Handling package versions + system time

0tt0

Hi,

It would be very practical if pfsense could handle reinstalling of previous versions from the GUI somehow. For example if an upgrade of a package presents problems - perhaps the package doesn't even start again - one could then revert back to an earlier version.

Is this possible some way, perhaps there's a generical guide or good thread somewhere (yes, I did a quick search..).

Another side note, it would be practical to see the system time on the system overview page, so one could easily see if the system time is correct or not.

TIA

This isn't a feature in any other firewall products I've ever seen, nor would I want to revert to a previous (read: less broken) version of a firewall simply because a package wasn't up to date. The packages in pfSense are still works in progress and while some of them are in decent shape, many of them aren't. Why would you want to revert to an old (and buggy) version of your firewall software because some random package doesn't work?

0tt0

Well, if a particular user has great use of a particular package then it's obviously not that hard to imagine that such a user would want to revert the package version number of that package in order to regain functionality. And really, various types of "roll-back" features are present all around, simply because users want them (and sometimes need them).

Obviously no one would want to revert to an "old and buggy" package (and surely not fw version that you actually wrote, I now noted). But someone may want to revert to an older and working package if a new one introduced problems causing it to not even start. For more examples see ongoing discussions on IMspector, that exact situation has happened there several times. I've had that experience with at least 3 versions of that package. Right now I cannot see logs, a few moments earlier, before updating, I could.

Would I want a "revert" feature (for the PACKAGE) right now until a corrected version is out?
That is what is usually referred to as a rhetorical question.

A side note on this:
One thing one could do though, is to make a disc image of the disc before upgrading (with something like Acronis, Ghost or similar) and then read back the image if something breaks. This may for a number of obvious reasons not be a good solution for all but at least is possible and works.

My mistake, I misread your original post. I thought you wanted to revert pfSense versions. No, a package revert would be a useful thing. I retract my argument.