Moving Forward

[jaredhendrickson13]

Yesterday, Netgate announced the re-convergence of pfSense CE and Plus. This is great news for the community as there is no longer two compatibility layers, differing feature sets, and accessibility options for users to have to consider. This includes full availability of a pfSense native API built into the new Go-based controller that was previously only available to pfSense Plus.

Consequently, Netgate has also confirmed their plans to deprecate the existing PHP-based pfSense codebase that this project relies on. Once PHP has been removed from pfSense, this package and others like it will cease to function. There is currently no official timeline for the deprecation of PHP on pfSense, but it will occur at some point after the pfSense 26.10 release. The new Go codebase is currently not publicly accessible yet, and there is no public documentation available to package maintainers who may want to port their packages to the new Go-based system ahead of time. Even if technically possible, it is unlikely this package could be ported in a meaningful amount of time.

This does mean there will be some changes to the approach in how this project is maintained going forward.

What's Not Changing
I will continue to the support and maintain the package as I have for the last 7 years. This includes bug fixes, security patches, small features/enhancements, and compatibility releases. Once PHP has been removed, I will continue to support any PHP-based pfSense release still supported by Netgate.

What is Changing
This project is entering maintenance mode. Significant new features are not being considered at this time. This is primarily to help the user base migrate to the official pfSense APIs without unnecessary distractions. The official API is quite comprehensive and will suit the needs of most users. However, it is not entirely 1:1 with the REST API package. There will be regressions in functionality when moving from this package to the official API. I am happy to help the transition however I can.

While this news is bittersweet, it has always been an inevitability. This project was started to fill the gap in functionality until a native API was implemented. I believe it has accomplished that goal and I'm enormously proud of the community who has helped pull it off.

Please reach out if there's anything I can do to help ease the transition.

Thanks!