Upgrading the Netgate Firewall to 23.01 Error – Unable to check for updates

I discovered this issue today while upgrading a Netgate 7100 from 22.05 to 23.01. The Reddit page “https://www.reddit.com/r/PFSENSE/comments/mdqyhg/unable_to_check_for_updates_getting_this_error/” discussed this topic too.

This is somewhere between a hack and a correction, so make sure to have a backup and a plan for recovery if this all goes bad.

The file below may have an error in it:

/usr/local/share/pfSense/pkg/repos/pfSense-repo.conf

The file originally looked like this:

FreeBSD: { enabled: no }

pfSense-core: {
  url: "/pfSense_plus-v22_05_amd64-core",
  mirror_type: "srv",
  signature_type: "fingerprints",
  fingerprints: "/usr/local/share/pfSense/keys/pkg",
  enabled: yes
}

pfSense: {
  url: "/pfSense_plus-v22_05_amd64-pfSense_plus_v22_05",
  mirror_type: "srv",
  signature_type: "fingerprints",
  fingerprints: "/usr/local/share/pfSense/keys/pkg",
  enabled: yes
}

I corrected the paths to be as follows, and it worked:

FreeBSD: { enabled: no }

pfSense-core: {
  url: "pkg+https://firmware.netgate.com/pkg/pfSense_plus-v22_05_amd64-core",
  mirror_type: "srv",
  signature_type: "fingerprints",
  fingerprints: "/usr/local/share/pfSense/keys/pkg",
  enabled: yes
}

pfSense: {
  url: "pkg+https://firmware.netgate.com/pkg/pfSense_plus-v22_05_amd64-pfSense_plus_v22_05",
  mirror_type: "srv",
  signature_type: "fingerprints",
  fingerprints: "/usr/local/share/pfSense/keys/pkg",
  enabled: yes
}

The trick is to change the paths by appending “pkg+https://firmware.netgate.com/pkg/” to them. Inspect the configuration files above to see for your self.

This was very strange and I am not sure why it happens. Apparently others (given the Reddit page) have this issue too.

Having made the change above, try to do the upgrade again. Double-check your work.