pfSense

Affected version: every version we've tested so far, at least as far back as ~2.2.0, right through current 2.4 releases.

When a pfSense instance is deployed in VMware through the .OVA/.OVF template provided on the pfSense Gold page (and presumably through the paid Appliance product, too), VEEAM (again, all versions tested to date) is unable to successfully restore the firewall from a backup.

I see from [https://www.netgate.com/docs/pfsense/virtualization/vmware-appliance.html] that this will likely never get solved, but since I'm not the only person who's run into it ([https://forum.netgate.com/topic/132797/veeam-can-t-restore-pfsense-vms]) I figure it should get documented.

Every time we attempt to restore a pfSense VM, the restored VM fails to boot, with:
===START===
GEOM: da0: corrupt or invalid GPT detected.
GEOM: da0: GPT rejected -- may not be recoverable
mountroot: waiting for device /dev/gpt/pfSense...
Mounting from ufs:/dev/gpt/pfSense failed with error 19.

Loader variables:
vfs.root.mountfrom=ufs:/dev/gpt/pfSense
vfs.root.mountfrom.options=rw
[...and then the usual bootloader stuff...]
===END===

Installing from the .ISO image produces a VM that VEEAM is capable of backing up and restoring without issues.

We are now beginning the project of reinstalling every deployed firewall from ISO and then taking an outage window per firewall to flip production over to the new VMs.