Upgrading from 1.2.3 or reinstalling from scratch?

cellobita · Feb 8, 2011, 7:28 PM

Yeah, I know, this is beta software (albeit of a very good quality!), but I've tried upgrading two separate instances of pfSense 1.2.3 to 2.0b5, and both went badly (as in: can't recover, have to start over from scratch); now, I'm not complaining by any means, but my own impression is that there are enough differences between 1.2.3 and 2.0 - particularly on MultiWAN setups - that reinstalling and recreating your config from scratch is probably the better option.

Also, in the last year or so of (mostly) lurking on this forum, there were quite a few threads that dealt with issues that turned out to be caused by faulty upgrades, so there seems to be some evidence to confirm the wisdom of doing fresh installs.

I'm curious about it, though: what are your experiences upgrading from 1.2.3? I'm especially interested in MultiWAN setups, mostly because most of my installs are of this kind, but any "early adopter" tips & tricks - or pitfalls to avoid - would be appreciated!

Regards,

Marcello Marques
Sao Paulo - SP - Brazil

jimp · Feb 8, 2011, 8:18 PM

If you had an upgrade go badly, we need as much info about it as possible so the issues can be fixed. Including, if possible, a copy of your config.xml before and after the upgrade.

It should be possible to simply upgrade in place and not worry about it. If something breaks, it should be fixed.

cellobita · Feb 8, 2011, 9:07 PM

I happen to be one of those guys who favors clean installs whenever possible (too many years using Windows, I guess…), so doing that on so important a piece of equipment as a router is no big deal - I was just curious about other user's upgrade stories.

As to the config files, yeah, I should've saved those... I'll do that next time, and report back.

I remember though that one of those upgrades (a MultiWAN setup on an old Intel 845 mobo, with 512MB RAM and Intel, SiS and Realtek NIC's - yes, I'm that brave! :D) ended in a loop assigning interfaces - meaning, the "assign interfaces" console routine kicked up after the upgrade, but no matter how many times I did the (re)assignment, it always cycled back to the same screen; unfortunately, I had some urgency in restoring Internet access, so I just reinstalled on top of the botched upgrade (using version 2.0b5, and manually recreating the configuration) - it's been working flawlessly ever since.

Thanks - for the reply, and for giving us pfSense!

Marcello