Can I upgrade from 2.4.5 to 21.02?
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Consider the latest stable, official release version.
Not 22.05, which is still under developmentYou've several boxes, give it a shot on one box, note your findings, and do some testing.
22.01 works very well for me on a 4100.
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@gertjan said in Can I upgrade from 2.4.5 to 21.02?:
Consider the latest stable, official release version. Not 22.05, which is still under development
My box is suggesting going to 21.02 and so that is what I'm considering!
I want to know if it's safe (i.e, it will just work) to upgrade from 2.4.5 to that?@gertjan said in Can I upgrade from 2.4.5 to 21.02?:
You've several boxes, give it a shot on one box, note your findings, and do some testing
Yes, I've several boxes, they're in different locations. I have zero interest in testing - this is not an experiment for me and I have no interest in having to go through the pain of reinstalling the older version again and/or dealing with downtime any more than the time it takes to do the update.
@gertjan said in Can I upgrade from 2.4.5 to 21.02?:
22.01 works very well for me on a 4100.
That's nice. But I have 3100s and my question stands. Will a 3100 accept an upgrade from 2.4.5 to 21.x reliably or is there a significant risk that it turn into a headache? I want to basically push the Confirm button on all three boxes and move on!
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What you are seeing is normal when you're coming from a much older version. Depending on how old, it may actually go to the current stable release when upgrading or it may be stopping at a required interim step. If the latter is the case, then all you need to do is upgrade, let it finish, check for updates again, and let it upgrade again.
You can always take an older configuration and restore it to a newer base installation, so you could also contact TAC for a 22.01 installation image, install fresh, then restore your system.
Though honestly if I were you I'd wait a couple days, 22.05 is about to release.
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@dhjdhj said in Can I upgrade from 2.4.5 to 21.02?:
to basically push the Confirm button on all three boxes and move on!
Even those who have one or more '3100' and who reply here won't confirm that.
As a important factor is not known : your config.I'm pretty sure (as I don't have a 3100 I'm still guessing
) that installing 22.02 from USB drive will work.
Sure, because if you order one today, Netgate installed it for you already.The thing is : your not installing from the before latest to the latest, but from something older.
That will augment the possibility of issues, but nothing you won't be able to handle in minutes or so. -
@jimp said in Can I upgrade from 2.4.5 to 21.02?:
What you are seeing is normal when you're coming from a much older version
The thing is, I bought these 3100s only 1.5 years ago and they came with 2.4.5 - so 21.02 seems like rather a long jump (although maybe it's not, and they're just switching to year 2021?)
I've been bitten before upgrading these boxes (I had 2100s in the past and had to reinstall from a flash drive, using serial connection to laptop, a major PITA) and I just don't want to go through that again.
So all I wanted to know, is it safe to allow this upgrade to happen with minimum risk or am I in for trouble if I do it?
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@gertjan said in Can I upgrade from 2.4.5 to 21.02?:
Even those who have one or more '3100' and who reply here won't confirm that.
As a important factor is not known : your config.Not looking for guarantees - there can always be some issues -- my config hasn't changed that much and I don't mind redoing that if I have to --- what I wanted to make sure was that it would be low risk to just upgrade to the new version, based on other peoples' experience doing this in the past.
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21.02 was the next version for Netgate hardware after 2.4.x, so it's not a big jump at all.
That's when we changed to using "pfSense Plus" with distinct year.month-based version numbering instead of calling it "factory edition" with the same numbering as CE.
https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/releases/versions.html
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@jimp Thank you! I'll give it a shot now then!
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Well, it worked perfectly on my local machine. Then I connected to my remote netgate (over my VPN) and did the upgrade there and I lost my connection completely, it never came back.
..... 2 weeks later
Now, I'm at the other location, I connected the 3100 to my computer via serial port and watched it booting up. Eventually it displayed the message/usr/local/libexec/pfSense-upgrade: cannot create /var/run/pfSense-upgrade.pid: No space left on device
Why the heck couldn't it do this check while still processing the "upgrade" request from the browser so as to warn me that update can't be done until some space is cleared up?
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It does a check before running that is calculated by
pkgand it will not proceed if it sees that it would consume too much. Problem is that isn't always 100% accurate for various reasons though it's usually close enough that it gets it right. That's the only real source of data it has on how much more space the upgrade will take, so it's the most accurate method we have.Usually it would still come back up but maybe not have upgraded all the component packages, but not always (As you are seeing).
It's also one of many reasons we suggest removing all packages before doing an upgrade, as that will also increase the available disk space as well as reduce the amount of things changed on disk during the upgrade.
