No more LAN Address.
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Until last week I was connecting without problems to pfSense and the DMZ.
From today pfSense no longer assigns me an address from DHCP.
If I assign a static address on the PC, I cannot surf the Internet or even ping the LAN network card on pfSense.
If I try to connect by Wi-Fi to an Access Point on the LAN, same situation.
It is as if the network card of the LAN on pfSense no longer works; yet I don't see an error report.From the console I can ping the Internet, I have already tried to reboot and reassign the network cards.
The pfSense PC is always on, under UPS, but I would not like that during the weekend there were any problems.
As I said, I don't see any apparent error reports.
How can I check what is wrong from the console?=== Update ===
I am able to connect via OpenVPN, so it is really some LAN related problem.
I can connect to pfSense; so, I am wondering if there is anything to diagnose via GUI -
Can you ping anything on the LAN from the pfSense console?
Does it show any devices in the LAN subnet in:
arp -a?When you re-assigned the NICs did you assign a different NIC as LAN?
What is LAN connected to? Does it show link LEDs?
Steve
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@stephenw10
Thank you for replying.
Today I will do some other tests, but yesterday I tried to ping both the PC to the pfSense LAN NIC and vice versa, but they were not reachable.
Via OpenVPN I saved the configuration and so now I can try to install pfSense on a second PC.
In the meantime, I checked the history of changes and there weren't any since the last time I used it.
When reassigning the NICs I have always used the old ones. These are two NICs on the motherboard. The LED is flashing, so it would appear to be working.
As I said, today I'll try again.== Update ==
With arp -a I only see the pfSense NICs, the router and a switch.
My PC on the LAN, with Static IP, is not there. -
@whitetiger-it said in No more LAN Address.:
With arp -a I only see the pfSense NICs, the router and a switch.
A 'router' is the upstream (ISP° router ?
A 'switch' = a plain dumb switch ?? You can see the MAC of a switch, this adds a whole boatload of possible issues.
If your LAN NIC is ok, the prime suspect is this switch or the cables from it. Place the siwtch on the WAN side, between pfSense and your upstream router. If WAN is still ok, then it must be the LAN NIC : swap LAN and WAN and you'll find out. -
Yup, try swapping the NIC assignments and see if that allows LAN access but breaks WAN. In which case it's probably a bad NIC.
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I had already tried to replace the switch and the cable.
I had also tried to connect the PC directly to the pfSense NIC with a cable.
Always no network.Today I took an identical PC and moved the SSD from the old PC to the new one and the network works.
Now I would like to understand how the NIC on the motherboard of the old PC stopped working. The LEDs flashed, both that of the speed and that of the signal.
However, my little personal Disaster Recovery worked.
Thanks to all of you for your interest.
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I considered this problem closed because, by moving the disk with pfSense to a new PC, it started working again.
Then I read this post which reports the same symptoms: LAN NIC LEDs work, but LAN doesn't.
By installing Win10 the port works.So I did the same test; I took the old PC, I launched a Live Xubuntu from a USB stick and I tested the two ports of the PC by connecting them to the Internet and they work perfectly.
At this point the problem is no longer hardware, but not even the pfSense configuration since (I repeat) moving the SSD pfSense has started working again.
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Did you try swapping the NIC assignments yet?
What sort of NIC is this?
Steve
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@stephenw10 said in No more LAN Address.:
Did you try swapping the NIC assignments yet?
What sort of NIC is this?
NIC is a RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Motherboard is a Gigabyte C847NYes, I had tried swapping.
Now pfSense is installed on a new PC identical to the previous one, it was enough to move the disk and everything worked correctly.
As I said, I had closed the post assuming that the NIC on the motherboard had failed.
Then, after reading that other thread, I also tried to test it with Xubuntu and the two NICs work.It is curious that different motherboards (mine and that of other users who have described their problems in the forum), with different configurations, have exhibited the same problem in the same way.
And only in pfSense, because he with Windows and I with Xubuntu, we verified that the card worked.On the other hand, in pfSense I don't think there are any diagnostic tools for a situation of this type.
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@gertjan said in No more LAN Address.:
@whitetiger-it said in No more LAN Address.:
With arp -a I only see the pfSense NICs, the router and a switch.
A 'router' is the upstream (ISP° router ?
A 'switch' = a plain dumb switch ?? You can see the MAC of a switch, this adds a whole boatload of possible issues.
If your LAN NIC is ok, the prime suspect is this switch or the cables from it. Place the siwtch on the WAN side, between pfSense and your upstream router. If WAN is still ok, then it must be the LAN NIC : swap LAN and WAN and you'll find out.As I wrote earlier I had already tried to replace both the cables and the switch. It worked by replacing the PC, but the NICs work by testing them with Xubuntu.
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@whitetiger-it said in No more LAN Address.:
Yes, I had tried swapping.
And when you did that what happened? Did the fault remain in the physical NIC or follow the config?
Did you try a complete power cycle when it was initially failing?
It's possible the NIC itself gets stuck in some mode the driver cannot recover it from and needs to be reset. Simply rebooting may not do that. The Realtek hardware with the FreeBSD driver is known to have issues.Steve
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@stephenw10
Yes, I had restarted the PC several times. I changed multiple configurations.I would like to clarify that I am not seeking support today.
Now everything is working correctly on the new PC.
I wanted to report it because I find similarities with the thread I reported above.And if the cause of my problem can be Realtek, I take note.
Thanks, Steve, for your interest
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But did you completely power cycle it? Actually remove the power?
A built in NIC like that will often remain powered even when the PC is shutdown to allow WoL. Resetting it requires completely de-powering.Steve
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@stephenw10 said in No more LAN Address.:
But did you completely power cycle it? Actually remove the power?
Yeah I have seen an issue, where had to fully remove power before nic would work. So it's a prudent thing to do if having a weird issue with a nic.
In my old pc, now and then - not all that often one the nics would just stop working.. Restart would never bring it back. But if I completely removed power from the box, and then start it shazam the nic was back and working just fine. Would be good for weeks or even months before would see the problem again.
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I honestly don't remember how I turned it off, most likely with the On-Off button and not removing the power cord.
Maybe you are right and this is the reason.
