Since my Update stopped working I'm concerned about security

[tre4bax]

So a couple of months ago my updates stopped working and it looks like something is wrong with the files.

How is the best way to go about completely starting from scratch?  I have tried booting from a USB key and I thought reinstalling it, however that does not seem to happen.  It just stays the same.

Clearly I am doing something wrong and I thought the best way was to ask for advice to see if I can make this work.  If I was doing this on a windows device I would have cleared out all partitions and started from scratch installing, however my familarity with this environment is low and I could not find a way to achieve this.

Please help.  This firewall has so much capability but is useless if I cannot keep it up to date.

[Ciprian]

Hi!
What you say is very weird, since you tried to boot and reinstall from USB, but it still stay the same, with no updates.

What I would do is:

1. Boot from an USB media having the last available version of OPNsense, chose to load config file when prompted during OS/ FW load process, load the config found on the local storage, and see if everything works as expected.
2. If everything's OK, first and foremost export a config file, so that you have a config back-up somewhere else than OPNsense itself
3. Reboot from the USB media and, after complete load of OS/ FW from USB (live CD mode), login to the console using username: installer and password opnsense. This will trigger the install to the local storage.
4. Login to the web interface and restore config from the back-up file made at 2.

Explanations:

During 1., you boot from USB so that every and all files from the local storage is ignored, the last available version of OPNsense is loaded. The only exception is the configuration (when prompted, since you so have chosen) which is loaded from the local storage. So, you are testing your current config with the freshest version available on USB media without losing the old/ existing versions + config. 
During 3. the local storage is wiped out (including config - so step 2. is necessary so that you are not required to start from scratch) and a fresh version of OPNsense is installed on local storage.
During 4. you are restoring the old config over the fresh install.

It should work.
Let us know if this helped solving your issue.

Good luck!

[tre4bax]

Damn,

I just realised what I was doing.  Thanks for that hutiucip.  I was login in using Root not Installer  Doh!  All I have done is login to the stick and not install it on the box.

what an unspeakable newb!!

[Ciprian]

Glad it helped!

To be completely honest, I was suspecting this, but I wasn't 100% sure, so I chose to cover all angles here, knowing that you would get to the point anyway.

Good luck!