When can we expect a new 2.7 snapshot !?
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Hello,
I am running snapshot 26/4 now for over two weeks, which has severe nat related bugs. I can hardly live with that.
So, I am wondering if I should stay on 2.7 assuming that a fixed snapshot will arrive very soon, or that I should go back to 2.6.
Another point is that I like the zfs boot environment, which would help me very much in case of software or configuration failures. I wonder if that feature will be part of the community edition and if that functionality is in the snapshots! (in fact that functionality is even more important when running snapshot releases).
Louis
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Public snaps will be back very soon (possibly this evening yet) for both Plus and CE.
ZFS boot environments are a plus only feature so they're only in Plus 22.05 snapshots.
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Are there Plus snapshots ???? If so where .....
I have always thought it was the same code, with just another license ...Also note, that I got the impression that a fresh install is required to generate the boot structure necessary for the boot environment snapshot functionality, with (if true) as consequence that an simple update from a previous snapshot will not work .... right !?
Additional question. Suppose that I migrate to "pfSense +" can I migrate back to CE later on, if I would like to do so for some reason?
(using an existing config file, only loosing the "plus" extensions) -
@louis2 said in When can we expect a new 2.7 snapshot !?:
Are there Plus snapshots ???? If so where .....
There are, and they can be selected in the GUI for updates like on CE. No installers, though.
I have always thought it was the same code, with just another license ...
No, it's always had a different code base and we've had Plus-specific features since before it was even called Plus. There are certain packages and GUI functions which are only available on Plus.
Also note, that I got the impression that a fresh install is required to generate the boot structure necessary for the boot environment snapshot functionality, with (if true) as consequence that an simple update from a previous snapshot will not work .... right !?
Yes and no. The latest ZFS dataset layout is improved vs the older layout but the upgrade process can massage it enough to let ZFS boot environments work on Plus even if you have an older ZFS layout. Reinstalling is best but not required.
Additional question. Suppose that I migrate to "pfSense +" can I migrate back to CE later on, if I would like to do so for some reason?
Yes but you will need to reinstall CE to get there, you can't switch back from Plus to CE in-place. Depending on the versions involved you might also need to restore the config you had in CE before upgrading to Plus.
The licensing server will recognize your system even when you wipe and reload so you will still have the Plus upgrade option available if you reinstall CE.
All that said, new Plus snapshots (22.05 beta) are up right now and new CE snapshots (Still 2.7.0-DEVELOPMENT as this isn't a concurrent release) will be available today.
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So, the best thing I probably can do today or tomorrow, is:
Fase-1 (make sure the CE-base is OK)
- download the upcoming 2.7 snapshot
- fresh install from that snapshot
- load a config file from three weeks ago, since I am not sure about the state of the latest snapshots as generated by the 26/4 snapshot
- update the rules etc to the state I need them now
- backup those settings
Fase-2 (Upgrade to the plus-edition)
- upgrade to the plus edition, because I really like the boot environment snapshot functionality !
- create initial backup + snapshot
- do some tuning in relation to plus functionality
- create a second backup + snapshot
Agreed with this procedure?
I also assume that:
- the plus edition can load the CE-config files
- but to which extend can the CE-edition load/read plus-config files?
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That should all be OK. You don't need to load an old config. The Plus and CE snapshots are OK from late April we only shut down the public builds because we knew the code we were importing might be volatile. We found and fixed all the major issues and things are going public again now that we have reasonable confidence that it won't be disruptive.
But more backups are rarely a bad choice.
@louis2 said in When can we expect a new 2.7 snapshot !?:
I also assume that:
the plus edition can load the CE-config files
Yes
but to which extend can the CE-edition load/read plus-config files?
If both are the same configuration revision then you can load a plus config on CE, but the problem is that we don't always put out release at the same time. 22.05 is a plus only release, CE is staying on 2.7.0 snapshots for the time being. So while you can always take an older configuration and import it to a system with a newer configuration revision, you can't go backward. So if you need to go back to a production build of 2.6.0 you'd have to restore a configuration from CE 2.6.0.
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@jimp said in When can we expect a new 2.7 snapshot !?:
more backups are rarely a bad choice
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@jimp said in When can we expect a new 2.7 snapshot !?:
Public snaps will be back very soon (possibly this evening yet) for both Plus and CE.
ZFS boot environments are a plus only feature so they're only in Plus 22.05 snapshots.
Thank You so much for healing my headache... I worshipping that this bug was fixed! ;)
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I just updated the CE-edition and then 'upgraded' to the plus edition.
A few remarks:
- Actual 2.7 release seems to work well (first impression). It did solve the NAT related issues I encountered
- I was running the CE development release (2.7), so I did expect to upgrade to the equivalent code base for the plus edition. Not so ... I was upgraded to the plus 22.01 release, and that could / will probably imply missing features and/or not yet resolved bugs .....
- I would have appreciate to have the option to select to which plus-branch to 'upgrade'
- the saved CE-config file had version 22.7 and I was glad to see that the config file generated by the plus edition later on was also 22.7. I also wonder what would have happened if the CE-config had been too new for the plus-edition ..
- trying to run system/upgrade on the plus edition .... leads to 504 Gateway Time-out (after changing upgrade branch to plus development 22.05).
- The plus edition seems to be installed via the package manager (pkg_mgr_install.php?id=firmware). Which is, assuming that is intended, is OK of course.
Separate subject
......the CE and plus GUI are terribly slow on my not so bad G4620 cpu 8 GB computer .....Assuming that the plus development release train is ^in the work^ at the moment and the mentioned issues are related, I will try again later
(the upgrade function shows, when accessible (!), 'Unable to check for updates' ...In the mean time the dashboard tells me "that I am on the latest version", which is true, however not as seen from the defined update branch (very minor)
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@louis2 said in When can we expect a new 2.7 snapshot !?:
A few remarks:
- I was running the CE development release (2.7), so I did expect to upgrade to the equivalent code base for the plus edition. Not so ... I was upgraded to the plus 22.01 release, and that could / will probably imply missing features and/or not yet resolved bugs .....
The CE->Plus upgrade process doesn't account for development snapshots for everyone, soon 22.05 will be released and then it will naturally take users to 22.05 when moving from CE->Plus. We have methods of testing it internally as needed. For now it's best to move from CE to Plus on release installs then snapshots after.
- the saved CE-config file had version 22.7 and I was glad to see that the config file generated by the plus edition later on was also 22.7. I also wonder what would have happened if the CE-config had been too new for the plus-edition ..
Plus 22.01 is config rev 22.2, so it wouldn't move that back automatically. Plus 22.05 is the same config rev as 2.7.0 so it would have been logging errors until you upgraded. That's expected since you shouldn't run a newer config rev on an older base.
- trying to run system/upgrade on the plus edition .... leads to 504 Gateway Time-out (after changing upgrade branch to plus development 22.05).
I haven't seen that here before and I've upgraded several systems from 22.01 to 22.05. I don't think I've tried one that moved from CE to Plus yet, though. But that is something we are working on testing.
- The plus edition seems to be installed via the package manager (pkg_mgr_install.php?id=firmware). Which is, assuming that is intended, is OK of course.
That's how all updates are applied.
Separate subject
......the CE and plus GUI are terribly slow on my not so bad G4620 cpu 8 GB computer .....I haven't seen that here but it's hard to say what might be happening.
In the mean time the dashboard tells me "that I am on the latest version", which is true, however not as seen from the defined update branch (very minor)
Also not seeing that here but you may need to run the update check at the CLI to see more info. Try
pfSense-upgrade -dc
from SSH or the console.Since lots of this is specific to plus you should really start a new thread over in the Plus snapshots category and not here (which is for 2.7.x snaps, not Plus).
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OK I will post in the plus edition thread.
Note that:
- I assume most findings will IMHO be equal for CE and plus, which makes this separation a bit weird
- I am glad that 22.05 is available now. I did upgrade. 22.05 seems to work fine(!) and process the CE config file the right way, where I do have doubts about that from the short period I was using 22.01
- As said the GUI performance of CE is very bad on my not so slow system. The GUI-performance using plus seems even worse .....
- Committing a change in CE did a few times lead to a short unavailability of the firewall for routing and FW functionally. I did lose connectivity's for short moments
- the NAT related problems I had with the 26/4 CE version seems to be gone
Louis
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Jim I would not be surprised if the traffic interruptions I noticed are "in line" with
Regression ticket #12827 https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/12827
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Hmm, you should not be seeing that in 2.7 or 22.05 snapshots. It's fairly easy to test by manually loading the rule set at the command line with 'time' as shown on the bug there.
Steve
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Stephen, I did not explicitly test this, it was just what I noticed during changes I made.
I have been tuning my rule sets significantly, since the actual 2.7 version seems to work fine (in opposite to last month version) and during that process I noticed a few times, that my PC was loosing its connection with my all-in-one printer. Something I normally only observe when I restart the router.
Also note that the GUI is in frequently terribly unresponsive, especially during logon and when it has to display the (complex) dashboard. My feeling is that the routing performance itself is OK.
Note that I have split my >small< network in 15 vlans, for security and testing reasons. Be aware I am using a two core four threads G4620 cpu with 8 GB of RAM.
What ever, I will pay special attention to this potential issue when making rule changes.
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Even with a large ruleset that bug only adds a few seconds. It's easy to test just run at the command line:
time pfctl -f /tmp/rules.debug
It should load in a fraction of a second.
It's probably not that you're hitting though, simply opening the dashboard does not reload the filter. It sounds more like something timing out. Something on the dashboard trying and failing to reach some data.
Steve
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No that is not what I intended to say! The disconnection errors I think I met a couple of times where related with rule changes. Nothing to do with the dashboard!
As promised I will pay extra attention to that potential problem
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@stephenw10 said in When can we expect a new 2.7 snapshot !?:
something timing out. Something on the dashboard trying and failing to reach some data.
I suffering with the same issue a long time.
Dashboard - by determination are place where results of analytics in form of charts AND/OR current states in real-time represent.
So, logically, we may expect there are some amount (in several cases - a lot of) of measurement/calculations and request to databases would be made before Dashboard able to display most of their widgets.This situation remind me times 10 years age when iPhone 3/3S come with multitasking and Dashboard and Devs take decision to update info for each widget in background to be able immediately/as fast as possible display the Dashboard.
The same decision was made by Google ADs Dashboard (God bless, a lot of asynchronous frameworks exists already at that time!).Why Netgate not pay attention to this and only make “Not look for pfSense update on Dashboard” checkbox to speed up the Dashboard loading?
Because of rare using? If so, I sure that the worst usability tool/feature You made, the less peoples use it. (Again to the example: after Apple make useful UI for conference calling, operators see exponential increasing of this feature using by users, but before iPhone decades of years this functionality exist and only small fraction of users use it!)As a compromise solution may be ability to make several tabs in Dashboard, where each have widgets grouped around one point of view.
(For example,
one of tab may content Interface status, Gaitway status, ping/jitter graphics, small amount of in/out statistics for each interface,
another tab may content traffic graphs for each lan with small common stat
third tab - whole system info, used resources and running daemons
four tab - ARP and DHCP tables) -
Multiple dashboard layouts is an interesting idea. Or at least, an option for a "blank" landing page on initial login (would load instantly) and only show the full dashboard + widgets if the user specifically navigates to Status -> Dashboard.
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@luckman212 said in When can we expect a new 2.7 snapshot !?:
Multiple dashboard layouts is an interesting idea. Or at least, an option for a "blank" landing page on initial login (would load instantly) and only show the full dashboard + widgets if the user specifically navigates to Status -> Dashboard.
Need to point that delay in Dashboard loading is not a such problem.
The main problem are that pfSense used by several group of users, and each group NEED AND PREFER own dataset on Dasboard, moreover, during the obtaining experience with pfSense using, this NEEDS would be changed.
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Each user can already have their own custom dashboard. Enable per-user custom settings under System > User Manager when editing an account.
While not as convenient as multiple tabs, one could log out/back in with different users to get different views.