If it can run NanoBSD, it can probably run a full install. As long as it's 64-bit hardware and can boot from USB to run the installer. As for the /tmp and /var bit, if you look at System > Advanced on the Miscellaneous tab there you will find the option to place /tmp and /var in RAM disks. The vast majority of the writes on pfSense are in /tmp and /var to temporary volatile status files or logs, and placing those in RAM disks will prevent those writes from wearing out your drives.

By the way. I was forced into reinstalling because my installation broke when I restored a config I had created only minutes before. The backup config.xml included RRD data and after the restore I got a message saying some specific line from the RRD data wasn't allowed twice in the config. (Something like that, I don't remember exactly what the message was and I found no duplicated lines in the file anyway.) After this the WEB GUI was completely down and my pfSense was offline. Restarting the machine didn't help. There was no way left to restore another (older or repaired) config.xml. Login with ssh was possible but even other options in the console menu didn't work. Due to being offline I had no opportunity to ask the community how to resolve this. So I reinstalled the system using the most current version I had available locally which was a 2.4.0 BETA. Lessons learned: Prefer the config history feature to revert to previous settings over restoring a config file. Don't backup RRD data, feature is broken anyway. Run pfSense with zfs. Even with no redundancy (1 ssd in the system) this still provides snapshots on a system level in case restoring a config.xml doesn't work. Create snapshots regularly. Have an installation image available locally for the current and at least one previous pfSense version (even if the system got updated online).

@Qinn: (…) btw Maybe it doesn't matter, but I have noticed that after the upgrade to 2.4.1 the beep, when you login, is back (I remember disabling it). (...) https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Disable_Sounds/Beeps

https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/zfs-zpool.html

It worked perfectly for me. But having a backup of your config somewhere can never be a bad idea…..!

Yeah - Its nice to be able to put hands on it or have someone handy who will do it for you. Years ago, you could downgrade with the same update gui you used to upgrade.  Later they improved things, so that doesn't work anymore. I suspect they could make it possible if they wanted.

"Do you have any idea what this could be" Hmmm – let me look deep into my crystal ball... Nope must be on the fritz... How about you actually give us some details of what you changed.. "After the creation of some VLAN's in PFsense" Since your running on esxi.. Did you change the setting the vswitch from 0 to 4095 if your going to be passing vlan tags?

Same problem here. Our firewall worked fine with pfSense 2.3.4. We use a firewall with 8 NICs: igb0: <intel(r) 1000="" pro="" network="" connection,="" version="" -="" 2.5.3-k="">igb1: <intel(r) 1000="" pro="" network="" connection,="" version="" -="" 2.5.3-k="">igb2: <intel(r) 1000="" pro="" network="" connection,="" version="" -="" 2.5.3-k="">igb3: <intel(r) 1000="" pro="" network="" connection,="" version="" -="" 2.5.3-k="">igb4: <intel(r) 1000="" pro="" network="" connection,="" version="" -="" 2.5.3-k="">igb5: <intel(r) 1000="" pro="" network="" connection,="" version="" -="" 2.5.3-k="">igb6: <intel(r) 1000="" pro="" network="" connection,="" version="" -="" 2.5.3-k="">igb7: <intel(r) 1000="" pro="" network="" connection,="" version="" -="" 2.5.3-k="">After updating to 2.4.1 we start to have problem on NIC igb2 and igb3, connected to switches Allied X510. NICs igb4, igb5 and igb6 are connected to external routers and they work fine. Deactivating and reactivating NICs igb2 and igb3, they start working fine. Restarting the firewall the problem, sometimes, returns. Thanks for you help Giovanni</intel(r)></intel(r)></intel(r)></intel(r)></intel(r)></intel(r)></intel(r)></intel(r)>

Hi Juve, No idea why that sentence is there. Will remove it, thanks.

Same problem here. But the solution above doesn't work for me. (No lagg in config.xml, adapting vtnet0 accordingly, leads to unassigned interfaces on reboot, when replacing all occurencies accordingly. Manually chaniging only the vlan und pppoe sections does not help either - interfaces assignment works again, but pppoe still does not.) The PPPoE Client ceased working right after upgrading from 2.4.0 to 2.4.1. Furthermore - with a backup default gateway, manually configured - package updates fail. e.g. a shell dependency of freeradius3: https://pkg.pfsense.org/pfSense_v2_4_1_amd64-pfSense_v2_4_1/All/bash-4.4.12_2.txz Despite name resolution is working here I see a „host not found“ message. I also tried to manually download that from a different client (with wget) and through an LTE connection. All the same pkg.pfsense.org does not exist. For the PPPoE problem - reinstalled 2.4.1 from it's clean CE iso, restored the config - same error. I reconfigured the pppoe connections from the scratch - same error behaviour. BTW, there is even more: MTU settings are missing on the "Advanced and MLPPP" tab. I used to have baby jumbo frames configured there. For the logs: System logs/PPP show setting the MTU, a try to connect and no data. Just as when using the wrong vlan. I reverted to a virtual disk of 2.3.x - worked all well. I guess 2.4.1 didn't receive sufficient testing. Blame on me.

It just so happens that I did install using ZFS. However, I did not take any snapshots beforehand so I guess I'm screwed there as well… I wonder, is there a way to upgrade again from the local console "over" the non-working version to the next development update? That is to say, would it be possible (and equally as important, easy for a newcomer) to grab the update from another machine connected to the network, throw it on a USB and then run the upgrade on the locally accessible PFsense box? I figure maybe subsiquent upgrades might "patch over" the issue.

https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=138804.0

Anyone have any additional thoughts on this? I have 3 DQ77KB routers built, 1 i3, 1 Pentium, and this other i3  - this i3 is the only one stuck on the ATA3 ATAPCI0 line on the installation boot. Anyone have any thoughts? Seems crazy that this board isnt working.

After reinstalling the squid package twice the issue seems to have been resolved.

Understood, I figured it might be something like that. I tried doing an (actual) clean install, then restoring XML, but had same issue.  I tried both using backup WITH and WITHOUT package data included.  Ran into the same problem both times. I decided to give up on it and just did a clean install and then rebuilt the configuration from scratch.  Not ideal but faster than trying to continue to troubleshoot. Thanks for the suggestion.

Happy to see you're back up!

Did that, and also followed the suggestion on https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=47765.msg638542#msg638542 Removed also the config.xml entries that was still here. Will see if the problem still occur at 11PM. Thanks for that  ;D