How to upgrade to 2.5 instead of closed source 21?
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I have a Netgate SG-5100 running 2.4.5-RELEASE-p1 and it's telling me that an update is available, but it won't allow me to select the open source version 2.5.0. Instead, it is only offering an "upgrade" (I disagree) to the closed source version, v21.02_1.
Is there a setting somewhere that will let my SG-5100 upgrade to 2.5.0 Community Edition?
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@jeremy11one This is the funniest thing I've read all day.
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@kom said in How to upgrade to 2.5 instead of closed source 21?:
@jeremy11one This is the funniest thing I've read all day.
It actually feels kind of sad. Paying the extra money for a Netgate device to support the open source project and have an open source firewall, just to get hit a year later with the news that my Netgate device is going closed source and is more limited than what I could have bought with less money. I am serious though: I would rather have the free CE version than the "premium" closed source version that comes with Netgate devices. Maybe I'll change my mind someday if the closed source version has some great new feature that CE doesn't have.
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@jeremy11one My understanding is that pfSense+ is pfSense compiled for ARM with 2 extra packages and three tech improvements (Intel QAT and some IPSEC stuff). If that's unacceptable to you then throw your 5100 away and get yourself an x64-based system so that you can run essentially the same code branded as pfSense CE.
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@kom Those features don't balance out the loss of open source for me. I actually used the source code to fix a bug one time, and to figure out a problem with DDNS that the documentation didn't explain. It genuinely has value. Not to mention the huge benefit in that it can be forked if needed.
I hope I don't have to throw the device away. It's been working perfectly fine. I assume there's some way to install 2.5 CE on it, even if I have to use a flash drive. But I won't buy any more of these for remote offices if I can't easily update them remotely.
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@jeremy11one I was being facetious, of course. You cannot install CE on an ARM device, period. I'm not getting why you think pfSense+ is not open source when it's the same source compiled for ARM (or at least that's my understanding.) You do realize that all along you were never running CE, you were running pfSense Factory edition? Now it's been renamed from Factory Edition to pfSense+.
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@kom
The SG-5100 is not and ARM based Device..... -
@kom said in How to upgrade to 2.5 instead of closed source 21?:
@jeremy11one I was being facetious, of course. You cannot install CE on an ARM device, period. I'm not getting why you think pfSense+ is not open source when it's the same source compiled for ARM (or at least that's my understanding.) You do realize that all along you were never running CE, you were running pfSense Factory edition? Now it's been renamed from Factory Edition to pfSense+.
The SG-5100 is not an ARM device. It is an Intel platform.
@Jeremy11one: you should be able to manually install the 2.5.0 CE image on your SG-5100, but you will need to download a USB image and do it that way. No way within the GUI that I am aware of. One caveat here is that I don't know anyone that has actually done this, so not 100% sure the boot image will work (it should, in theory, work).
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@negan OK, I'm a dimwit and you should disregard everything I said. I mistakenly thought they were all ARM until you got to the 1U appliances.
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@kom said in How to upgrade to 2.5 instead of closed source 21?:
@negan OK, I'm a dimwit and you should disregard everything I said. I mistakenly thought they were all ARM until you got to the 1U appliances.
The SG-1000, SG-1100, SG-3100 and SG-2100 are all ARM platforms. The others are Intel of one type or another.
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@bmeeks
Ok, that's what I thought too. I searched the update settings and the Advanced Settings pages, and Googled it for a while, but never found a fix.I'll be the guinea pig and try 2.5.0 on the SG-5100. Hopefully Netgate will add the automatic update feature for CE so I can remotely update again like all my CE brethren.
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@jeremy11one said in How to upgrade to 2.5 instead of closed source 21?:
@bmeeks
Ok, that's what I thought too. I searched the update settings and the Advanced Settings pages, and Googled it for a while, but never found a fix.I'll be the guinea pig and try 2.5.0 on the SG-5100. Hopefully Netgate will add the automatic update feature for CE so I can remotely update again like all my CE brethren.
Before I started, though, I would make sure I had a backup 2.4.5_p1 Factory Edition image or else a pfSense+ 21.02_1 image just in case the CE doesn't pan out. You will have to contact Netgate to get those images (the ones other than CE, of course).
Another possibility is to put a second "hard disk" in the box via an m.2 card and write CE on that. You can configure the boot device in the BIOS I believe. That way you would preserve your existing factory image as a backup plan.
