Upgrading from versions older than pfSense 2.3¶

Limiters¶

On pfSense® software versions 2.2 and 2.3, limiters cannot be used on firewall rules residing on interfaces where NAT applies. This limits their use to LAN-type interfaces only, and not WANs, in most circumstances. This has been fixed on pfSense 2.4. Bug #4326
On pfSense software versions 2.2 and 2.3, limiters cannot be used where pfsync is enabled. This has been fixed on pfSense 2.4.3. Bug #4310

NanoBSD¶

Warning

NanoBSD has been deprecated as of pfSense 2.4.0-RELEASE. This section remains only for users on i386 hardware with NanoBSD who must upgrade to pfSense 2.3.5-p2.

In most cases, a full installation may be used in place of NanoBSD. Activating the option to keep /var and /tmp in RAM can typically yield the same net benefits for older/slower CF and SD media. Firewalls with modern SSDs should have no concerns with writes.

1GB NanoBSD images have been removed as they were too small to properly function and upgrade. If a 1GB NanoBSD image is in use, it cannot be upgraded. It must be re-imaged on a larger card using the 4GB or 2GB image or converted to a full installation.

Package System¶

Due to the package system overhaul, any custom package repository settings are removed so the firewall will pull package information directly from pfSense servers.
We highly recommend uninstalling all packages before upgrading.

Removed features that are disabled on upgrade¶

Groups with spaces are no longer permitted. They are not allowed at the OS level and were not functioning properly. On upgrade, such groups are renamed with an underscore (‘_’) in place of a space.
The “Enable” checkbox for IPsec has been removed. If IPsec was disabled, all Phase 1 entries are disabled automatically on upgrade.
The Unity plugin for IPsec has been disabled by default, where it was previously enabled by default. This is preferable for the vast majority of users, however those using mobile IPsec with IKEv1 may need to enable it under VPN > IPsec, Advanced tab.
The apinger daemon for gateway monitoring has been replaced by dpinger. Due to the differences in settings between the two, many advanced gateway parameters are reset on upgrade.
The PPTP Server has been removed, if the PPTP server was in use, seek alternate solutions such as IPsec or OpenVPN. Do not continue to use PPTP.
- The PPTP server settings, firewall rules, and so on have all been removed
- If the “Redirect” PPTP server type was in use, add manual NAT rules for TCP/1723 and GRE to point to the actual server.
Layer 7 classification support has been removed and any configuration using L7 is automatically removed on upgrade.
WEP support has been removed from Wireless interfaces, and if a wireless interface was using WEP, the interface is deactivated on upgrade.
Single DES support has been removed from IPsec, if a Phase 1 or Phase 2 entry was using DES, it is deactivated on upgrade.
- Note: 3DES support is still present. Only the older and insecure, single DES option was removed.
The Live CD platform has been removed. The ISO is a bootable installer, as always, but it cannot run a live system.
- For the very few people who were still using Live CD: If the hardware can boot from USB, install to a USB thumb drive and run from it instead. Use the options to keep /var and /tmp in RAM, and do not install packages, then net result should be similar but ultimately more functional.
Some obsolete password hashes, such as nt-hash, are removed from users on upgrade. There was no remaining code on pfSense that utilized these hashes, so there should be no loss of functionality.
Support for fifolog was removed, and will revert to clog format on upgrade.
The net.inet.ip.fastforwarding tunable is no longer present, and is unset on upgrade.
Some PHP modules, such as MySQL, were included by default on previous versions but are no longer a part of the base system on 2.3. They are available as packages that may be installed manually from the shell (e.g. pkg install php56-mysql)

New features that may require action¶

The default system password hash has been changed to bcrypt. Current passwords will continue to work. Existing users need to reset their password to convert to the new, more secure, hash. #4120
A new option was added to Captive Portal for FreeRADIUS-friendly stop/start RADIUS accounting updates that solves problems with user session time limits. If stop/start RADIUS accounting is being used with FreeRADIUS, the new option should be activated manually.

Upgrading from a 2.3 Snapshot¶

If a firewall was upgraded to 2.3 before Jan 21, 2016, some files from 2.2.x or earlier packages may still be left behind that can prevent new packages from installing properly. Run the following command the clean up outdated symlinks that are not relevant for 2.3:
```
find / -type l -lname '/usr/pbi/*' -delete
```

Multi-WAN Weighted Load Balancing¶

There is a quirk in pf handling of weighted load balancing where Load balancing fails when one gateway has a weight of 1 and another gateway has a weight >1. Coming from 2.2.x, if this scenario applies, simply double the assigned weights. For example: WAN1 = 1, WAN2 = 5 on 2.2.x should be WAN1 = 2, WAN2 = 10 on 2.3.

Captive Portal¶

Due to the change in the web server from lighttpd to nginx, in some cases the portal HTML must be updated to include the zone parameter. On 2.3.1 and later the web server process attempts to handle this automatically, but it is best to include the HTML in the portal page directly, inside the form tag:

<input name="zone" type="hidden" value="$PORTAL_ZONE$">