Restoring 2.3.4 Backup to 2.4.4: Interface Mismatch and hang . . . .
-
I'm trying to replace an APU2 running 2.3.4-RELEASE (amd64) with an MBT-2220 running a freshly-installed 2.4.4.
I downloaded a Backup from the APU2/2.3.4 box and attempted to upload/Restore it to a freshly-booted MBT-2220/2.4.4 box, and I get a "Interface Mismatch" error/page. I used the drop-downs to assign WAN to igb0 and LAN to igb1, and then clicked Save.
The progress/loading bar on my browser (Safari 12.0.1/Mac) starts, but never finishes. I waited 15 minutes, and then power-cycled the MBT-2220.
Now the MBT-2220 never finishes booting. I'm watching its progress on my HDMI monitor, and it gets stuck after:
AMD Features= . . .
AMD Features2= . . .
Structured Extended Features=. . .
VT-x: . . .
TSC: P-state invariant, performance statisticsFurthermore, the boot process seems verrrrrrry slowwwwww. I can actually read the boot messages as they're being displayed on the screen, whereas after the fresh install of 2.4.4., the boot messages would scroll by way too fast to read, and ultimately finish with "Bootup Complete", "*** Welcome to pfSense 2.4.4.-RELEASE (amd64) on pfSense***" and the 16-item menu.
Things I've tried without any luck:
Re-installing 2.4.4. again (and again, and again)
Deleting the OPT1 interface from the APU2 and restoring that backup instead
Running through basic setup on the freshly installed 2.4.4. and rebooting, twice, before attempting to Restore the saved backup
Sacrificing a live chicken
Are there any other steps I need to do with a 2.3.4 backup before attempting to restore it to a 2.4.4. box?Thanks!
-
@thewaterbug said in Restoring 2.3.4 Backup to 2.4.4: Interface Mismatch and hang . . . .:
and I get a "Interface Mismatch" error/page. I used the drop-downs to assign WAN to igb0 and LAN to igb1, and then clicked Save
Use the console access to assign (swapping) interfaces.
When interfaces do not match, the webserver will get confused, LAN and WAN could be exchanged, so firewall rules don't match, etc.Or import a config, but remove by hand any interface assignment first.
-
Should I remove the interface assignments from the saved config entirely? Or should I rename them to match the interfaces available on the MBT-2220?
What would happen to all my gateway information, etc, if I removed the interface assignments from the config completely before importing it?
-
The APU has a serial console, MBT has a video console. I don't think we have any code for the MBT that forces the video console on, though. So you might want to edit out any serial console settings from the config.xml backup before restoring it.
-
We do have code to test for that but it may have an issue. So that is likely the cause.
See https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/9094
Removing the serial bits from the backup should be good enough.
-
Apparently my original post was a bit of a red herring:
- The system wasn't actually hanging up. It was just waiting for something.
- If I let it sit for 10 minutes it would finally finish booting.
- Apparently that "something" is the gateway.* Since I'm doing some "offline" restoring/configuring/etc., I don't actually have the WAN port hooked up to anything.
- Apparently this causes pfsense to be unhappy, and a full bootup takes 10 minutes. The Gateway logs show "Apr 4 02:33:53 dpinger [GatewayName] [Gate.Way.IP.Address]: sendto error: 64" every few seconds, a few hundred times.
- "Part-way through that 10 minutes the web GUI comes up, but logging in takes 2-3 minutes.
- If I delete or disable the gateway and reboot, then the boot time goes back to about 70 seconds, and the web GUI logs in immediately.
So in my backup I changed <primaryconsole>serial</primaryconsole> to <primaryconsole>efi</primaryconsole>, changed the serial speed from 9600 to 115200, and then I edited:
<interfaces>
<wan>
<if>re1</if>to
<interfaces>
<wan>
<if>igb0</if>and now I can import the old Backup with no errors. Once I disable the Gateway, it will boot normally at full speed.
Sorry for the mis-direction, and I hope this thread helps somebody out! * That took about 2 hours of factory-resetting and partial configuration restores to isolate the problem.
Is that 10 minute boot time when the gateway is down a bug or a feature?
-
Something of both.
If you had any packages on the imported config it will try to re-install them and have to time-out with no internet connectivity.
Steve
-
@thewaterbug said in Restoring 2.3.4 Backup to 2.4.4: Interface Mismatch and hang . . . .:
now I can import the old Backup with no errors. Once I disable the Gateway, it will boot normally at full speed.
Victory! I restored my 2.3.4 config to the MBT-2220 as described, replaced the APU2 unit, and un-disabled the WAN gateway. Everything is working as expected, and my IPSec tunnels came up immediately. I had about 5 minutes of downtime.
Now I can do a clean install of 2.4.4 on the APU2, use that to replace the other APU2, reinstall on that one, and then use it to replace my obsolete m1n1wall/Alix unit.
Thanks for all the help!
-
This post is deleted!
