologies, Inc. Acquires Inverse". www.packetfence.org. Retrieved 2021-06-22.
External links