"Boot loader is too old. Please upgrade" in console after upgrading to 2.8.0

Finger79

Upgraded from 2.7.2 to 2.8.0 this evening. I kept getting errors when uninstalling packages (saying another instance was already running), since I like to follow best practices and uninstall all packages prior to the upgrade. Welp. So after a pre-upgrade config backup, I pulled the trigger.

I watched the log in the console, and there were hundreds of errors where it couldn't find packages (.gzip or something), but it kept on chugging along.

After a second reboot, the version in the console welcomed me with 2.8.0 and it loaded right up. Every boot I see a: "BOOT LOADER IS TOO OLD. PLEASE UPGRADE." warning flash on the screen for about 1/8 of a second. I recorded a video and took a screenshot from the video:

What is the cause of this error?

The system is stable now, but a big part of me simply wants to take a new 2.8.0 config backup and perform a clean, full install of 2.8.0 and restore the config.

Thanks for any help and answers.

HaOsLsE

Thanks for sharing. The more knowledge and data is valuable for everyone. I'm reading posts before attempting an upgrade but I thought I just read a post saying the full download is not available. Or at least not yet, only upgrade online is being offered.

Gertjan

@Finger79 said in "Boot loader is too old. Please upgrade" in console after upgrading to 2.8.0:

What is the cause of this error?

The files you listed are small text files.
Can you show them ?

Or, (It's Friday afternoon, so allowed) console or SSH into your pfSense, go option 8, and use these commands

touch /boot/defaults/loader.conf
touch /boot/device.hints
touch /boot/loader.conf
etc.

and now all files will have a 'today' = now time stamp, so not old anymore.

SteveITS

@HaOsLsE I think you’re misunderstanding that the Installer is the way and there isn’t a separate ISO for each version?
https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/install/netinstaller.html

jimp

The upgrade process tries to update the boot loader but there are some edge cases where it can't do so properly/fully.

One thing to check is if you have multiple disks in the system. If there are multiple disks and pfSense is installed on both of them it could be using the boot loader from one disk but the kernel from a different disk.

The fix in that case is to wipe the old/unused disk and/or make sure the EFI/BIOS is booting from the correct disk.

https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/troubleshooting/multiple-disks.html

You can manually update the loader as well but doing so varies based on your install specifics. For example if it's GPT or MBR, BIOS or EFI, if it has an older or newer style EFI partition, and more.

Stepinsky

@SteveITS Your link is not valid anymore. It gives me a 404.

SteveITS

@Stepinsky it works for me? Maybe they were regenerating the docs or something.

stephenw10

https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/install/netinstaller.html

SteveITS

@Stepinsky Oh sorry I guess I clicked on the wrong link above, on my phone. Not sure what happened there as I copy/pasted.

Finger79

@jimp said in "Boot loader is too old. Please upgrade" in console after upgrading to 2.8.0:

The upgrade process tries to update the boot loader but there are some edge cases where it can't do so properly/fully.

One thing to check is if you have multiple disks in the system. If there are multiple disks and pfSense is installed on both of them it could be using the boot loader from one disk but the kernel from a different disk.

The fix in that case is to wipe the old/unused disk and/or make sure the EFI/BIOS is booting from the correct disk.

https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/troubleshooting/multiple-disks.html

You can manually update the loader as well but doing so varies based on your install specifics. For example if it's GPT or MBR, BIOS or EFI, if it has an older or newer style EFI partition, and more.

Just one disk, an SSD. This is a simple baremetal install. Pretty sure it's GPT and EFI. Secure boot is disabled until FreeBSD supports it or pfSense rebases off Linux.

Only thing I can think of is I'm using GELI for FDE, but I don't believe it was a problem upgrading from 2.6.x to 2.7.0 and then to 2.7.1 and 2.7.2.

stephenw10

That's almost certainly it. The code to update the bootloader is new, it wouldn't have run at previous updates.

Finger79

@stephenw10 said in "Boot loader is too old. Please upgrade" in console after upgrading to 2.8.0:

That's almost certainly it. The code to update the bootloader is new, it wouldn't have run at previous updates.

How do I fix this without a full reinstall?

stephenw10

If you try running install-boot manually what error is returned?

[2.8.0-RELEASE][admin@cedev-2.stevew.lan]/root: install-boot 
System Configuration

Architecture: amd64
Boot Devices: /dev/ada0
              /dev/ada1
 Boot Method: uefi
  Filesystem: zfs
    Platform: QEMU Guest

Proced with updating boot code? [y/N]: y

Updating boot code...

/usr/local/sbin/../libexec/install-boot.sh -b auto -f zfs -s gpt -u ada1
gpart bootcode -b /boot/pmbr -p /boot/gptzfsboot -i 2 ada1
partcode written to ada1p2
bootcode written to ada1
ESP /dev/ada1p1 mounted on /tmp/stand-test.7soQsf
263440KB space remaining on ESP: renaming old bootx64.efi file /efi/boot/bootx64.efi /efi/boot/bootx64-old.efi
263440KB space remaining on ESP: renaming old loader.efi file /etc/freebsd/loader.efi /etc/freebsd/loader-old.efi
Copying loader.efi to /EFI/freebsd on ESP
Creating UEFI boot entry for FreeBSD
Marking UEFI boot entry 0008 active
Copying bootx64.efi to /efi/boot on ESP
Unmounting and cleaning up temporary mount point
Finished updating ESP

/usr/local/sbin/../libexec/install-boot.sh -b auto -f zfs -s gpt -u ada0
gpart bootcode -b /boot/pmbr -p /boot/gptzfsboot -i 2 ada0
partcode written to ada0p2
bootcode written to ada0
ESP /dev/ada0p1 mounted on /tmp/stand-test.MURwDh
263472KB space remaining on ESP: renaming old bootx64.efi file /efi/boot/bootx64.efi /efi/boot/bootx64-old.efi
263472KB space remaining on ESP: renaming old loader.efi file /etc/freebsd/loader.efi /etc/freebsd/loader-old.efi
Copying loader.efi to /EFI/freebsd on ESP
Existing UEFI FreeBSD boot entry found: not creating a new one
Copying bootx64.efi to /efi/boot on ESP
Unmounting and cleaning up temporary mount point
Finished updating ESP

Done.

Finger79

@stephenw10

System Configuration

Architecture: amd64
Boot Devices: Unable
              to
              locate
              boot
              devices
 Boot Method: uefi
  Filesystem: zfs
    Platform: unknown hardware

I said "no" when asked to proceed, since I'm not prepared for downtime in case it fails. This is currently my only production router/firewall.

stephenw10

Ok interesting, It can't do anything if it doesn't see the boot device anyway.

How does the encrypted boot disk appear in /dev or in the boot logs?

The correct fix here would be to fix the bootloader updater so it knows about encrypted drives. We'll have to look into how difficult that might be.

Finger79

@stephenw10 said in "Boot loader is too old. Please upgrade" in console after upgrading to 2.8.0:

Ok interesting, It can't do anything if it doesn't see the boot device anyway.

How does the encrypted boot disk appear in /dev or in the boot logs?

The correct fix here would be to fix the bootloader updater so it knows about encrypted drives. We'll have to look into how difficult that might be.

[2.8.0-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.home.internal]/dev: ls -l
total 3
crw-rw-r--  1 root operator 0x2f Jun 15 00:18 acpi
crw-r-----  1 root operator 0x73 Jun 15 00:18 ada0
crw-r-----  1 root operator 0x74 Jun 15 00:18 ada0p1
crw-r-----  1 root operator 0x75 Jun 15 00:18 ada0p2
crw-r-----  1 root operator 0x78 Jun 15 00:18 ada0p2.eli
crw-rw-r--  1 root operator 0x31 Jun 15 00:18 apm
crw-rw----  1 root operator 0x30 Jun 15 00:18 apmctl
crw-------  1 root wheel    0x39 Jun 15 00:18 atkbd0

(That's obviously a partial output of ls-l. There's a couple more pages, but that's all for ada*)

Do either of these help answer your question?

stephenw10

Yes, that the disks still appear as adaX but one partition is different. What does gpart list show?

Finger79

[2.8.0-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.home.internal]/root: gpart list
Geom name: ada0
modified: false
state: OK
fwheads: 16
fwsectors: 63
last: 250069639
first: 40
entries: 128
scheme: GPT
Providers:
1. Name: ada0p1
   Mediasize: 272629760 (260M)
   Sectorsize: 512
   Stripesize: 0
   Stripeoffset: 20480
   Mode: r1w1e2
   efimedia: HD(1,GPT,[uuid1],0x28,0x82000)
   rawuuid: [uuid1]
   rawtype: [is this sensitive?]
   label: efiboot0
   length: 272629760
   offset: 20480
   type: efi
   index: 1
   end: 532519
   start: 40
2. Name: ada0p2
   Mediasize: 127761645568 (119G)
   Sectorsize: 512
   Stripesize: 0
   Stripeoffset: 273678336
   Mode: r1w1e1
   efimedia: HD(2,GPT,[uuid2],0x82800,0xedf9800)
   rawuuid: [uuid2]
   rawtype: [is this sensitive?]
   label: zfs0
   length: 127761645568
   offset: 273678336
   type: freebsd-zfs
   index: 2
   end: 250068991
   start: 534528
Consumers:
1. Name: ada0
   Mediasize: 128035676160 (119G)
   Sectorsize: 512
   Mode: r2w2e5

stephenw10

Ah, OK. It doesn't expose the boot partition via GEOM. That's why the script shows it can't find it.

OK lets see what we can do here....