Netgate Installer forcing pfSense Plus

Gcon

I have a hardware device that used to have pfSense Plus for a period of time, but after that expired, I went back to Community Edition.

I went to do a fresh install of that using the latest Netgate Installer and see that I am only given the option to install Plus, and not CE.

I tried with both the memstick image and ISO installers. They are the following versions:
netgate-installer-v1.1.1-RELEASE-amd64.img
netgate-installer-v1.1.1-RELEASE-amd64.iso

So what I had to do was find my old installer stick of "pfSense-CE-memstick-serial-2.7.2-RELEASE-amd64.img". Then I had to fix up a temporary WAN setup, and then do an upgrade to 2.8.1 CE.

That's a whole lot of stuffing about when I should be able to install CE directly from the net installer.

When I look at the dashboard in CE it says this:

If you can't load the image, it's just this:
Contract type
pfSense TAC Lite
Zero to ping only
Support start
2023-11-16
Support end
2024-11-15 00:00:00 +0000 UTC
Support status
EXPIRED

Anyway, whether it's expired or not, the installer should have the option to allow installing of CE. Really bad assumption here, Netgate.

Patch

@Gcon I believe the installer has an advance option tab which enables you to install other versions

tinfoilmatt

This kind of whining is at least partly how we got here.

https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/install/install-walkthrough.html#install-advanced-options

stephenw10

Yup, that. If your device is eligible for Plus you will be offered that by default but you can still choose to enable the CE repos in the menu.