I gave up on this once I took a look inside the memstick image and compared it to the upgrade image.  the memstick contains an ISO, the upgrade contains a tar image of a viable filesystem.  I had a known working  memstick available, so I slicked the box and reinstalled that way, then added back my config file and was on my way. of course reverting that way doesn't scale, you need local access.  I did figure out where to upload a backup to have it recognized in the web ui, but wasn't sure if trying to roll back a release would succeed from that route.

@dillstone: We've got several of the netgate 2g and 4g nano installs. I haven't been able to get any of them to upgrade directly to 2.2 or 2.2.4 from 2.01 and 2.03.  I've been having to take a spare firewall and configure it, and then swap or crack the case with a pre-imaged CF. The auto-upgrade gets stuck looking for the root device and I've poured over this and other forums trying to figure out why. I haven't tried slow-stepping up the upgrade like you mentioned. Interesting, I have a spare unit too, I'll try the direct jump on this to 2.2.4 and see what happens, does yours allow you to revert back to 2.0.1 in case of a failed upgrade ?

I managed to get growfs to actually operate correctly without giving me a "Operation not permitted". Primer: Running 2.2.4 4G nano on 32 GB CF card I had to umount /dev/ufs/cf  . Once I did that I could run growfs with no error

Thanks for all the input guys.  First of all, I'm not sure what brand the router is. It was sold as a generic on eBay. It came setup and included a cable for serial communication. I confirmed it was a cross over cable by checking the pins.  I have reached out to the seller and he has not responded. I think I'll just open a ticket with eBay. Thanks again for all your help guys. You have been super in my humble opinion. [image: Router.JPG] [image: Router.JPG_thumb]

@muswellhillbilly: It's best to remove any installed packages before upgrading and re-install afterwards. https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Upgrade_Guide One suggestion would be to build a separate, upgraded machine, restore your base config to that (without packages). Then install and configure Bind and pfBlocker and swap the machines over when you have a moment of agreed downtime. Thank you for the link. I seemed to miss that bit. In the past the auto-upgrade 'just worked' and I wrongly assumed that'd be the case here given the upgrade was a low risk. @dotdash: Go to diagnostics, backup/restore and clear the package lock. Then go to system, packages and re-install any broken packages. This worked! Thank you.

NOYB, I got it. I just needed to translate it to the Zyxel interface. You were very helpful and extremely clear. Thanks

Usually these types of boot errors are due to computer BIOS issues.  If there is nothing for you to change then you are out of luck.  Try a different PC.

@Ryu945: Kingston [image: 5pNO1xY.jpg]

If you want to play it safe, I'd go for the second choice. That way you have a rollback option if the new hardware gives you any grief.

You can backup the IPSEC part of the config, modify the XML for each site and restore it to each box.

I too had an issue with installing pkg. Turns out I was just impatient and terminated the job before the update could complete. I just had to run a "pkg update -f" to get the info from the repo, then I could ACTUALLY see the packages available. HOWEVER, I am running into an issue where I dont have enough free space on a brand new installation (using stock 1gb card). Literally need 1mb to download flashrom package. Any way to allocate the remaining space from /cf to rootfs? All I need to do is flash the bios so I can use the hdd I have laying here, but it wont boot without the bios being updated iirc. edit Guess I should specify that I am running on a Watchguard XTM 5 series Firewall with upgraded CPU/Ram. edit2 Re-wrote the image to the CF card and installed flashrom first off, went without a hitch.

added to all that, Buechler's book is surly talking about 'updates' …. just apply  ;)

You should re-install pfSense completely. The reason you see the main page only is that you are logged in with a restricted username/password combination which doesn't give you access to all areas, only traffic shaper. Are you able to download a backup config from it?

What type of hardware are you running this on?

how did you manage to get to 2.2.2 ? the latest stable release = 2.2.4

[image: 60905694.jpg]

Good to hear you got it going. For the record, you ought not be able to ping the outside interface from inside the LAN anyway, at least not with the default firewall rules. The fact that your two internal hosts can't ping one another despite being on the same LAN is odd, but if it isn't causing you any problem then I guess it's all good.

@jimp: Your screenshot does not show where you set the suggested variable. Also, settings in loader.conf.local only apply at boot time, so after altering the file you must reboot the firewall. I have set in the loader.conf and restarted the firewall. but the set value does not appear when i typed the command sysctl vm. [image: boot11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111.png] [image: boot11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111.png_thumb]