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---
title: 'pfSense: restore broken config'
aliases:
- /posts/2022-07-04-pfsense-restore-broken-config
- /posts/2022-07-04-pfsense-restore-broken-config-file
summary: >
Restoring a configuration file for pfSense when it actually stays in a
boot-loop
date: 2022-07-04T18:14:13+02:00
categories: [computerstuff]
tags: [pfsense,networking]
---
My pfSense firewall at home got a pretty heavy misconfiguration by myself and
that resulted in an annoying boot-loop. This took me quite a while to research,
but I finally got it working again. Thank god pfSense makes backups of its
configuration so this recovery process works quite well.
## Follow these steps
1. Boot into **single user mode**
Connect to your firewall (with a serial console) and choose option
`5) Reboot system` and confirm with the letter `S` (capital s).
2. **ZFS version only**
1. Remount root slice as read-write:
~~~console
$ /sbin/mount -u /
~~~
2. Mount all ZFS filesystems, datasets etc.
~~~console
$ /sbin/zfs mount -a
~~~
3. Working within the mounted filesystems
1. Enter **/cf/conf**
~~~console
$ cd /cf/conf
~~~
2. Copy the newest backup file back
~~~console
$ cp backup/config-1648889613.xml config.xml
~~~
3. Clear the config cache
~~~console
$ rm /tmp/config.cache
~~~
4. Reload system and it's services
~~~console
$ /etc/rc.reload_all start
~~~
This may take a while. At this point we are done, we can now remove
the single user mode boot configuration and reboot the firewall.
4. Clear the single user mode boot configuration
~~~console
$ /sbin/nextboot -D
~~~
ZFS does not clear the single user mode boot configuration by itself,
that's why we have to delete it after we are done with our work.
5. Reboot the system
~~~console
$ /sbin/reboot
~~~
You could also use exit, but that would only continue booting into
multi user mode without rebooting the system first. I personally think
that we would benefit from a full reboot.
Okay, that's it all for now. Please note that I do not use the UFS filesystem
any more, so I won't add this to my little instruction set.
{{< alert circle-info >}}
This post was actually older, I've saved the instructions in a textfile until I
found the time to format it and publish it on my website.
{{< /alert >}}
## Sources
- <https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/troubleshooting/single-user-mode.html#ufs-systems>
- <https://www.agix.com.au/restore-pfsense-from-backup-using-the-cli-command-line/>