Keeping the Netgate 3100 Alive, One Upstream Patch at a Time

pfGeorge

What does End of Life really mean? At Netgate, it doesn't necessarily mean the end of software updates.

The Netgate 3100, an ARMv7-based appliance, reached end of sale in 2021 and EOL in 2023, yet many of these appliances are still performing critical networking duties today. That's why we continue to support hardware that customers depend on long after its official lifecycle ends. As such, we have continued to ship pfSense software updates for the 3100 long past its formal retirement, and the upcoming pfSense Plus 26.07 release will continue to support it.

That ongoing commitment keeps us honest about a corner of the ecosystem that the rest of the industry has largely moved on from: 32-bit ARM. The wider open-source community increasingly assumes 64-bit targets, and that assumption quietly creeps into upstream code until a build breaks.

A recent example landed in our build of iprange, a small but heavily used utility from the FireHOL project for managing IP address sets. In pfSense software, iprange backs pfBlockerNG, which leans on exactly those capabilities that iprange provides. Instead of maintaining a local patch, we developed a portable fix, contributed it upstream, and worked with the project maintainer to ensure long-term compatibility across architectures.

Why does this matter?

Keeps existing Netgate 3100 deployments running securely and reliably
Reduces technical debt for maintainers and users alike
Strengthens the open-source ecosystem for everyone

Open source works best when companies don't just consume software, they contribute back. This is one small example of how we're helping preserve compatibility, extend hardware life, and support the customers who continue to rely on these systems every day.

Read the full story on our blog:

https://www.netgate.com/blog/keeping-the-netgate-3100-alive-one-upstream-patch-at-a-time

#Netgate #OpenSource #pfSense #Networking #Infrastructure #OpenSourceSoftware #SoftwareEngineering #ARM #NetworkSecurity