Glossary

API Explorer - The page under System → REST API that lists every REST API endpoint with its parameters and lets an authorized user try requests from the browser. See the API reference.

Boot environment - On a ZFS installation, a bootable copy of the root file system. The upgrader clones the current boot environment and upgrades the clone; earlier ones can be selected from the loader menu or System → Boot Environments. After a failed 1.0 → 1.1 upgrade the pre-upgrade boot environment is an emergency recovery point, not a supported downgrade path. See ZFS boot environments.

Build set - The resolved source, ports, OS-definition, and FreeBSD revisions consumed by a build.

Capability - A declared package behavior with security or operational impact, such as packet inspection or firewall modification.

Channel - A publication stream with its own release document and support promise: Stable (the supported 1.1.x line) or Development (the rolling 1.2 line, experimental and unsupported).

Custom repository - A package repository added by the administrator under System → Package Manager → Repositories. Official FreeSense repositories always take priority, and packages from a custom repository are listed after the official ones. See custom repositories.

FreeBSD pin - The exact FreeBSD source and ports commits, with the worker inputs, that System and Optional Packages builds use. A pin normally stays fixed for 14 days; when it changes, Optional Packages are rebuilt. FreeSense 1.1.0 is built on a FreeBSD 16.0-CURRENT snapshot (source a52c50b4, osversion 1600027). Also called the platform pin.

Image release - A separate publication of installer and cloud images (ISO and other disk images). An image release requires a verified pair of a System build and an Optional Packages build, and is not made for every package update.

Intensive package - A package expected to need notable CPU, memory, storage, or sustained I/O capacity.

Optional Packages build - A build of the Optional Packages repository (WireGuard, Suricata, HAProxy, and the rest of the catalog). It runs when package sources or build configuration change, or when the FreeBSD pin changes, and is published independently of System builds.

Package catalog - The machine-readable inventory of package integrations and their services, capabilities, resource profiles, and WebUI destinations.

Release lock - The sealed file that defines a Stable release: config/releases/<version>.json in the freesense-os-base repository. It pins the freesense, freesense-system-ports, and freesense-packages commits, the FreeBSD source and ports commits, and the worker inputs. A published Stable release is never rebuilt; a fix ships as a new patch release with a new lock. See release process.

Reserved table - A FreeSense-owned firewall table maintained by an integration, such as CrowdSec decisions.

REST API - The HTTP API of a FreeSense appliance under /api/v1/, configured under System → REST API. Requests authenticate with a per-user API key sent as a bearer token and are limited by that user’s privileges. See the REST API overview.

Sealed provenance - The immutable commits recorded with a build artifact and its documentation.

System build - A build of the FreeSense base system packages (the core system and WebUI from freesense and the system ports from freesense-system-ports) for one channel. A System-only change produces a System build without rebuilding Optional Packages.

Threat Shield - An Optional Package that combines DNS filtering, IP threat lists, GeoIP country blocking, inbound reputation checks and a live threat map, configured under Services → Threat Shield. See Threat Shield.

VXLAN - Virtual Extensible LAN: an interface type that carries an Ethernet segment inside UDP packets (port 4789 by default) between tunnel endpoints, identified by a VXLAN Network Identifier. FreeSense supports VXLAN interfaces under Interfaces → Assignments → VXLANs; pfSense does not. See VXLAN.