Identical Netgate Device ID and Activation Key

Hello,

I am happily using pfSense-CE at home since many years already and currently running v2.6.0. I am planning to upgrade to "pfSense Plus Home" and for testing I have set up a virtual machine with exactly the same Netgate Device ID as my physical device.

If this upgrade works successfully now, will I still be able to use the same pfSense Plus activation token on my physical device after tearing down my test-vm?

My plan is to either activate a virtual copy of my physical hardware on my host machine and after successful activation and just restore the activated image to my original hardware afterwards - or to to freshly install pfSense-CE 2.6.0 from scratch on my VM, activate it, restore my current config.xml, and copy the hdd image back to my original hardware, so I can reduce my downtime and be quite safe that the transition to pfSense Plus Home will go smoothly?

Hoping for some advice...

Greetings
Ralf

NollipfSense

@rbm78bln The physical and the VM are two different platform, best to keep the IDs separate...all you need is a backup configuration.

@nollipfsense
It's not about using the same NDI twice - I could just get myself two free licenses. One for testing and one for my home router.

It's about whether I can create a hard drive image on a virtual machine that will be able to run on my physical device afterwards, given the fact, that both are mostly identical in hardware and resulting NDI.

Dobby_

@rbm78bln

Citation:
Activation tokens are single use. Ensure the pfSense CE software installation is functional and is in the intended configuration before performing the migration.

Migrate from pfSense CE software to Netgate pfSense Plus software

NollipfSense

@rbm78bln said in Identical Netgate Device ID and Activation Key:

It's about whether I can create a hard drive image on a virtual machine that will be able to run on my physical device afterwards, given the fact, that both are mostly identical in hardware and resulting NDI.

I would never do it that way as I preferred a fresh, clean install and restore backup configuration.

SteveITS

@rbm78bln changing NICs will change IDs so I’d assume it will reset on the hardware.

Oh wow!
Thanks to all of you for your answers - that interestingly were not even related to my question.

@dobby_ Citation: Activation tokens are single use.
Yes - and I would have used it exactly once, if you carefully read my question above again. Actually the token binds the NDI to the license, so afterwards the NDI alone is sufficient without having to re-register ever again.

@nollipfsense [...] as I preferred a fresh, clean install and restore [...]
Yes - and I was asking whether I could do exactly that, if you carefully read my question above again. Like do a fresh install on my VM with identical NDI, upgrade and configure it there, and then copy the fresh and clean image to my physical hardware.

@SteveITS changing NICs will change IDs so I’d assume [...]
Yes - just that I wouldn't change the NICs and keep my identical NDI, if you carefully read my question above again. Actually it turns out that you can even change your NICs and thus your NDI and it would still keep running - you should just re-register it with the new NDI.

So thank you all again for all your answers. So I just tried myself what I was trying to find out in advance by asking here. Obviously I wasn't able to phrase my question in a way that it would be understood. I apologize for that.

So the answer to my original question above is "yes":
As long as your NDI does not change, you can easily copy your image to a temporary VM where you can try all the changes you want and copy it back, or set the VM up newly, register the NDI to your license and return to your original machine and do the update there even without re-registering again - or better just upgrade your VM to Plus, restore your config.xml-backup from your original hardware and copy the image back to your physical hardware - it'll just work fine.
Just running the image on a machine where it actually doesn't belong doesn't really work as nicely, but that's actually just how it should be and thus acts exactly as expected.

So thanks again for all your help and

bye!
Ralf

rcoleman-netgate

@rbm78bln said in Identical Netgate Device ID and Activation Key:

@SteveITS changing NICs will change IDs so I’d assume [...]
Yes - just that I wouldn't change the NICs and keep my identical NDI, if you carefully read my question above again.

If you are virtualizing a hardware NIC your MACs will almost certainly change. Running the SAME NDI on two different systems may be a violation of the terms of service -- but I'm not a lawyer and not an expert on the license terms, either.

Actually it turns out that you can even change your NICs and thus your NDI and it would still keep running - you should just re-register it with the new NDI.

As of 23.01 you will lose your access to the repos - so a new registration token will be required.

@rcoleman-netgate said in Identical Netgate Device ID and Activation Key:

Running the SAME NDI on two different systems may be a violation of the terms of service -- but I'm not a lawyer and not an expert on the license terms, either.

Thank you for your clarification. This was also what my question was about besides the technical aspects.