pfSense Digest

The pfSense version formerly known as 1.3 will be 2.0 going forward. The build system changes, renaming of the board on the forum, etc. will be happening bit by bit over the next week or two. This was done for two reasons.

1. This release brings numerous very significant changes, and going from 1.2 to 2.0 is more indicative of that. The configuration for 2.0 systems is not backwards compatible with 1.2.x, which is another good reason to stress the level of change by bumping the version number.

2. The person who wrote the package system’s version compatibility detection didn’t exactly use much foresight (not naming names, is no longer an active developer). Every existing version of pfSense only checks the first number in a version to see if it’s compatible, so a package marked for 1.3 only will show up on any version that starts with 1. Because, you know, who would ever release a 1.0, 1.2, 1.3, etc.?  It’s something that had not previously been a problem because packages weren’t as version-dependent as some are now. Changing the version to 2.0 is the easiest way to work around this and still accommodate all the existing installations out there, and it just makes sense to do so as noted above.

Lastly, the answer to the inevitable “When will it be released?”.

Edit: 1.3 was renamed to 2.0

For the latest info, see the 2.0 beta post.

1.3 ALPHA snapshots are now available for testing! These bring significant changes from 1.2, and are vastly different from the 1.2.1 snapshots that are also now available. The 1.2.1 snapshots are only bug fixes to 1.2 release. These 1.3 snapshots bring you all the great new features that have been added to pfSense over the past 8 months. The 1.3 new features tag on this blog will show you some past posts discussing a number of the great additions in this release.

Upgrading to 2.0 Snapshots
Upgrading from 1.2 to 2.0 has not been tested much. Be prepared to reinstall if you do try it.

Snapshot File Naming Convention
The file naming convention for snapshot releases has changed. They now include the date and time of the snapshot build. This is in YYYYmmdd format, and is in the local time of the build servers (Louisville, US Eastern). This makes the snapshots sort properly by date, and makes it easier for those of us who keep lots of snapshots to retain them with unique names. It also means we will never interrupt anyone’s download by overwriting with a new snapshot. Several builds will be retained in these folders for 1-2 days – make sure you get the newest build available.

New Forum Board for 2.0 Snapshots
Please keep all forum 2.0 discussion in the 2.0 Snapshot Feedback and Problems board. If you try these snapshots, we would appreciate feedback on your experiences.

Download Link
Yes, I have fully read and understand the above and wish to continue to download 2.0 ALPHA snapshots

Questions
General questions can be posed here as a comment, or on the forum. If you have a specific problem to report, please do not leave it as a comment, rather use the forum. This allows us to work with you on issues without creating a mess in the comments here.

Enjoy!

Development work continues on 1.2.1 and 1.3.

1.2.1

We’re having some build server difficulty, or would have made snapshots available almost a month ago. We hope to have that resolved this week and get 1.2.1 snapshots available so the community can help us test the changes.

1.3

We have 1.3 snapshots building but have not had time to put together the required information to make them widely available. We’re also hesitant to provide snapshots of branches that are seeing frequent development and have a number of areas in the midst of significant changes. But once we can write up some caveats, basic guidance, and things to look out for, we will make the snapshots publicly available.

Revision Control Conversion

Bill Marquette has been working on converting our revision control from CVS to git, and replacing cvsweb and cvstrac. These will be much improved across the board once this conversion is complete. Our current systems are less than ideal for a number of reasons. More information on this will come once we get fully converted (ETA unknown).

Those of you who have been using pfSense for several years will remember pre-1.0, there was an auto-upgrade page that would upgrade you to the latest available release with one click. It was later broken by some changes and removed prior to the 1.0 release, but has been fixed and resurrected. It’s now working in 1.3.

By default, it checks for a newer stable release than the one you are using, and if one is available, you can click a button and it will download and install the update. It also allows changing the URL to pull snapshots, or you can enter your own URL if you maintain a custom version. The current manual upgrade remains available as well.

1.3 is under such active development that it isn’t really suitable for any non-developers at this time. We gave the URL for the snapshots to attendees at our BSDCan tutorial, but won’t be releasing it to everyone just yet.

Most of the development time since the 1.2 release has been spent on the new features in 1.3, however an updated 1.2 release is also in the works.

Version 1.2.1 will be released this summer. It will use FreeBSD 6.3 as the base system, and incorporate fixes for a few issues discovered since the 1.2 release. No new features will ever be added to 1.2.x releases.

Version 1.3 is not yet publicly available. With BSDCan coming very soon, that has been more of a focus than testing and preparing the initial public 1.3 release. It may not be available until after BSDCan.

This release already contains some significant new features. Among them:

• Traffic shaper completely rewritten – now supports any number of internal interfaces and multiple WAN interfaces. This work is 99% finished and is working exceptionally well in our testing. Thanks to Ermal Luçi for doing the work, and the numerous people who contributed to the bounty to make this happen!
• User manager – multiple administrative users can be created, with varying levels of access. Access groups can be defined to easily grant identical access rights to multiple users. Rights can be defined individually for each page in the web interface.
• LDAP authentication – LDAP is integrated into the user manager so pfSense can authenticate from any LDAP server. Microsoft Active Directory and Novell eDir have been throughly tested, though any LDAP server should work. You can even define groups in your directory and assign rights in pfSense to those groups.
• Significant OpenVPN improvements – these are still a work in progress, more info to come.
• Routing improvements – still a work in progress as well, but will allow more flexible routing capabilities.