Managing Boot Environments in the GUI¶

The GUI page to manage ZFS Boot Environments is System > Boot Environments.

Note

If the Boot Environment menu entry is missing, the firewall does not support ZFS Boot Environments.

ZFS Boot Environment list in the GUI¶

The Boot Environments page lists all existing ZFS Boot Environments with the following fields, as shown in ZFS Boot Environment list in the GUI:

Name

The name of the ZFS Boot Environment.

Automatic entries, such as those created by the upgrade process, are prefixed by auto- and include the timestamp at which they were created.

Base Version

The version of pfSense® software contained within the ZFS Boot Environment.

Created

The time at which the ZFS Boot Environment was created.

Last Booted

The time at which the firewall last booted into the ZFS Boot Environment.

Space

The amount of disk space consumed by the ZFS Boot Environment.

Description

The longer text description of the ZFS Boot Environment.

Actions

Actions the administrator can take on the ZFS Boot Environment.

: Indicates the ZFS Boot Environment the firewall will use for the next boot
: Persistently activate the entry as the next ZFS Boot Environment
: Edit the ZFS Boot Environment
: Clone the ZFS Boot Environment
: Temporarily activate the ZFS Boot Environment one time and reboot

There is an additional confirmation prompt to reboot after selecting this option.
: Delete the ZFS Boot Environment

Creating a new Boot Environment¶

Administrators can create new ZFS Boot Environments in several different ways.

Warning

While boot environments are helpful, they do not remove the need for off-device backups. Take separate configuration backups before starting any potentially disruptive set of changes, including upgrades.

Automatic During Upgrade¶

By default the firewall automatically creates a new ZFS Boot Environment before performing an upgrade. This behavior can be disabled, see Boot Environments.

Quick Create¶

Clicking Quick Create from the ZFS Boot Environment list will clone the current default ZFS Boot Environment. The resulting entry will be named quick- followed by the current timestamp.

Create / Clone¶

Clicking Create from the ZFS Boot Environment list opens a form to create a new ZFS Boot Environment with custom options, including:

Name: Short name to briefly indicate purpose, must only contain characters from the set a-z, A-Z, 0-9 and _.
Clone From: The existing ZFS Boot Environment to use as the basis for this new entry.
Description: A longer description for the ZFS Boot Environment without formatting restrictions.

Click Save to create the new ZFS Boot Environment.

The fa-clone entry from the ZFS Boot Environment list works identically but it pre-selects the chosen entry in the Clone From field.

Editing an existing Boot Environment¶

Clicking fa-pencil on the row for a ZFS Boot Environment opens a form to edit the Name and Description of the entry. The clone source cannot be changed after the entry has been created.

Selecting Boot Environments in the GUI¶

There are multiple ways in the GUI to select which ZFS Boot Environment the firewall will use next.

From the ZFS Boot Environment at System > Boot Environments there are two methods:

Click to select the ZFS Boot Environment persistently
Click to select the ZFS Boot Environment for a single boot only and reboot. This is not persistent and the next boot after will return to the default.

From Diagnostics > Reboot, select a Boot Environment from the list and reboot. This is not persistent and the next boot after will return to the default.