console - restore from recent configuration - disaster has struck

Cloudless Smart Home

trying to troubleshoot ha proxy, and locked myself out of the router changing ports. is there a way to stop ha proxy from the console? The console makes me believe that I could just do a restore from recent configuration history, but if that is true, and hope it is, I can't find the correct command to do it. I can list recent configuration changes and if I can restore back to number 26 would be great. nothing I enter after selecting 2 works. it just loops back to the main menu. as soon as I type 2 to restore a recent change, it errors with not a valid input. Is it just teasing me? What do I press?

26. 4/20/25 13:19:09    v23.6   admin@10.0.175.106 (Local Database)
    Deleted certificate pfsense internal

27. 4/20/25 13:16:58    v23.6   admin@10.0.175.106 (Local Database)
    Services: HAProxy: Frontend modified 'HTTPS_FrontEnd' pool:

28. 4/20/25 13:13:55    v23.6   admin@10.0.175.106 (Local Database)
    haproxy: Global settings saved

29. 4/20/25 12:50:12    v23.6   admin@10.0.175.106 (Local Database)
    Services: Acme: Accountkeys Accountkey delete

30. 4/20/25 12:50:10    v23.6   admin@10.0.175.106 (Local Database)
    Services: Acme: Accountkeys Accountkey delete


Restore Backup from Configuration History

1) List Backups
2) Restore Backup
Q) Quit


Please select an option to continue: 
Restore Backup from Configuration History

1) List Backups
2) Restore Backup
Q) Quit


Please select an option to continue: 2

Which configuration would you like to restore?
 1-30 : That is not a valid backup number.
Restore cancelled due to invalid input.
Netgate pfSense Plus - Netgate Device ID: c3ff86193fa5e0b28e54

*** Welcome to Netgate pfSense Plus 24.11-RELEASE (amd64) on pfsense ***

  Current Boot Environment: 23_05-upgraded-5-26-23 
     Next Boot Environment: 23_05-upgraded-5-26-23

ok, now I see that something is triggering an extra return or something because I can't do anything meaningful from the console. if I press 5 to reboot, it prompts for a second input, detects a phantom return, and goes back to the main menu. no matter what I try, it behaves the same.

aljames

@Cloudless-Smart-Home you may want to wait for other suggestions first. I am not familiar with how you could possibly restore from your current state, others may.

This page may be worth of browse to see if any of these apply to you: https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/troubleshooting/locked-out.html

Do you have an external backup somewhere of your configurations? If so, I would probably test a reinstall and restore in a virtual machine, then do a fresh install on production.

SteveITS

@Cloudless-Smart-Home What device is this? Are you sure you have the PuTTY settings correct?

I suppose you could manually copy the older file in if you can enter the shell (#8 IIRC). Want to say the history files are somewhere under /cf but it’s been a while.

Cloudless Smart Home

I found a better terminal program called serial, instead of coolterm that had always worked for me in the past, that solved the problem and I was able to navigate and restore from recent configuration history. I didn't even know that was possible before today. then I made note of my forgotten ssh port number, which would have also solved this. I have never locked myself out before, and didn't even know I could do that much damage with ha proxy, which is unfortunately still not working. I will post a new thread for that. so frustrating.

Gertjan

@Cloudless-Smart-Home said in console - restore from recent configuration - disaster has struck:

if I press 5 to reboot, it prompts for a second input, detects a phantom return, and goes back to the main menu. no matter what I try, it behaves the same

Time for plan B : use option 8,
Type

reboot

Cloudless Smart Home

@Gertjan that was spitting out and typing garbage characters, which is when I had to actually reboot with the one finger salute. It got me no closer to getting the gui back. I thought if I got the startup screen there might be additional startup options, like some sort of safe boot without add-ons like my mac, but in both places, all I got was garbage on the screen. but I learned a lot in the process, and began to understand the nature of the issue better. when I actually got the the bios options, it was literally typing exactly double characters on the screen for everything so ok was ookk, reboot was rreebboooott. it seems that the issue could be related to duplexing but I didn't find any settings anywhere for duplexing and it was definitely behaving completely different in every environment - startup, terminal, and regular menu. regular menu displayed mostly correctly, and it took a lot of experimenting before I realized it was double tying all of my responses in the menu. of course, I tried every variable for speed and flow control and those checkboxes in coolterm, but the more I dug in, the more I knew I needed either a different cable (not likely), different drivers, or in the case that worked, just a better terminal emulation app. serial claims to have drivers built in, but in either case, the free 7 day trial of a $40 app worked to solve the issue.

hoping someone will help me with my new post so I can finally get ha proxy working.

Gertjan

@Cloudless-Smart-Home said in console - restore from recent configuration - disaster has struck:

.. every variable for speed and flow control and those checkboxes in coolterm

You've have something called "Local echo" activated.
Normally, it should be off.

Btw : console (serial),or SSH or whatever : get Putty. It's free since last century.

Cloudless Smart Home

@Gertjan said in console - restore from recent configuration - disaster has struck:

tw : console (serial),or SSH or whatever : get Putty. It's free since last century.

One of the few advantages of Windows, but not planning on giving up my Mac to get putty. It has always been a challenge.

Gertjan

@Cloudless-Smart-Home

MAC ? didn't know. You've two advantages then :

it's also available for mac
as you have a mac, you already had a native ssh /serial client build in since OSx is somewhat nix based ^^

Cloudless Smart Home

@Gertjan said in console - restore from recent configuration - disaster has struck:

it's also available for mac

I did that google search before posting this thread, just to make sure somebody hasn't fixed it. Just because software is available, doesn't mean it works. If you dig deeper on the results you showed, it's junk. it doesn't work.

Gertjan

@Cloudless-Smart-Home said in console - restore from recent configuration - disaster has struck:

If you dig deeper ...

and you right.
Although I touch Mac devices every day (apple TV, phone, pad) I never had the courage to actually use an "mac pc" myself.
I've been using Putty on MAC (not 'my mac', but the laptop of the company) and, yes, you're right, I recall now, it was also running Windows ^^

Anyway, a non issue, as mac is nix base, you already have the native ssh and serial comm client build in, something Microsoft based OSes (up until recent) lacks ...

Added to that, SSH access isn't really needed. I'm using SSH - and also SFTP - access a lot because I do 'things' with my pfSense that aren't part of the normal maintenance cycle of a SOHO router firewall.
Most of the pfSense users will rarely use the serial console access, and probably never use the SSH access. The ssh access is even, by default, deactivated.