Extract config from a SSD failed to boot

ninoalcamo · Jun 30, 2017, 5:52 PM

Hello to all,
today I rebooted my pfsense machine after about 200 days of activity without any issues, then I got error on loading pfsense OS and it doesn't boot anymore. Tomorrow I will post the error got in the console.
But my question is if there is a way to extract the config.xml from that SSD because I haven't a recent backup, my bad.

Thanks for help

dotdash · Jun 30, 2017, 6:11 PM

If you have some experience with FreeBSD, it's not too hard. You could boot off a FreeBSD live stick, mount the disk, then copy out the config.xml from the conf directory. If the disk is still good, you also could try running the installer and using the rescue config option.

ninoalcamo · Jun 30, 2017, 6:21 PM

Thanks for reply. First of all it's a good thing that there is a way. I have no experience with FreeBSD but there is always a first time to try. Tomorrow I will work about this your solution.

ninoalcamo · Jul 1, 2017, 5:45 PM

~~I am ready to mount the disk with freeBSD live cd (through usb), but when i want to create a dir with~~

mkdir /disk

I got error Read-only file system

nvm, now I am using recover option from pfsense usb install, but I don't know how to mount the disk:

# gpart show ada0
	63	123666369	ada0	MBR (59G)
	63	123665409	   1	freebsd [active] (59G)
 123665472	      960		- free - (480K)

# gpart show ada0s1
         0	123665709	ada0s1	BSD (59G)
	 0	       16		- free - (8.0K)
	16	106888177	     1	freebsd-ufs (51G)
 106888193	 16777216	     2	freebsd-swap (8.0G)

**EDIT

I solved through myself, follow this procedure:

# mkdir /home/disk
# mount /dev/ada0s1a /home/disk

we have now disk mounted

then:

# mkdir /home/usb
# mount_msdosfs /dev/da1 /home/usb

we have mounted a usb stick (the device name da1 could change)

then browse to:

cd /home/disk/cf/conf/

and you will find config.xml and the folder backup with old config auto-saved.

Just do:

cp config.xml /home/usb

to copy your config to your usb stick