Really confused about upgrade
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I installed PFSense in 2019, and it's pretty much been running flawlessly all this time. I've gone in and checked it and tweaked it occasionally, and it always upgraded fine. It's running on 2.7.0 right now. I'm running it on a Mini computer, I went in to try to install PFBlocker, and couldn't get any available packages to show. I went down the rabbit hole and tried everything to get it to show, then read it needed to be upgraded to 2.7.2. So I went down that rabbit hole. I read many articles on here and Reddit, and don't want to ask all the questions I have in my head, but to boil it down I need to upgrade, but when I go to do that I'm told there's not enough space, even though it shows only 2% used.
My question is should I nuke the whole thing, and upgrade to 23.01 (or current), or stay on 2.7.2? What's the difference and is there a good tutorial for doing either? I don't dabble in Unix or any of its flavors frequently and rely on discussion boards to find my commands and work through these things. Any help would be appreciated.
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@hockeyfreak the 23.x or 24.x line is plus, with 24.11 being current - there is a cost to this if your not running on actual netgate hardware.
You more than likely would want to go with 2.7.2, I think I have seen some threads related to space.. I would have to look through the forums to see. But you should always be able to do a clean install.. And restore your config, take a backup of your config before you do the clean install.
This may be related to your space issue
https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/troubleshooting/filesystem-shrink.html
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@johnpoz Thank you. I came across this thread and post, but am worried about doing it because I am not at home or even in the city right now. Should I try this, or just nuke and reload everything, then restore my backup? I assume the difference of 23.01 and 2.7.2 is the underlying OS? Is that why there are two branches?
https://forum.netgate.com/post/1140955
Edit: This is the response I get when I run the zfs list -t snapshot command.
[2.7.0-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.localdomain]/root: zfs list -t snapshot no datasets available [2.7.0-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.localdomain]/root: -
@hockeyfreak I wouldn't nuke it or try anything of the sort if not local.. I mean you might be able to do it, but there for sure would be risk involved where you could loose access and your site would loose internet.
You have been running on 2.7 for this long - I would just wait til your local to get to 2.7.2, you could then try the options about cleaning up space, etc. Or just a clean install then.
If your seeing no datasets, I would assume your not even running ZFS.. Not sure when that because available for CE versions, etc. I run plus version on netgate hardware.. I do recall doing a clean install when I switched from the old UFS to ZFS.
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@johnpoz I just did some digging around to see what OS I have, and FreeBSD is my OS. Should I switch when I nuke (which I've decided I'm going to do) I'm just looking for the easiest path. I just don't have the time to spend in front of the computer going down rabbit holes anymore as much as I'd like to...
[2.7.0-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.localdomain]/root: df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Capacity Mounted on /dev/gptid/2873b579-a2f3-11ea-9d5c-00e0671e0eb0 111G 2.3G 100G 2% / devfs 1.0K 1.0K 0B 100% /dev tmpfs 4.0M 120K 3.9M 3% /var/run devfs 1.0K 1.0K 0B 100% /var/dhcpd/dev -
@hockeyfreak Pfsense is a modified install of freebsd, you can not switch that ;)
If you have not done a clean install in quite some time, its quite possible your still running UFS vs ZFS.
If you do a
df -Th
That should list type..
[24.11-RELEASE][admin@sg4860.home.arpa]/: df -Th Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Capacity Mounted on pfSense/ROOT/default zfs 13G 1.7G 11G 13% / devfs devfs 1.0K 0B 1.0K 0% /dev pfSense/var zfs 11G 13M 11G 0% /var pfSense/tmp zfs 11G 6.2M 11G 0% /tmp pfSense zfs 11G 96K 11G 0% /pfSense <snipped>A clean install of 2.7.2 would be best option in IMHO.. I really shouldn't take more than a few minutes. Grab the installer, make a copy of your config, under back/restore.
Clean install and then restore you config.. It really shouldn't take more than a few minutes.. But yeah you should be on site when you do it.
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@johnpoz Nice. Thanks. I am running UFS. So the clean install will switch me to ZFS? Is it the same OS I'm on now?
Another question, I have this mini PC sitting there running PFSense only. Am I underutilizing it? Are there other things I could be running on it? Or should I leave it as the manager of my network alone?
[2.7.0-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.localdomain]/root: df -Th Filesystem Type Size Used Avail C apacity Mounted on /dev/gptid/2873b579-a2f3-11ea-9d5c-00e0671e0eb0 ufs 111G 2.3G 100G 2% / devfs devfs 1.0K 1.0K 0B 100% /dev tmpfs tmpfs 4.0M 120K 3.9M 3% /var/run devfs devfs 1.0K 1.0K 0B 100% /var/dhcpd/dev -
@hockeyfreak not sure how much horsepower your little mini has.. But if you want to run other stuff on it along with pfsense, you would really need to install some VM hosting software like proxmox or something and then run pfsense as a vm on it.
2.7.2 will still be version 14 of freebsd.
Yes when you do a clean install ZFS will be an option to use vs UFS.
I use to run pfsense as vm - and there are some advantages sure.. But there are plenty other advantages to running it on own hardware.. Like any time you have/want to upgrade your VM hosting software you don't loose internet ;) is a big one if you ask me.
Also just so you know version 2.8 of CE version of pfsense should be coming out soon.. But once you clean install 2.7.2 when it does come out you should just be able to do an upgrade.
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If you're stuck on 2.7.0 there is a known bug. Run:
certctl rehashthen recheck. -
@stephenw10 Yes, I tried that during my rabbit hole dive, and I think that's the one that finally got me to be able to get past all the download errors. Then I ran into the space error I'm dealing with now. I appreciate the response though!!
@johnpoz CPU: Intel Quad Core Celeron J3160, 64 bit, up to 2.2GHz, AES-NI hardware support. That's exactly what I was thinking, Proxmox. I was thinking I could offload Unifi Controller, Home Assistant, Nextcloud, Radarr, Sonarr, and all the other services supporting my Plex server on it. I have to keep Win11 on my Server for Drivepool (10HDD), Blue Iris, and Plex though, but all those other small programs may be OK on it I would think. Thanks for any thoughts you may have.
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@hockeyfreak drivepool - big fan, run it on my pc.. for drives I have in my das.. Great product, great service support. Been running that and there scanning software for years. Just looked been running it since 2012 ;) Money well spent for sure - I was toying with moving away from windows on my main PC, and drivepool was one of things that kept me on windows... Man I wish they would release support for linux.. Tied with their scanner software, it has saved me some aggravation of having to restore files from backup when it auto migrated data off a disk that was showing signs of failure.
I run all that little crap on my nas, where my plex runs via either a vm or dockers. Like I said I use to run pfsense as a vm for many years - but honestly would never go back.. Run my router/firewall on its own hardware is better choice. And then I run other vms of pfsense to play with, etc.
For nvr and my cameras - I run on its own hardware.. So if you reboot your pc for an update to windows - your cameras are not recording.. I mean a few minutes guess is not a big deal, etc. But windows could decide to update off hours in the middle of the night - and that is exactly when something happens you want to have been caught by your cameras ;)
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@hockeyfreak said in Really confused about upgrade:
Is that why there are two branches?
https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/general/plus.html
What is the exact error about space?
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@SteveITS When I run pfSense-upgrade from SSH, this is the response.
(When I try to post all the code, it flags the post as spam, so I summarized.)[2.7.0-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.localdomain]/root: pfSense-upgrade BUNCH OF DOWNLOADS AND STUFF Number of packages to be removed: 3 Number of packages to be installed: 9 Number of packages to be upgraded: 80 Number of packages to be reinstalled: 1 The process will require 368 MiB more space. >>> Downloading pkg... -
@johnpoz Yup, love DP and DS. I wish Scanner had built-in repair though. If it does, I haven't found how to activate it. It just reports that one of my drives has a bad sector, but doesn't fix it...
A Buddy of mine sent me this after reading my posts. He has all this stuff running at his house also.
"Proxmox will be the OS that you put on the system. It will house all of your Virtual Machines (Windows, Linux, etc.) that have their own kernel and resources. It can also house LXC which are lightweight containers that share the kernel with Proxmox.
So… Proxmox then inside Proxmox would be
VM1 - PfSense
VM2 - Ubuntu with docker installed on it
In Docker, install arr shit and other containers
LXC1 - Uptime Kuma to monitor"I also need Nextcloud, Unifi controller, and Home Assistant. I guess that would be VM3, VM4, and VM5, or I guess other Dockers
I may upgrade the Mini with the Celeron I have to this one to handle the extra load. https://a.co/d/5dVbkai
CPU: N5105 Quad Core CPU at 2.0 GHz (Turbo 2.9 GHz), AES-NI hardware support
PORTS: 4 ports (4x I226-V 2.5G NICs), 4x USB 3.0 Type A, 1x USB Type C Console, 1x HDMI
COMPONENTS: 8GB LPDDR4 RAM on-board, 32GB eMMC on-board -
Can you up[load the error output to pastebin or similar?
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Yup, specifically @jimp's post here: https://forum.netgate.com/post/1140955
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@stephenw10 Yes, that's the one I read and referenced in the 3rd post above. I can't do it now though because I'm not local until the weekend and I would be tarred and feathered by my daughters if I took the internet down for days while I was away. Also, I would much rather nuke it and set it up like @johnpoz and I discussed above.
One final question. I agree with @johnpoz that running PFSense alone on that device is probably preferable. I was thinking of buying another more powerful Mini Computer and loading all those other things that I need running all the time and don't want to ever be reliant on Windows 11 and all the updates and crashes that come with it. Do you think I'm overthinking this or is it a good idea? It seems to be a cheap, efficient, always-on computer I can use to load things like that.
I want to thank all of you for your help and suggestions. I hope I have a good enough grasp on it to proceed this weekend, or barring family activities, next weekend. I last set this up in 2019, and not doing it for 5 years makes a lot of things fuzzy.
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@hockeyfreak said in Really confused about upgrade:
I would be tarred and feathered
Ha best avoid that then! And yes reinstalling is the better option here if you can.
