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:

Checkbox:

Selection checkbox for batch actions which affect multiple Boot Environment entries.

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

• : View the configuration history within this Boot Environment (Configuration History)

• : 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. The upgrade is performed inside the new Boot Environment and the firewall automatically reboots and verifies that the Boot Environment is working properly. This behavior can be altered using the options under 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 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 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.

Removing Boot Environments

ZFS Boot Environments can be removed individually or in batches.

Note

The current Boot Environment cannot be removed!

To remove individual ZFS Boot Environments:

• Navigate to System > Boot Environments

• Locate the entry to remove in the list

• Click the icon at the end of the row

• Click OK on the confirmation dialog to remove the Boot Environment

To remove multiple Boot Environments:

• Navigate to System > Boot Environments

• Select each entry to remove by clicking the checkbox to the left of each entry or by clicking anywhere in the row except the icons in the Actions column.

  Note

  To quickly select all entries except the current Boot Environment, use the checkbox in the header row of the list.

• Click the Delete button below the list

• Click OK on the confirmation dialog to remove all of the selected Boot Environment entries.