How to return to "old" interface?

luckman212

The legacy PHP interface + Nexus can definitely coexist (I use them both on my system). Do you have console/ssh access?

If yes, drop to an sh shell and copy & paste the output of the command below:

for x in webgui/protocol webgui/port pfnet-controller/http_port pfnet-controller/https_port; do echo "$x: $(read_xml_tag.sh string system/$x)"; done

example
79a730b5-547f-4631-a859-37d589292a19-CleanShot 2026-09-01 at 11.56.18.png

then, make sure your FW rules are allowing access to those ports from LAN or whatever interface you're connecting from…

johnpoz

@luckman212 said in How to return to "old" interface?:

make sure your FW rules are allowing access to those ports from LAN or whatever interface you're connecting from…

Nice script cmd - and this comment reminds me to check redmine. If you enable the new nexus gui I wonder why this port isn't added to the antilockout rule..

See my example from @luckman212 I have the http redirects disabled, and no port is shown

[26.07-RELEASE][admin@sg4860.home.arpa]/root: sh
# for x in webgui/protocol webgui/port pfnet-controller/http_port pfnet-controller/https_port; do echo "$x: $(read_xml_tag.sh string system/$x)"; done
webgui/protocol: https
webgui/port: 8443
pfnet-controller/http_port: 
pfnet-controller/https_port: 9443
#

rloeb

@luckman212 Don't have console access. Can set it up, but the device is on another floor and I'm slammed this morning because I can't get into pfsense properly. New interface makes no sense! Can't even find how to reload from backup... Horrible interface!

rloeb

@johnpoz said in How to return to "old" interface?:

for x in webgui/protocol webgui/port pfnet-controller/http_port pfnet-controller/https_port; do echo "$x: $(read_xml_tag.sh string system/$x)"; done

Bad : modifier in $ ' '.

johnpoz

@rloeb you have to run sh first.

As to get to backup/restore in the new gui

I wouldn't say this

@rloeb said in How to return to "old" interface?:

Horrible interface!

Its a bit rough around the edges, and needs a bit of polish - but sofar it seems have the important bits.. Remember this is designed to manage multiple pfsenses.. Why the front page doesn't have the menus your familiar with.

It is night and day faster than the old gui that is for sure.

rloeb

@johnpoz
webgui/protocol: http
webgui/port: 8080
pfnet-controller/http_port:
pfnet-controller/https_port:

What is pfnet-controller???

When I connect on :8080, it switches immediately to :8443 and I can login with my previous credentials. But...I desperately need to get to the old interface to make some rule changes to keep the business functioning,

johnpoz

@rloeb said in How to return to "old" interface?:

What is pfnet-controller???

this is what runs the new gui.

Looks like your old gui is running on the same 8080 port that the new gui http redirect runs on - since you have no ports listed I assume they are just the default for the new gui 8080 redirect and https 8443.

I would suggest you edit these ports in the new gui. You can change both the old php gui, and the new gui ports.

I would take it from that output that you changed your http old gui to 8080, never enabled https. And now your new gui default redirect is stepping on your old gui http port. Correct them to how you want them in the new gui so they do not step on each other.

rloeb

@johnpoz Thank you. I believe I now know how to get back to the old gui, but that will require rebooting pfsense. Can't do that now because it will kill dozens of user sessions.

johnpoz

@rloeb why would you have to reboot - just change the old gui port in the new gui to something other than 8080, say 8181 -- once you get into the old gui you can alter the ports the new nexus runs on and make sure you are not stepping on ports. Not sure you would have to reboot to do this?

rloeb

@johnpoz Because it's refusing to accept my login credentials...

johnpoz

@rloeb thought you said you were logged in? how is a reboot going to fix that? if you have console access you can reset the password, do you have ssh access?

rloeb

@johnpoz Changed GUI port to 8181 as suggested. The old sign in interface page is displayed. When I enter my username and password, it blanks the page and returns to the login screen. No error message, just new login screen.

johnpoz

@rloeb restart the gui from the console - option 16 I believe.

stephenw10

You can use Diag > Sockets in the new or old interfaces to see what ports nginx is listening on.

dennypage

@johnpoz said in How to return to "old" interface?:

@rloeb you have to run sh first.

Being one who hates having to start the interpreter before running the command:

sh -c 'for x in webgui/protocol webgui/port pfnet-controller/http_port pfnet-controller/https_port; do val=`read_xml_tag.sh string "system/${x}"`; echo "${x}: ${val}"; done'

rloeb

@dennypage :-)

It's a small company, and I'm the owner. Once upon a time, decades ago, I wrote a zillion lines of code. Somewhere along the line, I became an "executive." Then I became a business owner... My tech skills have seriously degraded, but they're the only tech skills we have, so I manage the firewall, along with everything else. Unfortunately, my focus isn't on tech details, and Linux was never within my comfort zone. I'm playing with fire here. Or maybe just playing with a firewall...and I haven't the faintest idea what I'm doing.

rloeb

@stephenw10 Thank you. nginx is listening on the correct ports, but the old interface won't accept login credentials. Just repaints...

stephenw10

Can you see the system log entries when that happens?

If you have console access you can probably just roll back the config to before you enabled nexus. The console menu has an option for that.

rloeb

@stephenw10 The whole contraption stopped working. Wouldn't respond to DNS queries. I connected to the console using Putty, restored an older version, and got back online. The upgraded to latest release, did NOT activate Nexus, and everything is working just fine.

stephenw10

Cool.
So you have the old webgui running at http on port 8080 there?

I'll see if I can replicate what happened because it sounds like an edge case we should handle.