This is an original planning guide. It is not a vendor manual, an official standard, or legal advice. Example addresses use documentation ranges. Review every command before you paste it.
What this hour is for
OPNsense is not a renamed pfSense backup. The converter drafts one object. You read interfaces and any rule. Any-to-any is deleted. The pfSense backup stays. A restore is the apply. This page does not restore.
One object you are allowed to hold. Secrets are redacted and rotated if they were in the export. Management is not published to the world in the draft.
Do not select a production firewall as the restore target, even in your notes.
The change you can finish
Apply nothing during the writing of the note. When the lab window opens, it is one change on the device named in the ticket. Read the draft, then the device, then decide.
Rollback is the file or the revision you saved first. You do not invent a rollback after the only copy is gone.
- Pick one object.
- Convert and read.
- Delete any-to-any.
- Keep the pfSense backup.
- Redact secrets.
- Do not restore.
Mistakes that outlive the command
pfSense to OPNsense Migration Guide goes wrong in a small set of ways. The list is here so the ticket can forbid them before the window.
- A restore from the draft.
- The backup discarded.
- Any-to-any kept.
- A secret in the file.
- Management published in the draft.
Decisions to write down
One decision for pfSense to OPNsense Migration Guide: One object is the scope. The backup remains. Any-to-any is gone. Nothing was restored. And secrets are gone.
Checks before you call it done
Confirm this before you call the change done: The object is named. The draft was read. The backup location is written. No secret remains. And no firewall was restored. If one of those fails, stop.
Before you leave the device
pfSense to OPNsense Migration Guide ends when the hostname on the device matches the hostname in the ticket. If it does not, you are on the wrong box. Stop. A command that succeeded on the wrong box is not progress.
The draft stays a draft until a person has read the names in it. A generator does not log into the device and does not know which interface is the uplink. You delete a line that names a device, a zone, or a prefix you did not write down.
0.0.0.0/0 is not kept because a sample included it. A source you can say is the source you keep. 192.0.2.0/24, 198.51.100.0/24, 203.0.113.0/24, and 2001:db8::/32 are documentation. They belong in the note. They are not prefixes you type onto a production device because they appeared in a draft.
prompt-for-this is a reminder that a secret is missing. It is not a password, a key, a community string, or a pre-shared key you save in the ticket or in git. The real secret stays in the store.
One change is the window. A VLAN and a routing protocol and a VPN do not share it. If two things move and the result is wrong, you will not know which one did it. The next feature waits for its own page.
If the same step fails twice, stop for the day. The failure is the result. Adding a forum command beside a half-applied config produces a device nobody can rebuild. Restore the copy you took first.
A second person reads the device name and the change aloud. If they cannot find them in the ticket, the note is not done. Silence is not agreement. Then leave the device alone.
This page is a planning guide. It is not a vendor manual, not an official standard, and not a permission to touch a network you do not administer. The pillar guide owns the wider design. This page owns one lab proof.
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