Firewalla is built based on Ubuntu Linux. We intentionally kept both core packages (software required by Firewalla) and some supplemental packages (things you may use).
The Firewalla team maintains the core packages required by the Firewalla software. If updates are needed (security, bugs), we will push upgrades to fix them.
If you decide to use Firewalla for services beyond what Firewalla support, you are responsible for packages used by your services and keeping them updated.
In case you want to upgrade packages, please beware of this:
- Upgrading packages can be risky, it may break the system and require a total reset. So, please make sure you know what you are doing.
- You are pretty much on your own here, we cannot offer much support on patches we haven't tested.
- You should be familiar with bash and apt/apt-get.
- In the worst case, you'll have to re-image your Firewalla box. (links at bottom)
Using apt-get.sh
Firewalla locks the base OS partition to ensure the stability of the base system, any OS change is kept in temporary storage (disk or memory), and all these changes will be reverted after reboot. For example, if you use apt to install the package, it will be reverted after reboot.
In case you want to upgrade packages, we created the apt-get.sh script to make package upgrades stick permanently.
For example, if you want to install git
/home/pi/firewalla/scripts/apt-get.sh install git
Note: Root partition disk space is limited, so please check disk usage before installing anything large.
How to re-image your Firewalla box
In case you can't really get your system to work after changing, follow these 2 guides here:
Comments
2 comments
Is there a method to remove packages installed this way? To ensure they are not re-installed after reboot after removed with apt-get? Was trying to install mailutils to use mail in a cronjob script for log rotation, but I don't think I want to leave the package....
Haha I know I am on my own here, but thought I'd ask...
Taylor, this document might've been updated after you commented. Presently, the way to remove a package is to reboot the system:
> Firewalla locks the base OS partition to ensure the stability of the base system, any OS change is kept in temporary storage (disk or memory), and all these changes will be reverted after reboot. For example, if you use apt to install the package, it will be reverted after reboot.
If you have a persistent cron job, then you should remove the portion of your script that installs the packages you do not want to keep.
Please sign in to leave a comment.