Can I restore my config to a new device?

Chippy_boy

I've got pfsense running on a cheap Intel J4125 system from Aliexpress, and have just bought a slightly more powerful N5105 system to replace it.

Am I OK to take a backup on the J4125 system and restore it onto the new system? I'd just rather not have to recreate all the rules and settings unless unavoidable.

Thanks

Gertjan

@chippy_boy

Config backups are ment to be used to restore on the device where the backup is made from.
Other devices have usually other hardware as it is other hardware.

That is, 98 % of the config file will be identical, but one part will be different.
Open a confi.xml yourself, and goto the the interfaces section.
Interfaces are listed with their internal drvier name, like

<if>ix3</if>

for WAN, and

<if>igc0</if>

for LAN (examples).

When your import your config.xml into a new system with other NIC's, the interfaces sections can't be applied, so firewall rules can't be applied etc etc.
Remember to check everything, not hard, as the config.xml is very readable by humans.

stephenw10

In general you should be able to. If it has different interface types, the same number of interfaces, pfSense will ask you to re-assign them when you import it. If you have a lot of sub-inteface types like VLANs, PPP etc that can get complex.

Steve