Todo #16118: Increase amount of system alias content printed in alias list - pfSense - pfSense bugtracker

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Todo #16118

closed

Increase amount of system alias content printed in alias list

Added by Mike Moore about 1 year ago. Updated about 14 hours ago.

Status:

Resolved

Priority:

Low

Assignee:

Marcos M

Category:

Aliases / Tables

Target version:

2.9.0

Start date:

Due date:

% Done:

100%

Estimated time:

Plus Target Version:

26.03.1

Release Notes:

Default

Description

Expand preview of what is in the system generated alias. Currently you can not view what is in a long alias list of system-specific alias e.g._reserved4_

As discussed here: https://forum.netgate.com/topic/196996/system-defined-alias-see-all-listed/2?_=1743546368982

Files

clipboard-202605092201-wu26m.png (68.3 KB) clipboard-202605092201-wu26m.png

Bryan Allen, 05/10/2026 03:01 AM

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Updated by Mike Moore 12 months ago

Any update on this?

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Updated by Bryan Allen 4 days ago

File clipboard-202605092201-wu26m.png clipboard-202605092201-wu26m.png added
Status changed from New to Feedback
Priority changed from Normal to Low

Its confirmed that there is a limited view when hovering. Is it not enough to the view in Diagnostics > Tables

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Updated by Marcos M 3 days ago

Tracker changed from Bug to Feature
Subject changed from Expand view of system generated alias in GUI to Increase limit of listed system alias addresses
Status changed from Feedback to In Progress
Assignee set to Marcos M
Target version set to 2.9.0
Plus Target Version set to 26.07

Showing the full contents of aliases in the rules page or the alias pages isn't practical because aliases may contain an indefinite number of addresses. This is most prevalent with URL aliases but the underlying issues is the same for other alias types.

The Diagnostics > Tables page is appropriate for viewing the contents of an alias. The drawback of this method is that an alias must first be used in a rule; unused aliases are not loaded in the ruleset and hence cannot be inspected. It's possible to make all aliases persistent but that would result in increased system resource usage for no other gain. To overcome this the alias can be used in a simple floating match rule so that its contents can be inspected before using it in "actual" rules.

All that said, the scope of system aliases is fairly limited (with the exception of e.g. IPv6 bogons) so we could increase the limit on the page Firewall > Aliases > All to 20 instead of 10. That will allow the new reserved aliases to be fully shown with some headroom for the future. The underlying issue will continue to exist and short of a temporary ruleset generation that doesn't affect the current ruleset, along with dynamic content streaming for e.g. URL aliases, I'm not sure there's a good way to handle it.

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Updated by Marcos M 2 days ago

Status changed from In Progress to Feedback
% Done changed from 0 to 100

Applied with 953511d6b27f68e731b70330d4f219d726954825 and 5adde7ac05ba8b556055f707ffefd2eddce72962. Show Hide

diff --git a/src/etc/inc/util.inc b/src/etc/inc/util.inc
index 0eec09632f..6971f4c2d2 100644
--- a/src/etc/inc/util.inc
+++ b/src/etc/inc/util.inc
@@ -229,6 +229,9 @@ define("RULE_LABEL_ORDER", [

 // Alias tags.
 define("ALIAS_TAG_DELIMITER", ',');
+// Alias display limits.
+define('ALIAS_CONTENT_DISPLAY_PAGE_MAX', 20);
+define('ALIAS_CONTENT_DISPLAY_POPUP_MAX', 20);

 // Log prefixes
 define('LOG_PREFIX_SYSTEM', 'System');
diff --git a/src/usr/local/www/firewall_aliases.php b/src/usr/local/www/firewall_aliases.php
index c5ba8ba789..b26a8e04cc 100644
--- a/src/usr/local/www/firewall_aliases.php
+++ b/src/usr/local/www/firewall_aliases.php
@@ -128,9 +128,8 @@ if ($tab == 'all'):
         if ($alias["url"]) {
             echo htmlspecialchars($alias["url"]);
         } elseif (is_array($alias["aliasurl"])) {
-            $aliasurls = implode(", ", array_slice($alias["aliasurl"], 0, 10));
-            echo htmlspecialchars($aliasurls);
-            if (is_array($aliasurls) && (count($aliasurls) > 10)) {
+            echo htmlspecialchars(implode(", ", array_slice($alias["aliasurl"], 0, ALIAS_CONTENT_DISPLAY_PAGE_MAX)));
+            if (count($alias["aliasurl"]) > ALIAS_CONTENT_DISPLAY_PAGE_MAX) {
                 echo "&hellip;";
             }
         } elseif (!empty($alias['address'])) {
@@ -138,8 +137,8 @@ if ($tab == 'all'):
             if ($alias['type'] == 'host') {
                 $tmpaddr = array_map('alias_idn_to_utf8', $tmpaddr);
             }
-            echo htmlspecialchars(implode(", ", array_slice($tmpaddr, 0, 10)));
-            if (count($tmpaddr) > 10) {
+            echo htmlspecialchars(implode(", ", array_slice($tmpaddr, 0, ALIAS_CONTENT_DISPLAY_PAGE_MAX)));
+            if (count($tmpaddr) > ALIAS_CONTENT_DISPLAY_PAGE_MAX) {
                 echo '&hellip;';
             }
         } else {
@@ -233,9 +232,8 @@ endif;
         echo htmlspecialchars($alias["url"]) . "<br />";
     } else {
         if (is_array($alias["aliasurl"])) {
-            $aliasurls = implode(", ", array_slice($alias["aliasurl"], 0, 10));
-            echo htmlspecialchars($aliasurls);
-            if (is_array($aliasurls) && (count($aliasurls) > 10)) {
+            echo htmlspecialchars(implode(", ", array_slice($alias["aliasurl"], 0, ALIAS_CONTENT_DISPLAY_PAGE_MAX)));
+            if (count($alias["aliasurl"]) > ALIAS_CONTENT_DISPLAY_PAGE_MAX) {
                 echo "&hellip;<br />";
             }
             echo "<br />\n";
@@ -244,9 +242,9 @@ endif;
         if ($alias['type'] == 'host') {
             $tmpaddr = array_map('alias_idn_to_utf8', $tmpaddr);
         }
-        $addresses = implode(", ", array_slice($tmpaddr, 0, 10));
+        $addresses = implode(", ", array_slice($tmpaddr, 0, ALIAS_CONTENT_DISPLAY_PAGE_MAX));
         echo htmlspecialchars($addresses);
-        if (count($tmpaddr) > 10) {
+        if (count($tmpaddr) > ALIAS_CONTENT_DISPLAY_PAGE_MAX) {
             echo '&hellip;';
         }
     }
diff --git a/src/usr/local/www/guiconfig.inc b/src/usr/local/www/guiconfig.inc
index 91d22b3c74..194ce68348 100644
--- a/src/usr/local/www/guiconfig.inc
+++ b/src/usr/local/www/guiconfig.inc
@@ -984,7 +984,7 @@ function alias_info_popup($alias_id, $is_system_alias = false) {
         if ($alias['type'] == "urltable") {
             exec("/sbin/pfctl -t {$alias['name']} -T show | wc -l", $total_entries);
             $counter=preg_replace("/\D/", "", $total_entries[0]);
-            exec("/sbin/pfctl -t {$alias['name']} -T show | head -10002", $alias_addresses);
+            exec("/sbin/pfctl -t {$alias['name']} -T show | head -" . ALIAS_CONTENT_DISPLAY_POPUP_MAX, $alias_addresses);
         } else {
             $urlfn = alias_expand_urltable($alias['name']);
             $alias_addresses = empty($urlfn) ? [] : explode("\n", file_get_contents($urlfn));
@@ -992,8 +992,8 @@ function alias_info_popup($alias_id, $is_system_alias = false) {
         }

         $content .= '<h5>'. htmlspecialchars($alias['url']) .'</h5><ul><li>'. implode('</li><li>', $alias_addresses) .'</li></ul>';
-        if ($counter > 10002) {
-            $content .= '<i>'. gettext("listing only first 10k items") .'</i>';
+        if ($counter > ALIAS_CONTENT_DISPLAY_POPUP_MAX) {
+            $content .= '<i>'. localize_text("Listing the first %d addresses. Visit Diagnostics > Tables for the full list.", ALIAS_CONTENT_DISPLAY_POPUP_MAX) .'</i>';
         }
     } else {
         if (empty($alias['address'])) {

Edited to address #note-5

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Updated by Danilo Zrenjanin about 20 hours ago

Tested against the latest pfSense Plus dev build. I can confirm that the number of Aliases displayed under Firewall > Aliases > All - System Aliases is now 20. The same change should be applied to the Aliases listed under Firewall > Aliases > All - Firewall Aliases All

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