Lost Lagg0 after Restore via off Network

[jespejo]

This is less than a question and more of a how-to. This is strictly off-network restore approach, which means I was setting up a new pfsense box, not connected but preparing it for production. I did not want to bring down my production and do all the installations, just wanted a perfect swap scenario. I ran into the restore issue due to my Lagg0(LACP) when I applied the old config to a new pfsense box. After applying the config file after installation, and associating the new adapters to the LAN/Lagg0 I would loose webgui access (understandably as I was off network and did not have a spare switch configured for LACP). The only way to do it off-network was the following:

• Find out all the new adapter tags (ie for me it was re0,re1,re2..etc) and which port they are assigned too, you can do this many different ways, won't explain here.

• Install the new box with pfsense. let it assign WAN/LAN basic so you can get to webgui.

• Using your backed up config, edit the XML and do a search for Lagg0 and change the adapter associations from the old ones to the new ones. Make sure you repeat F3 (Find) for all associations. Do this again for all of the OLD adapter tags and assign them to the new tags. Now save the config file.

• Open the pfsense new webgui and do the normal restore function. Everything should line up and now your adapters are aligned for production. You still will not be able to test it off-network (unless you have a spare switch with LACP configured).

• You should now be able to power down the old pfsense and bring up the new box in less then 5 minutes. Once it reboots your production should be identical.