How to rollback to pfSense + 24.03 ?
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I did an upgrade from 24.03 to 24.11 . Unfortunately, it broke an add-on that is critical to me, pfSense API . The author of the add-on does not have a license to pfSense +, and stated that he will not be able to update his add-on to work on 24.11 until there is an equivalent CE version. His recommendation is to roll back to 24.03 .
While I do have backups of my pfSense 24.03 config, i don't have an installable image for 24.03 . As I recall, I had to install the CE version in the past, then install the license, then the software got updated. I'm willing to try that and incur the downtime, as long as I know it's not going to upgrade me all the way to 24.11, and will let me make a stop at 24.03 first.
If that won't work, what is the recommended procedure for rolling back ?
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@madbrain If you're using ZFS as the file system then pfSense created a snapshot to which you can roll back to (System > Boot Environments).
And if you installed on UFS and want to reinstall you can download the installer from the Netgate Store (see "Download Installation Media"). The downloads is free but you need a Netgate account, which you have got from buying the Plus license.
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@patient0 Thank you so much ! I installed on ZFS . I wasn't aware of this rollback method. That did it !
I did not buy pfSense + . I got my license during the short time period that it was free. My Netgate credentials do not work at https://portal.netgate.com . I tried a password reset also, but no dice.
It's a pretty big deal not to have the reinstall image if the hardware fails. I'm using a 2010 vintage SATA-II SSD, so who knows when it will go.
I actually had originally set up pfSense with ZFS in RAID-0, as my case has dual 2.5 SATA hotswap drive bays. I then tried to power off one of the SSDs to test things. I don't recall exactly what happened, except that it was no good. It wasn't resilient, as I had expected it to be, so I reinstalled without the mirroring. The other SSD was of similar vintage, though, but not identical.
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@madbrain said in How to rollback to pfSense + 24.03 ?:
I got my license during the short time period that it was free
I see, lucky you :) ... on portal.... my credential don't work either, try https://shop.netgate.com.
I actually had originally set up pfSense with ZFS in RAID-0
I hope you didn't really create an RAID 0, that's the fastest but most dangerous option. RAID 0 means if you lose one disk all is gone.
What you want is RAID 1 where all data is mirrored to both disks.A pretty good overview is the article RAID levels ZFS Equivalents from 45Drives.
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@patient0 I'd like to think that it's because I have been up all night that I made this error with RAID-0 vs RAID-1 . I have been using RAID since the first decade the term was coined. I use 8-way SSD stripe (RAID-0) on my desktop, but that gets backed up onto a NAS that's using RAID-5 (8 HDDs, ZFS RAID-Z2).
Now I'm having a doubt and I'm going to need to review what wording the Netgate installer uses. Perhaps I really did create a stripe instead of a mirror. This warrants further investigation. Another day, though.
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@madbrain said in How to rollback to pfSense + 24.03 ?:
I use 8-way SSD stripe (RAID-0) on my desktop, but that gets backed up onto a NAS
That sounds fast and dangerous! What is the interval you backup your desktop to the NAS? How much data/time do you loose when a SSD fails?
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@patient0 I do nightly incremental backups, and full backups every 2 weeks. I keep several full generations.
The desktop data stripe is 8 x 1TB Samsung 860 SATA-3 SSDs. Boot drive is 2TB NVMe.
The NAS uses 8 x WD 14TB HDDs, again, in RAID-Z2, so there is 84TB usable capacity..
The backups tasks use Acronis True Image with a WOL script to wake up the NAS, since I don't keep on 24/7 - 8 platters are loud and use a fair amount of power. The LAN is 10 gig so even a full desktop backup isn't too long.
