Recent posts

#1

General Discussion / Re: Development / Community / ...

Last post by pfry - Today at 03:09:49 AM

[...]From what I see on GitHub and the forum and from my own experience, hostwatch is still in the development phase.[...]

Seeing "This release brings the new host discovery service..." in the release announcement I upgraded, then immediately hunted down the service and killed it, as I did not see a need for it. (After looking at its output, of course - you never can tell, it could be exciting.) I suppose that puts me in the

Development = alpha, Community = beta, Business = stable

group, not that I would consider any software to be "stable".

#2

Hardware and Performance / (Solved) Internet speeds reduc...

Last post by manki_09 - Today at 02:35:47 AM

Well I solved the issue. It believe OPNsense was not the issue.
Flow Control on the Aruba switch wasn't working even though it was enabled. I was able to do some more testing with IPerf and found that when sending data from a higher link.
Did testing between 10gb links and 1 gig links and found the same 300mbps when sending data from the 10gb links to 1gb but fine in the opposite direction.

I think there was a glitch in the Aruba Switch (3.3.2) that seemed to not apply flow control. I finally got it to work after testing Aruba shaping setting and when removed the shaping settings it seems to work just fine. Speeds on 1gb links are good and also good on 2.5 and 10gb links.

#3

25.7, 25.10 Series / Re: clarification of snapshots

Last post by tessus - Today at 02:35:29 AM

After you boot into the snapshot you activated manually, it will retain its name.  You can then delete the old 'default' and rename the current one as 'default' if you wish.

This is clear to me. Thanks. What I had issues with was that snapshots were not traditional snapshots I could rollback to multiple times.

Your previous post was partly responsible for my understanding of OPNsense snapshots. It finally made click. Thank you!

#4

25.7, 25.10 Series / Re: clarification of snapshots

Last post by OPNenthu - Today at 02:28:09 AM

You got it.

Since I already typed this out while you were posting...

This is exactly what makes no sense. If I create a snapshot and then do a firmware update, it is an operation. Installing kernel, packages, and whatnot.
So how can I rollback or switch to a point where the new firmware was not installed, if the operations are persisted.

Just 1) activate the snapshot you took before you installed the updates and 2) reboot.  Done.

Everything you did after you took the snapshot will get reverted because those changes exist only in the snapshot that was active at the time (i.e. 'default'), not in the snapshot you took manually.

After you boot into the snapshot you activated manually, it will retain its name.  You can then delete the old 'default' and rename the current one as 'default' if you wish.  Then you're effectively back to where you started.

--

BTW, they appear to be datasets, but the one listed as default is also a snapshot (don't quite understand that).

Code Select Expand

root@firewall:~ # zfs list -t snapshot
NAME                                       USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
zroot/ROOT/default@2026-01-15-21:20:50-0   564M      -  1.63G  -

root@firewall:~ # zfs list
NAME                                USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
zroot                              2.45G   215G    96K  /zroot
zroot/ROOT                         2.19G   215G    96K  none
zroot/ROOT/20260115212044-25.7.10     8K   215G  1.63G  /   <-- this is a manual "snapshot" I took before upgrade to 25.7.11
zroot/ROOT/default                 2.19G   215G  1.64G  / <-- this is 25.7.11_1


#5

25.7, 25.10 Series / Re: clarification of snapshots

Last post by tessus - Today at 02:24:26 AM

Ok, I think the disconnect is coming to an end.

Snapshots are not traditional snapshots but "streams". As soon as you switch to a stream (which is named snapshot) it starts from the point it was created and starts persisting data from that point forward. There is no going back to that point ever again. <-- This is the important part, which separates this concept from traditional snapshots.

To answer my previous querstions:

when will a snapshot in OPNsense start to persist data? When I make it active for the first time?

Yes, it starts persisting data as soon as it is made active (after the reboot).

this means I cannot use (rollback to) a snapshot more than once.

Yes, this is correct.

how do I rollback to Sept. 2025 when the "default" snapshot was created?

You can't, it is not possible.

#6

25.7, 25.10 Series / Re: Cant Access Web Gui

Last post by colin299 - Today at 02:10:45 AM

Solved. I have tried resetting it to default many times previously and nothing worked. But this time when I reset to default all my issues went away. I am just going to tell myself that you are a wizard and you cast a spell on my system. Thank you!

#7

25.7, 25.10 Series / Re: clarification of snapshots

Last post by tessus - Today at 02:07:17 AM

It's not possible and you will get an error if trying to delete the active snapshot (which if you only have one, it is by definition also the active one).  Since these are boot environments rather than canonical ZFS snapshots, you can't just delete them all.  You need at least one active one to boot into* by default, and by convention this one gets the "default" label.  It's just a label though.  You can change it and name any snapshot you want as "default."

Thanks for the explanation. This answer points to boot environment as patient0 mentioned. So those are not ZFS snapshots, even though the UI calls them snapshots. Got it.

All normal operations of the router will continue to be reflected in that snapshot version as well as in the active. That is, it continues to update for operations ... but not for configuration.

This is exactly what makes no sense. If I create a snapshot and then do a firmware update, it is an operation. Installing kernel, packages, and whatnot.
So how can I rollback or switch to a point where the new firmware was not installed, if the operations are persisted.

I will take the documentation apart and ask questions referencing the docs.

#8

25.7, 25.10 Series / Re: clarification of snapshots

Last post by OPNenthu - Today at 01:57:49 AM

Snapshots reflect a configuration point, not a time point.

That's a useful way to think of it.  Technically they are a snapshot of a point in time (in terms of data on disk), but as a mental model for OPNsense you are indeed effectively reverting to an older configuration when you activate a snapshot.  Not just configs, but installed packages & plugins too.

To add one thing to this (which was also asked about earlier), the reason a snapshot appears to grow over time is not because anything is changing or being persisted in the snapshot.  It's because of the differential nature of the snapshot with respect to the active one.  If I have an active snapshot now (call it 'default') and I take snapshot 'A', then at that instant 'A' will be essentially a free snapshot in terms of space because its state matches with the active one.

Over time and as more filesystem changes occur in the active one, the reported size of snapshot A will appear to increase, but this is only because it's reflecting the differences between 'A' and current ('default').

If A is never booted into, its "contents" don't change.  A non-active snapshot is effectively immutable, though I'm not sure if it actually is.  An active snapshot is mutable since it's the active boot environment where things are changing.

In ZFS terms, an active boot environment is like a cloned snapshot I guess (?)  Still new to ZFS overall so I could be wrong.

#9

25.7, 25.10 Series / Re: clarification of snapshots

Last post by passeri - Today at 01:36:36 AM

This appears to be the question:

My problem of understanding is why and when will a snapshot in OPNsense start to persist data? When I make it active for the first time? If so, this means I cannot use (rollback to) a snapshot more than once. e.g. how do I rollback to Sept. 2025 when the "default" snapshot was created?
Somehow there is a disconnect I cannot reconcile.

and this is a lay answer from my use of snapshots: essentially, you do not roll back to a date but to a version.

If I take a snapshot then I am preserving a (presumably) stable version. All normal operations of the router will continue to be reflected in that snapshot version as well as in the active. That is, it continues to update for operations ... but not for configuration.

Any configuration changes will be reflected in the Active version but not in the Snapshot version. If you like the changes and they are stable, you can make that the master simply by continuing to use it while optionally deleting the Snapshot. If you do not like the changes then revert to the Snapshot in which case your configuration changes will vanish yet the router will be operationally up to date. If your changes crash the router then you can recover safely to your snapshot on boot.

Snapshots reflect a configuration point, not a time point.

I will be interested to see whether my understanding is confirmed.

#10

25.7, 25.10 Series / Re: Cant Access Web Gui

Last post by Patrick M. Hausen - Today at 01:27:50 AM

Don't click on the link in my post but simply enter the URL into your browser's address bar ...