Over the past couple of years, I have my pfsense working about 90% of the way that I want it to. It is currently installed on a physical protectli device. However, when trying things out, I was never one to make a backup before experimenting. It seems that some packages will remember things things when removed and then reinstalled at a later date, and there is some residual garbage with that which I no longer want to keep.
So I installed proxmox and setup pfsense as a VM in there to start from scratch. I created 5 virtual network devices to simulate the 4 physical ports on the protectli, while keeping the 5th as a “WAN” so i still had internet access. I then meticulously rebuilt my firewall and have gotten it to a point where I think it is best to continue on the final hardware due to certs and Dynamic DNS settings. I have exported the config.xml file and am ready to load onto the physical hardware.
What would you recommend to get this file onto the device? Should I flatten and reload the device or should I just head to the restore option in the UI? Anything I should watch out for? How easy is it to re-map the interfaces? Will I be able to delete the “phony WAN”? What about package data needed or not needed at the OS level by the xml file? I am just trying to prepare myself and minimize the internet down time while I do this.
TIA