Upgrading High Availability Clusters¶
This page provides guidance on upgrading redundant firewalls (CARP, pfsync, XMLRPC config sync) across major versions of pfSense® software. Upgrading from one version to another generally follows the this procedure, exceptions are noted later in the page.
Review changelog/blog/upgrade guide
Take a backup from both nodes. Do not skip this step!
Upgrade secondary as described in the Upgrade Guide
Test secondary to be sure it is operating OK – expected packages present, services running, no obvious errors in logs, etc
Switch CARP to maintenance mode on primary from Status > CARP
Ensure traffic is still flowing properly and that the network is functional. If it is not, then exit maintenance mode on the primary, fix the secondary then try again.
Upgrade primary as described in the Upgrade Guide
Check primary to ensure it upgraded OK – expected packages present, services running, no obvious errors in logs, etc
Exit maintenance mode on primary
Test again
XMLRPC Config Sync Considerations¶
Upgrade either the primary or the secondary first, leaving the other on the older version until testing is complete.
Supported versions of pfSense software from the last several years properly check for and prevent unintentionally synchronizing data between incompatible versions.
pfsync considerations¶
The underlying pfsync protocol often changes between FreeBSD versions. Versions of pfSense software with a different base OS version of FreeBSD cannot sync their states between each other. Failover will still function, but not stateful failover so all existing connections will be dropped.
pfsync and Interface-bound States¶
States contain information about the interface to which they are bound. If the
interfaces do not line up on both nodes then the states will not properly sync,
for example if WAN is ix0
on one node and igb0
on the other.
Adding interfaces to LAGGs can work around this, since then the states would be
bound to the lagg on each node rather than the underlying interface. For
example, lagg0
on primary contains ix0
, lagg0
on secondary contains
igb0
, but the states are on lagg0
for both so sync will function.
CARP considerations¶
CARP is generally the same between versions and will fail over and back as expected.