[SOLVED] Cannot delete firewall alias used by "phantom" rule

[Greelan]

I have an interesting little issue. I am trying to delete an Alias that I don't need anymore. However, OPNsense is telling me it can't be deleted because it is used by a firewall rule - but that firewall rule no longer exists.

Is there a manual way I can delete the Alias?

Thanks.

[JasMan]

I would try to export the configuration in clear text, remove the alias from the XML and import the modified file again.
I would also recommend to search for the alias in the rule section of the exported configuration. Maybe the rule is still there.

[Greelan]

Thanks for the suggestion. Is it possible to edit /conf/config.xml in situ and reload it?

[Greelan]

Solved it. Looking in config.xml, I figured out that it was included in a rule that had been configured on a previous FW group. The group has been deleted but the rules were preserved in the config (seems a bug to me). So in the GUI I simply recreated the group, deleted the rules, then deleted the group again. Probably could have also edited config.xml

[JasMan]

Thanks for the suggestion. Is it possible to edit /conf/config.xml in situ and reload it?

I did it several times to change the IP subnet for all components (interface, aliases, DHCP reservations....) to get a configuration file, which I can import into my OPNsense VM test environment whitout having any IP conflicts in my network. Not sure if it's really supported, but I think as long as you just edit some values and keep the structure of the file, it should be fine.