Upgrade from 2.7.2 to 2.8.0 Failed and now /boot/efi/ empty

Sinfonia97

@stephenw10 When I run that command I currently get the following:

512B	/boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/STARTUP.NSH
1.0K	/boot/efi/EFI/BOOT
1.5K	/boot/efi/EFI
1.5K	/boot/efi

When I look at the STARTUP.NSH file it references BOOTx64.efi. In my research for this issue I found that I should be able to replace the missing BOOTx64.efi file with a copied and renamed loader.efi from the /boot directory. Unfortunately I have not been able to verify that is true. It appears that typically PFSense uses the loader.efi, but my STARTUP.NSH file references BOOTx64.efi.

So this is where I am at currently. Need to verify if I can use a copy of loader.efi to replace my BOOTx64.efi. Also just need to make sure based on the information I have provided that /boot/efi is mounted to the correct directory. In my case I believe it should be /dev/adaop1. Only other location I would consider mounting it to would be /dev/msdosfs/EFI as that is close to what @jimp posted in his fix for the space issue.

stephenw10

Hmm, without an efi binary there at all it will fail to boot. So don't reboot without copying back something!

I would say those files are indeed identical:

[25.07-RC][admin@6100.stevew.lan]/root: md5sum /boot/efi/efi/boot/bootx64.efi 
aa4529badf1fe88a5ca8941c04f144cb  /boot/efi/efi/boot/bootx64.efi
[25.07-RC][admin@6100.stevew.lan]/root: md5sum /boot/efi/efi/freebsd/loader.efi
aa4529badf1fe88a5ca8941c04f144cb  /boot/efi/efi/freebsd/loader.efi
[25.07-RC][admin@6100.stevew.lan]/root: md5sum /boot/loader.efi
aa4529badf1fe88a5ca8941c04f144cb  /boot/loader.efi

So you should be able to copy that across

Sinfonia97

@stephenw10 Thank you, that's great to know. That takes care of one part. Now if I can verify that /dev/ada0p1 is the correct location to mount /boot/efi I will be able to finish following @jimp process.

stephenw10

The output of gpart list should confirm that. There will only be one EFI partition.

Sinfonia97

@stephenw10 Thanks again. I ran gpart list before and this is the output I received and why I figured /dev/ada01p was the correct location to mount /boot/efi. Let me know if you see the same thing:

Geom name: ada0
modified: false
state: OK
fwheads: 16
fwsectors: 63
last: 488397127
first: 40
entries: 128
scheme: GPT
Providers:
1. Name: ada0p1
   Mediasize: 209715200 (200M)
   Sectorsize: 512
   Stripesize: 0
   Stripeoffset: 20480
   Mode: r1w1e2
   efimedia: HD(1,GPT,ac1172b7-5651-11e8-b5a2-00907fd0950c,0x28,0x64000)
   rawuuid: ac1172b7-5651-11e8-b5a2-00907fd0950c
   rawtype: c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b
   label: (null)
   length: 209715200
   offset: 20480
   type: efi
   index: 1
   end: 409639
   start: 40
2. Name: ada0p2
   Mediasize: 245677162496 (229G)
   Sectorsize: 512
   Stripesize: 0
   Stripeoffset: 209735680
   Mode: r1w1e2
   efimedia: HD(2,GPT,ac11fbb1-5651-11e8-b5a2-00907fd0950c,0x64028,0x1c99c000)
   rawuuid: ac11fbb1-5651-11e8-b5a2-00907fd0950c
   rawtype: 516e7cb6-6ecf-11d6-8ff8-00022d09712b
   label: (null)
   length: 245677162496
   offset: 209735680
   type: freebsd-ufs
   index: 2
   end: 480247847
   start: 409640
3. Name: ada0p3
   Mediasize: 4172430848 (3.9G)
   Sectorsize: 512
   Stripesize: 0
   Stripeoffset: 245886898176
   Mode: r1w1e1
   efimedia: HD(3,GPT,ac128803-5651-11e8-b5a2-00907fd0950c,0x1ca00028,0x7c591f)
   rawuuid: ac128803-5651-11e8-b5a2-00907fd0950c
   rawtype: 516e7cb5-6ecf-11d6-8ff8-00022d09712b
   label: (null)
   length: 4172430848
   offset: 245886898176
   type: freebsd-swap
   index: 3
   end: 488397126
   start: 480247848
Consumers:
1. Name: ada0
   Mediasize: 250059350016 (233G)
   Sectorsize: 512
   Mode: r3w3e8

This was also before I did a temp mount of /boot/efi to /dev/ada0p1.

stephenw10

Yup looks good.

Of course I'd still have a backup of the config etc!

Sinfonia97

@stephenw10 Perfect, thank you again. I already created a backup before the botched upgrade, so I should be good there. May take another one just in case.

Sinfonia97

Wanted to provide an update on where I am at the moment. After finishing the steps from jimp I am now back to where I should have been before attempting the upgrade.

Output from df -hi /boot/efi

Filesystem     Size    Used   Avail Capacity iused ifree %iused  Mounted on
/dev/ada0p1    197M    646K    196M     0%       0     0     -   /boot/efi

Output from du -ha /boot/efi

512B	/boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/STARTUP.NSH
644K	/boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/BOOTx64.efi
645K	/boot/efi/EFI/BOOT
645K	/boot/efi/EFI
646K	/boot/efi

Output from geom -t

Geom                                                 Class      Provider
ada0                                                 DISK       ada0
  ada0                                               DEV
  ada0                                               PART       ada0p1
    ada0p1                                           DEV
    msdosfs.ada0p1                                   VFS
  ada0                                               PART       ada0p2
    ada0p2                                           DEV
    ada0p2                                           LABEL      gptid/ac11fbb1-5651-11e8-b5a2-00907fd0950c
      gptid/ac11fbb1-5651-11e8-b5a2-00907fd0950c     DEV
      ffs.gptid/ac11fbb1-5651-11e8-b5a2-00907fd0950c VFS
  ada0                                               PART       ada0p3
    ada0p3                                           DEV
    ada0p3                                           LABEL      gptid/ac128803-5651-11e8-b5a2-00907fd0950c
      gptid/ac128803-5651-11e8-b5a2-00907fd0950c     DEV
      swap                                           SWAP

Output from gpart list

Geom name: ada0
modified: false
state: OK
fwheads: 16
fwsectors: 63
last: 488397127
first: 40
entries: 128
scheme: GPT
Providers:
1. Name: ada0p1
   Mediasize: 209715200 (200M)
   Sectorsize: 512
   Stripesize: 0
   Stripeoffset: 20480
   Mode: r1w1e1
   efimedia: HD(1,GPT,ac1172b7-5651-11e8-b5a2-00907fd0950c,0x28,0x64000)
   rawuuid: ac1172b7-5651-11e8-b5a2-00907fd0950c
   rawtype: c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b
   label: (null)
   length: 209715200
   offset: 20480
   type: efi
   index: 1
   end: 409639
   start: 40
2. Name: ada0p2
   Mediasize: 245677162496 (229G)
   Sectorsize: 512
   Stripesize: 0
   Stripeoffset: 209735680
   Mode: r1w1e2
   efimedia: HD(2,GPT,ac11fbb1-5651-11e8-b5a2-00907fd0950c,0x64028,0x1c99c000)
   rawuuid: ac11fbb1-5651-11e8-b5a2-00907fd0950c
   rawtype: 516e7cb6-6ecf-11d6-8ff8-00022d09712b
   label: (null)
   length: 245677162496
   offset: 209735680
   type: freebsd-ufs
   index: 2
   end: 480247847
   start: 409640
3. Name: ada0p3
   Mediasize: 4172430848 (3.9G)
   Sectorsize: 512
   Stripesize: 0
   Stripeoffset: 245886898176
   Mode: r1w1e1
   efimedia: HD(3,GPT,ac128803-5651-11e8-b5a2-00907fd0950c,0x1ca00028,0x7c591f)
   rawuuid: ac128803-5651-11e8-b5a2-00907fd0950c
   rawtype: 516e7cb5-6ecf-11d6-8ff8-00022d09712b
   label: (null)
   length: 4172430848
   offset: 245886898176
   type: freebsd-swap
   index: 3
   end: 488397126
   start: 480247848
Consumers:
1. Name: ada0
   Mediasize: 250059350016 (233G)
   Sectorsize: 512
   Mode: r3w3e7

I know the last 2 shouldn't have changed, which they didn't. Just wanted to put them in here to document the changes.

Now I just need some time to try the upgrade again, and in case everything goes completely south I have time to rebuild.

stephenw10

Cool. Does it reboot successfully from there?

Sinfonia97

@stephenw10 Unfortunately I am going to have to wait till I can bring down the network to test. If I take it down now and it doesn't come back up I will be having some hell to pay from the family...lol.

A Former User

@Patch said in Upgrade from 2.7.2 to 2.8.0 Failed and now /boot/efi/ empty:

@Sinfonia97 Sounds like a corrupted install to me.
I would

Save pfsense configuration

Do a clean install from a recent installer to ensure partitions are consistent with more recent requirements (v2.7.2 or 2.8 or 2.81)

Document what low level file structure is used with a good current install so you maybe able to guess what went wrong with the prior corruption (partitions sizes, hardware failure, edge case configuration, edge case update series)

I had the exact same issue as the OP, i don't think this is a corrupted install we just had older installs of pfSense that we kept upgrading. Mine was from 2020 and has been upgraded since.

It would appear that the fs for the bootloader previously was only 768kb despite the part being 200M.

This is a bug on netgate's end https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/15081 that was opened over a year ago.

When I tried to upgrade to 2.8.1 my update failed because of this which brought me to this thread. I applied all the fixes in this thread and tried the update again and it immediately rebooted and I got a kernel panic on boot.

I tried to obtain a new 2.8.x install media and just restore my config, but it seems netgate has moved away from an offline installer I wasn't able to add the new installer to my cart there was no option to select vga/serial/etc.

This was the end for me, i've moved to OPNSense and ran a simple python script to import my pfsense config.xml

So long netgate, arrivederci.

stephenw10

You can always just reinstall 2.7.2 which will give you the new larger sized EFI partition and then upgrade again from there.