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    SOLVED: Upgrading from 2.2 RC

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • johnpozJ
      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @lewis
      last edited by

      @lewis I would if Steve is still around - he is the guru when it comes to stuff like getting pfsense installed on hardware.

      An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
      If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
      Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
      SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

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      • L
        lewis
        last edited by

        This post is deleted!
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        • L
          lewis
          last edited by

          I keep getting errors like 'forbidden' and not being allowed to share an image or links that are completely about this thread.

          I found this here but am not sure about the validity.

          http://mirror.transip.net/pfsense/downloads/

          md5.png

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          • NollipfSenseN
            NollipfSense @lewis
            last edited by

            @lewis said in Upgrading from 2.2 RC:

            I mentioned I don't have any way of knowing. My guess, 7-10 years old.

            Use Google or your favorite search engine; however, if it's 7 - 10yrs, I can tell you that the hardware in my signature was made in 2013 and is able to run pfSense 2.6 or plus no problem. Of course, I upgraded the hard drive to SSD and 32GB RAM. My latest pfSense private cloud implementation is a Dell Precision 3630MT made in 2018.

            pfSense+ 23.09 Lenovo Thinkcentre M93P SFF Quadcore i7 dual Raid-ZFS 128GB-SSD 32GB-RAM PCI-Intel i350-t4 NIC, -Intel QAT 8950.
            pfSense+ 23.09 VM-Proxmox, Dell Precision Xeon-W2155 Nvme 500GB-ZFS 128GB-RAM PCIe-Intel i350-t4, Intel QAT-8950, P-cloud.

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            • S
              skogs
              last edited by

              All of this is silly. If one doesn't have physical access to the device, one has no business loading anything on it.

              I get saving money. I get using old hardware. Of course old hardware will work.

              None of this matters though ... if it isn't the current firewall ... well eventually somebody needs to move wires around. Loading it remotely via kvm is neat...but you need to get access eventually. Best arrange physical access now. Dedicate a couple days to it. ...assuming we're volunteering somehow... as literally any time spent on site, and indeed your efforts thus far...should have far out-spent the cost of simply buying the right piece of hardware.

              Still...need to get physical access eventually...might as well do it now.

              Dobby_D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Dobby_D
                Dobby_ @skogs
                last edited by

                What is the price of two USB sticks as today?
                I got two of them, the

                SanDisk 64GB Ultra USB Flash Drive USB 3.0

                and the

                SanDisk 64GB Ultra USB Flash Drive USB 2.0

                each for 9 € over amazon.de. You can send them
                by postal express mail to the point where your pfSense
                is standing and it will be arriving in one or two days else where, pending on the given distance. As today it would be not the problem that someone is stitching it in and
                call you by phone.

                You should follow the tip from @stephenw10 and try out the vga image. There are three images out for installation.

                DVD ISO
                pfSense-CE-2.6.0-RELEASE-amd64.iso.gz

                USB (serial console)
                pfSense-CE-memstick-serial-2.6.0-RELEASE-amd64.img.gz

                USB (vga console)
                pfSense-CE-memstick-2.6.0-RELEASE-amd64.img.gz

                I would try out to save the config backup and then
                installing it new (fresh install) with 2.6 and play back
                the config.

                #~. @Dobby

                Turris Omnia - 4 Ports - 2 GB RAM / TurrisOS 7 Release (Btrfs)
                PC Engines APU4D4 - 4 Ports - 4 GB RAM / pfSense CE 2.7.2 Release (ZFS)
                PC Engines APU6B4 - 4 Ports - 4 GB RAM / pfSense+ (Plus) 24.03_1 Release (ZFS)

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                • stephenw10S
                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                  last edited by

                  The fact you are able to try booting an ISO remotely tells me you're using the SM IPMI. Is that true?

                  Booting from that has given problems in the past especially if the IPMI version on the unit is old.

                  My recommendation is to use the 2.6 memstick-vga image written to a USB drive local to the firewall. That's by far the most likely option to work.

                  Steve

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                  • JeGrJ
                    JeGr LAYER 8 Moderator @lewis
                    last edited by

                    @stephenw10 said in Upgrading from 2.2 RC:

                    Booting from that has given problems in the past especially if the IPMI version on the unit is old.

                    I'd assume that's the problem. I have an older box running around with an SM-IPMI and I never got remote ISO mounting running in the first place as it always broke half way through. So no, these aren't the most reliant and OP should really get a USB stick to the box and just run it from there!

                    @lewis said in Upgrading from 2.2 RC:

                    Why??? Why is netgate doing that? So much useful old hardware out there that can be used as firewalls.

                    I don't even understand your "why"? That note only said that the old live-iso is deprecated and vanished. But the normal ISO is still around and working just fine. Why get the panties in a knot over a stone-old live-CD ISO? Don't get it. As of those comments about so many hardware out there - yeah there is. So? Check if it's 64bit and the HW works with the current version, take your USB memstick with a 2.6 memstick image on it and bring them online! No one's deprecating old boxes besides those stone old 32bit only boxes or the one with bad MoBos that only ran in 32bit mode. Nothing to cry over.

                    Cheers

                    Don't forget to upvote 👍 those who kindly offered their time and brainpower to help you!

                    If you're interested, I'm available to discuss details of German-speaking paid support (for companies) if needed.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • L
                      lewis
                      last edited by

                      Panties in a knot? LOL. Talk about a childish statement. Please, take your drama to someone else's post.
                      The box is not 32bit, I shared the CPU info and what little info I have :).

                      Several of the things pointed out in the last few posts were already covered earlier. If they were not, simply ask for clarity and I'll be happy to respond.

                      I would try out to save the config backup and then
                      installing it new (fresh install) with 2.6 and play back
                      the config.

                      There is no config to save. This is an install issue. 2.6.0 was tried, as were several others all the way down to 1.2.3 out of curiosity at that point. 1.2.3 actually installed.

                      Not sure that anyone said usb sticks being too expensive. Usb sticks were tried. Someone mentioned using cheap sticks might cause a problem. The exact same problem shows up using virtual cdrom as well.

                      When you are remote to something, you have little choice but to count on what the folks who are physically there can do for you. My challenge is just trying to find a way to install pfsense onto an older server that for all intents and purposes should work.

                      I've been able to install pfsense on countless servers, old and new. Some fought me the entire time while some were just finicky but I've always had them physically. This is not the case so I have to work with that I've got.

                      BTW, the BIOS was fully upgraded yesterday and the problem remains.
                      The usb image also doesn't work. I might try one more time and share an image. I took several images but I lost track of which were what at this stage. I was using each at the time to try and remember what the installer was showing for errors. Happy to share those if anyone's interested.

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                      • stephenw10S
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by

                        You see the same error booting the 2.6 USB image from a local USB drive?

                        What devices are shown when you enter ? at the mountroot> prompt?

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                        • L
                          lewis @stephenw10
                          last edited by

                          @stephenw10 I didn't take any images of that since I could see the devices when using the question mark. A couple of them show pfsense images which makes sense since I had both a usb stick and cdrom mounted.

                          Using ufs/dev/xxx only lead to error 19 even if I was trying to use the correct device.

                          I think this thread is done. I'll try to share more if I get anything but at this point, there are people at the server working on it since I cannot do it from remote. I don't yet know if they will accomplish it but if they do, I'll ask for as much info as I can get. If they can't, the plan is to move to a newer server.

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                          • stephenw10S
                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                            last edited by

                            Ok. It will certainly be easier to accomplish locally.

                            Let us know what happens.

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                            • L
                              lewis
                              last edited by lewis

                              I mentioned that the ISO install loading was virtual media and not physical. The usb stick was physical but it didn't work either.
                              I asked if someone could cut a cdrom but no one could.

                              However, this morning, someone was able to get to the physical server.
                              2.6.0 finally got installed using a physical cdrom.

                              The person told me the following things.

                              Using the "virtual"ISO is what was causing issues with how BSD handled its bootup. It apparently was not able to detect the virtual iso it so it failed to load itself causing the error 19.

                              For the USB drives, he did not look into it much but guesses its more BSD quirks about how the image was burned to the usb drive.

                              For this install, he loaded the ISO into the IPMI console.

                              For the exact reason in how it differed on the backside and why the other method worked, he is not able to say other than it appears to act more as a "real" cdrom instead of virtual ISO so installer was able to find and load it's needed files. BSD does not seem to work well with this particular servers 'virtual' methods.

                              So that's that. Another lesson from another unusual (to me) problem. Hope this thread can help someone and also hope no drama will be added to a now completed thread so that it might help someone that finds it.

                              Dobby_D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                              • Dobby_D
                                Dobby_ @lewis
                                last edited by

                                @lewis said in Upgrading from 2.2 RC:

                                Hope this thread can help someone and also hope no drama will be added........

                                Balena Etcher & Memstick serial iso download and pushing to the USB stick ca. 10 minutes

                                Fresh install then on an APU6B4 ca. 10 minutes more with
                                config backup playback all in all is done in ca. 30 minutes!

                                So I really don´t know what drama you are talking about.

                                #~. @Dobby

                                Turris Omnia - 4 Ports - 2 GB RAM / TurrisOS 7 Release (Btrfs)
                                PC Engines APU4D4 - 4 Ports - 4 GB RAM / pfSense CE 2.7.2 Release (ZFS)
                                PC Engines APU6B4 - 4 Ports - 4 GB RAM / pfSense+ (Plus) 24.03_1 Release (ZFS)

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                                • L
                                  lewis @Dobby_
                                  last edited by

                                  @dobby_ said in Upgrading from 2.2 RC:

                                  @lewis said in Upgrading from 2.2 RC:

                                  Hope this thread can help someone and also hope no drama will be added........

                                  Balena Etcher & Memstick serial iso download and pushing to the USB stick ca. 10 minutes

                                  Fresh install then on an APU6B4 ca. 10 minutes more with
                                  config backup playback all in all is done in ca. 30 minutes!

                                  So I really don´t know what drama you are talking about.

                                  Really no idea what so ever why you bothered to post that. As I said, in most cases I've never had problems but in this case, I was remote and virtual media didn't work. That's the end result of the experience.

                                  Done, finished, not much else to go on about :)

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                                  • stephenw10S
                                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                    last edited by

                                    Ah, so to be clear the initial attempt there were not using the Supermicro IPMI?

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                                    • L
                                      lewis @stephenw10
                                      last edited by

                                      @stephenw10 said in Upgrading from 2.2 RC:

                                      Ah, so to be clear the initial attempt there were not using the Supermicro IPMI?

                                      Correct. Sorry I didn't clarify that.
                                      I wanted to (a couple times) but was pretty caught up in the effort and forgot to.

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                                      • stephenw10S
                                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                        last edited by

                                        No worries, thanks for clarifying. We have seen issues using the virtual optical drive in IPMI.

                                        Steve

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                                        • L
                                          lewis
                                          last edited by

                                          For anyone that comes across this, to sum up, using a Spider KVM and attaching virtual media to that is what was not working, at least not with BSD.
                                          Using the servers IPMI virtual functions worked.

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