Changing Symbolic Names in pfSense

[BrucexLing]

I have been making progress in learning how to apply vlans within my home network. Last night I decided to rationalise the naming convention that had evolved while I trialled various setups. In a cavalier fashion I changed the names of the vlans and interfaces, applying changes as I went. I then decided to reboot pfSense to complete the exercise and found that pfSense would not restart. (no audible sound and no GUI). I then hooked up a serial terminal to pfSense and could see that it had in fact restarted, getting to the point where vlans were enumerated and stopping with a request to assign wan and lan to physical network ports. After reassigning wan and lan, pfSense concluded the reboot. Back in the GUI console I could see that all my vlans, as well as vpns, had gone with other settings apparently all intact.

I am hoping this experience can be explained in terms of me being a bit too ambitious in my renaming so many interface and vlan names at one time, causing a tangle in symbolic names. What I am also hoping is that my hardware is not at fault. Has anyone experienced a similar problem when changing too many symbolic names at one time?

PfSense 2.4.5-RELEASE-p1 (amd64)
PC Engines APU2C4

[johnpoz]

Where did you change what exactly?

You just changed this? The description for an interface?

[BrucexLing]

Yes I changed about 4 VLAN “Description”s in the “General Configuration” editing screen for Interfaces, as you have indicated. Despite being labelled “Description” my understanding is that the value entered here becomes the symbolic link that is reflected in pull down lists for interfaces throughout pfSense, eg Rules.

I also changed the “Description” text here and I understand this is not parsed for symbolic links.

[johnpoz]

I haven't edited those in a long time, and I don't recall how many I changed at the same time, etc.

But I don't see how that would confuse pfsense to what interface is actually what..

Link or not - your not actually changing the optX that pfsense sees the interface as, etc..

But yes if for whatever reason the order of your interfaces got changed, etc. That could cause a problem with accessing pfsense or needing to assign an interface, etc.

I think this has mostly come up in the past when say a VM changes the order of its nics, that after reboot they are different then what pfsense thought they were, etc. Ie say lan becomes wan..

[BrucexLing]

Thanks John. I'll proceed and assume hardware is ok, but be alert to possible future disturbances like this. I'm thankful for the good backup features of pfSense.