Netgate Discussion Forum
    • Categories
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Search
    • Register
    • Login

    Problems between iphone and dhcp?

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
    56 Posts 5 Posters 10.0k Views
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • E
      edpbettinelli @johnpoz
      last edited by

      @johnpoz said in Problems between iphone and dhcp?:

      So you can see here - you get a ping request, but no response - .1 arping for .146... But then after .146 arps for 1 and gets a response your pings get replies..

      This is the picture of my problem.
      ot-mail (ip 80.241.231.35). is the company's mail server and 8.8.8.8 and 1.1.1.1 the dns assigned by dhcp are obviously not blocked. at that moment pfsense does not respond to the iphone, then as you can see without doing anything the connectivity restores the ping replies arrive the dns replies etc .

      johnpozJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • johnpozJ
        johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @edpbettinelli
        last edited by

        @edpbettinelli said in Problems between iphone and dhcp?:

        the dns assigned by dhcp are obviously not blocked

        They are not getting any answers..

        In neither of your sniffs do I see any dns answers.. Maybe its asking something else.. But there are no answers to dns in either of your sniffs.

        And why is .146 not answering any arps?

        An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
        If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
        Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
        SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

        E 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • E
          edpbettinelli @johnpoz
          last edited by

          @johnpoz At this moment I don't know how to give you an answer. I'd like to say that I stopped packet capture before connectivity resumed. I will try to do other tests in the lab even if I haven't verified the problem yet. In production it is now risky to test now. However, at a company not in production I will try again to make some captures.
          Thank you very much for helping

          johnpozJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • johnpozJ
            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @edpbettinelli
            last edited by

            @edpbettinelli here is the thing - the really odd thing is why .146 is not answering the arps.. But pfsense for sure could not answer a ping, if he doesn't have the mac address of .146 in his arp table.. If he had the mac in his arp table, he shouldn't need to arp for it..

            I would really look to why not answering those arps..

            An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
            If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
            Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
            SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

            E 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • E
              edpbettinelli @johnpoz
              last edited by

              @johnpoz I forced the situation and I think I can provide you with the correct capture. After the block comes the replies as well. I confirm that the previous capture was aborted before reconnection.completo-packetcapture.cap

              johnpozJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • stephenw10S
                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                last edited by

                Hmm, it looks like something is blocking that ARP traffic maybe.

                Where was that pcap taken?

                You can see pfSense ARPing for the iphone and it never replies.
                Then later you can see the iphone ARPing for pfSense and pfSense replies but the iphone just keeps ARPing for it as though it never sees the replies.

                Then the iphone sends an ARP announcement and that is seemingly enough for pfSense to populate it's ARP table and respond to pings.

                Still something odd there though because after the pings restart the iphone still ARPs for pfSense one last time. Yet at that point it must have the pfSense MAC address already.

                Steve

                E 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • johnpozJ
                  johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @edpbettinelli
                  last edited by

                  @edpbettinelli

                  Still not understanding why .146 is not answering arps!

                  whyisthis.jpg

                  He makes announcements - but doesn't answer when asked.. This is going to be very problematic!

                  Look in pfsense arp table for this .146 by default arp should be cached for 20 minutes.. But also when asked a client should answer.. So either phone is not getting them? Or is and just not answering?

                  An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                  If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                  Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                  SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • stephenw10S
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by

                    Seems like something is blocking it since the iphone also appears not to see the ARP replies from pfSense.

                    johnpozJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • johnpozJ
                      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @stephenw10
                      last edited by johnpoz

                      @stephenw10 but those are being answered - so pfsense saw the arp, and answered them.

                      arpanswer.jpg

                      An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                      If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                      Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                      SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

                      stephenw10S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • E
                        edpbettinelli @stephenw10
                        last edited by

                        @stephenw10 I launched the packet capture on voice vlan with host address 10.135.0.146 in promiscuous mode

                        GertjanG 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • GertjanG
                          Gertjan @edpbettinelli
                          last edited by Gertjan

                          Suggestions : some hardware checks :

                          Take the iPhone out for lunch, and connect somewhere else using Wifi.
                          Change the cable between the pfSense LAN NIC and the AP.
                          Change the AP.
                          Exchange the LAN and WAN NIC.

                          More difficult : Does your AP have a survey mode ? Can it tell you whatever other wifi networks exist in the neighbourhood ? I mean : radio signals can get get drown in the noise if there are a radio transmitters nearby. These could be other wifi signals, or worse.
                          pfSense can arp what it want, but what if the arp request never reaches the iPhone ?
                          (hey apple, can we have a packet capture app for the iPhone ?? :) )
                          Or, the AP has a lot of power to transmit, the signal reaches the iPhone, but the iPhone, with its small wifi signal, never makes it back to the IP - and then it does for a moment, and then the signal gets lost again etc etc

                          For what it's worth : if the issue is "ARP" then your close to a hardware issue.

                          Or someone is really using "ebtables**" in an AP to enforce 'client isolation'. That very subject was one of my first posts on this forum.

                          Not iptables. ebtables, a MAC based "L2" Linux firewall.

                          No "help me" PM's please. Use the forum, the community will thank you.
                          Edit : and where are the logs ??

                          E 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • stephenw10S
                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator @johnpoz
                            last edited by

                            @johnpoz Exactly, but the iphone keeps ARPing for pfSense so it looks like it's not seeing those replies. One could assume it may also not be seeing the ARP requests from pfSense, which is why it never replies.

                            johnpozJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • johnpozJ
                              johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @stephenw10
                              last edited by

                              @stephenw10 said in Problems between iphone and dhcp?:

                              One could assume it may also not be seeing the ARP requests from pfSense, which is why it never replies.

                              Quite possible - something clearly is wrong here with the arps.. There should be no reason for pfsense to arp that many times for something. Unless its not getting an answer..

                              And same goes for the phone for sure.

                              Something wrong with arp is most likely the root of this issue.

                              An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                              If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                              Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                              SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • E
                                edpbettinelli @Gertjan
                                last edited by

                                @gertjan I will try to do these tests in the test environment, thank you for your suggestion. Furthermore, the replacement of the old wifi extreme bubble with the new Aruba APs is expected in the next few days. At this point I stop for a moment with the tests to try again with the new infrastructure to see if the problem persists.
                                Thanks everyone for the help

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • stephenw10S
                                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                  last edited by

                                  Some proxy-arp happening (or not happening) somewhere? Not sure why it would be in a network like that.

                                  E 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • E
                                    edpbettinelli @stephenw10
                                    last edited by

                                    @stephenw10
                                    Could it hit something?
                                    https://extremeportal.force.com/ExtrArticleDetail?an=000057732
                                    Could this justify the fact that in the lab with only one ap the problem never appeared, while in the bubble with controller it appears sporadically and only on iphone?

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • stephenw10S
                                      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                      last edited by stephenw10

                                      Maybe, if you have that enabled. I don't see anything in the pcap that looks like that specifically but it could be something related.

                                      Steve

                                      E 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • E
                                        edpbettinelli @stephenw10
                                        last edited by

                                        @stephenw10 In the article in apcontroller mode it is active and cannot be disabled. I have to ask for a check who configured the bubble for us

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • stephenw10S
                                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                          last edited by

                                          Definitely worth testing if you can.

                                          It looks like it's definitely not a pfSense issue though.

                                          Steve

                                          E 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                          • E
                                            edpbettinelli @stephenw10
                                            last edited by

                                            @stephenw10
                                            Hi everyone,

                                            we have completed the new wifi bubble. I confirm the problem was generated by the old Wifi extreme controller, it is not a Pfsense problem.

                                            Thanks a lot to everyone for the support.

                                            Luca

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                            • First post
                                              Last post
                                            Copyright 2025 Rubicon Communications LLC (Netgate). All rights reserved.