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    pfatt - ngeth0 interface disappears

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • stephenw10S
      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
      last edited by

      And I assume x.x.x.x is the gateway IP there?

      It implies the WAN interface (ngeth0) has lost it's IP address/subnet. The logs should show something about that. The dhcp logs maybe? I would have expect the main system log to show something.

      Ah, it the WAN shows as down that would do it. What does ifconfig show the state of the interfaces to be?

      Steve

      S 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • S
        SeaMonkey @stephenw10
        last edited by

        @stephenw10 I'll have to test ifconfig if/when I encounter it again.

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        • S
          SeaMonkey @stephenw10
          last edited by

          @stephenw10 Yes, x.x.x.x is the gateway IP. Good call on checking the DHCP logs. When WAN goes down, the DHCP log is flooded with send_packet: No buffer space available.

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          • stephenw10S
            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
            last edited by

            Mmm, so that looks like it really is down somewhere. It could be the linked physical interface that goes down. pfSense wouldn't see that link change because it's looking at the the virtual ngeth0 interface so it just keeps trying to send until it fills the buffers.

            Steve

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            • S
              SeaMonkey
              last edited by

              It happened again. Grabbed ifconfig.

              em0: flags=8943<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
              	description: LAN
              	options=2098<VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,WOL_MAGIC>
              	ether 00:15:17:d3:1d:48
              	inet6 fe80::215:17ff:fed3:1d48%em0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
              	inet 192.168.0.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255
              	inet 10.10.10.1 netmask 0xffffffff broadcast 10.10.10.1
              	media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
              	status: active
              	nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
              em1: flags=28943<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,PPROMISC> metric 0 mtu 1500
              	options=4019b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,VLAN_HWTSO>
              	ether 00:15:17:d3:1d:49
              	inet6 fe80::215:17ff:fed3:1d49%em1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2
              	media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
              	status: active
              	nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
              em2: flags=8c02<BROADCAST,OACTIVE,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
              	options=4219b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,WOL_MAGIC,VLAN_HWTSO>
              	ether fc:aa:14:20:bf:f1
              	media: Ethernet autoselect
              	status: no carrier
              	nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
              alc0: flags=28943<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,PPROMISC> metric 0 mtu 1500
              	options=c319a<TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,WOL_MCAST,WOL_MAGIC,VLAN_HWTSO,LINKSTATE>
              	ether fc:aa:14:20:bf:f3
              	inet6 fe80::feaa:14ff:fe20:bff3%alc0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x4
              	media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
              	status: active
              	nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
              enc0: flags=0<> metric 0 mtu 1536
              	groups: enc
              	nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
              lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 16384
              	options=680003<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,LINKSTATE,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6>
              	inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
              	inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x6
              	inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
              	groups: lo
              	nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
              pfsync0: flags=0<> metric 0 mtu 1500
              	groups: pfsync
              pflog0: flags=100<PROMISC> metric 0 mtu 33160
              	groups: pflog
              ngeth0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
              	description: WAN
              	options=28<VLAN_MTU,JUMBO_MTU>
              	ether 10:56:11:d9:ce:01
              	inet6 fe80::1256:11ff:fed9:ce01%ngeth0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x9
              	inet x.x.x.149 netmask 0xfffffc00 broadcast x.x.x.255
              	inet x.x.x.197 netmask 0xffffffff broadcast x.x.x.197
              	media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
              	status: active
              	nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
              ovpns5: flags=8051<UP,POINTOPOINT,RUNNING,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
              	options=80000<LINKSTATE>
              	inet6 fe80::215:17ff:fed3:1d48%ovpns5 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0xa
              	inet 10.0.8.1 --> 10.0.8.2 netmask 0xffffffff
              	groups: tun openvpn
              	nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
              	Opened by PID 35927
              ovpns6: flags=8051<UP,POINTOPOINT,RUNNING,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1472
              	options=80000<LINKSTATE>
              	inet6 fe80::215:17ff:fed3:1d48%ovpns6 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0xb
              	inet 10.0.9.1 --> 10.0.9.2 netmask 0xffffff00
              	groups: tun openvpn
              	nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
              	Opened by PID 54737
              ovpns4: flags=8051<UP,POINTOPOINT,RUNNING,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
              	options=80000<LINKSTATE>
              	inet6 fe80::215:17ff:fed3:1d48%ovpns4 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0xc
              	inet 10.0.10.1 --> 10.0.10.2 netmask 0xffffffff
              	groups: tun openvpn
              	nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
              	Opened by PID 74730
              ovpnc1: flags=8051<UP,POINTOPOINT,RUNNING,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
              	options=80000<LINKSTATE>
              	inet6 fe80::215:17ff:fed3:1d48%ovpnc1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0xd
              	inet 10.6.110.2 --> 10.6.110.1 netmask 0xffffff00
              	groups: tun openvpn
              	nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
              	Opened by PID 85937
              ovpnc2: flags=8051<UP,POINTOPOINT,RUNNING,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
              	options=80000<LINKSTATE>
              	inet6 fe80::215:17ff:fed3:1d48%ovpnc2 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0xe
              	inet 10.14.110.27 --> 10.14.110.1 netmask 0xffffff00
              	groups: tun openvpn
              	nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
              	Opened by PID 8277
              ovpnc3: flags=8051<UP,POINTOPOINT,RUNNING,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
              	options=80000<LINKSTATE>
              	inet6 fe80::215:17ff:fed3:1d48%ovpnc3 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0xf
              	inet 10.20.110.15 --> 10.20.110.1 netmask 0xffffff00
              	groups: tun openvpn
              	nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
              	Opened by PID 23995
              
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              • stephenw10S
                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                last edited by

                Which is the physical WAN NIC?

                Is the subnet shown on ngeth0 correct? The gateway is within that?

                Steve

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                • S
                  SeaMonkey
                  last edited by

                  em1 goes to the ONT. alc0 goes to the AT&T gateway. WAN is set to use DHCP. The ifconfig output for em1, alc0, and ngeth0 are identical when the connection is working.

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                  • stephenw10S
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by

                    What about the subnet that's shown on it, is that still valid? Like it contains the gateway IP?

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                    • S
                      SeaMonkey
                      last edited by

                      Yes, the gateway IP is within the subnet.

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                      • stephenw10S
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by

                        Hmm, it I really wouldn't expect it to show that arpresolve error unless the subnet containing the gateway no longer existed. 🤔

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                        • S
                          SeaMonkey @stephenw10
                          last edited by SeaMonkey

                          My setup has changed, but the problem persists. However, I think I can give some better detail on the symptom of the problem.

                          Current configuration is simply pfSense with pfatt only using netgraph for VLAN0 tagging and the WAN interface directly connected to an Azores WAG-D20. Bridging interfaces for auth isn't needed in this configuration.

                          #!/usr/bin/env sh
                          
                          RG_ETHER_ADDR="XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX"
                          LOG=/var/log/pfatt.log
                          ONT_IF="ix1"
                          
                          getTimestamp(){
                              echo `date "+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S :: [pfatt_azores.sh] ::"`
                          }
                          
                          {
                          /usr/bin/logger -st "pfatt" "starting pfatt..."
                          /usr/bin/logger -st "pfatt" "configuration:"
                          /usr/bin/logger -st "pfatt" "  ONT_IF = $ONT_IF"
                          /usr/bin/logger -st "pfatt" " RG_ETHER_ADDR = $RG_ETHER_ADDR"
                          
                          # Netgraph cleanup.
                          /usr/bin/logger -st "pfatt" "resetting netgraph..."
                          /usr/sbin/ngctl shutdown $ONT_IF: >/dev/null 2>&1
                          /usr/sbin/ngctl shutdown vlan0: >/dev/null 2>&1
                          /usr/sbin/ngctl shutdown ngeth0: >/dev/null 2>&1
                          
                          /usr/bin/logger -st "pfatt" "your ONT should be connected to pyshical interface $ONT_IF"
                          /usr/bin/logger -st "pfatt" "creating vlan node and ngeth0 interface..."
                          /usr/sbin/ngctl mkpeer $ONT_IF: vlan lower downstream
                          /usr/sbin/ngctl name $ONT_IF:lower vlan0
                          /usr/sbin/ngctl mkpeer vlan0: eiface vlan0 ether
                          /usr/sbin/ngctl msg vlan0: 'addfilter { vlan=0 hook="vlan0" }'
                          /usr/sbin/ngctl msg ngeth0: set $RG_ETHER_ADDR
                          
                          /usr/bin/logger -st "pfatt" "enabling promisc for $ONT_IF..."
                          /sbin/ifconfig $ONT_IF ether $RG_ETHER_ADDR
                          /sbin/ifconfig $ONT_IF up
                          /sbin/ifconfig $ONT_IF promisc
                          } >> $LOG
                          

                          The connection remains stable until the state table is large for a prolonged period of time. "Large" is difficult to assess here, as I've seen the connection drop when it's around 80K, but it's also grown to over 130K at times and remained stable for a while before dying.

                          While the connection doesn't recover on its own, at this point, manually executing the pfatt script allows everything to recover usually, although sometimes I've had to manually restart my OpenVPN servers.

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                          • stephenw10S
                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                            last edited by

                            The odd thing here is that I expect to see something logged when it happens to give us some sort of clue top the cause but I assume there is still nothing?

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                            • S
                              SeaMonkey
                              last edited by SeaMonkey

                              Looking at the most recent instance...

                              In the general log, there are gateway alarms on VPN gateways before it starts spamming the arpresolve messages

                              Jan 16 11:26:56 	rc.gateway_alarm 	19405 	>>> Gateway alarm: SITE2SITE_VPNV4 (Addr:10.0.8.2 Alarm:1 RTT:26.363ms RTTsd:.380ms Loss:22%)
                              Jan 16 11:26:56 	rc.gateway_alarm 	22616 	>>> Gateway alarm: PIA_OVPN_VPNV4 (Addr:10.12.110.1 Alarm:1 RTT:7.536ms RTTsd:.633ms Loss:22%)
                              Jan 16 11:26:56 	rc.gateway_alarm 	25984 	>>> Gateway alarm: PIA_OVPN2_VPNV4 (Addr:10.2.110.1 Alarm:1 RTT:37.007ms RTTsd:.417ms Loss:22%)
                              Jan 16 11:26:56 	php-fpm 	19915 	/rc.filter_configure_sync: MONITOR: PIA_OVPN_VPNV4 has packet loss, omitting from routing group US_PIA
                              Jan 16 11:26:56 	php-fpm 	19915 	10.12.110.1|10.12.110.32|PIA_OVPN_VPNV4|7.536ms|0.633ms|22%|down|highloss
                              Jan 16 11:26:56 	php-fpm 	19915 	/rc.filter_configure_sync: MONITOR: PIA_OVPN2_VPNV4 has packet loss, omitting from routing group US_PIA
                              Jan 16 11:26:56 	php-fpm 	19915 	10.2.110.1|10.2.110.34|PIA_OVPN2_VPNV4|37.007ms|0.417ms|22%|down|highloss
                              Jan 16 11:26:56 	php-fpm 	89734 	/rc.openvpn: OpenVPN: One or more OpenVPN tunnel endpoints may have changed its IP. Reloading endpoints that may use PIA_OVPN_PF_VPNV4.
                              Jan 16 11:26:56 	rc.gateway_alarm 	96856 	>>> Gateway alarm: XYGNET_VPNV4 (Addr:10.0.10.2 Alarm:1 RTT:52.162ms RTTsd:1.031ms Loss:22%)
                              Jan 16 11:26:56 	php 	77766 	notify_monitor.php: Message sent to seamonkey@seamonkey.tech OK
                              Jan 16 11:26:57 	php-fpm 	9450 	/rc.openvpn: OpenVPN: One or more OpenVPN tunnel endpoints may have changed its IP. Reloading endpoints that may use WAN_DHCP.
                              Jan 16 11:34:20 	root 	11114 	[PIA-API] Error! Failed to bind received port!
                              Jan 16 12:00:00 	php 	74413 	[Suricata] Suricata signalled with SIGHUP for LAN (ix0)...
                              Jan 16 12:00:00 	php 	74413 	[Suricata] Logs Mgmt job rotated 1 file(s) in '/var/log/suricata/suricata_ix030287/' ...
                              Jan 16 12:01:04 	kernel 		arpresolve: can't allocate llinfo for 99.xxx.xxx.1 on ngeth0
                              Jan 16 12:01:05 	kernel 		arpresolve: can't allocate llinfo for 99.xxx.xxx.1 on ngeth0
                              Jan 16 12:01:05 	kernel 		arpresolve: can't allocate llinfo for 99.xxx.xxx.1 on ngeth0 
                              

                              Gateway log is a flood of sendto error: 55 on all gateway interfaces. Entries don't reach back to the same time period.

                              Nothing at all in the routing log in that time frame.

                              DNS log is, of course, failure to resolve everything.

                              DHCP log has repeated requests from the ngeth interface with no response.

                              Jan 16 11:31:03 	dhclient 	91921 	DHCPREQUEST on ngeth0 to 172.xxx.xxx.1 port 67
                              Jan 16 11:31:04 	dhclient 	91921 	DHCPREQUEST on ngeth0 to 172.xxx.xxx.1 port 67
                              Jan 16 11:31:06 	dhclient 	91921 	DHCPREQUEST on ngeth0 to 172.xxx.xxx.1 port 67
                              Jan 16 11:31:11 	dhclient 	91921 	DHCPREQUEST on ngeth0 to 172.xxx.xxx.1 port 67
                              Jan 16 11:31:16 	dhclient 	91921 	DHCPREQUEST on ngeth0 to 172.xxx.xxx.1 port 67
                              Jan 16 11:31:27 	dhclient 	91921 	DHCPREQUEST on ngeth0 to 172.xxx.xxx.1 port 67
                              Jan 16 11:31:42 	dhclient 	91921 	DHCPREQUEST on ngeth0 to 172.xxx.xxx.1 port 67
                              Jan 16 11:32:00 	dhclient 	91921 	DHCPREQUEST on ngeth0 to 172.xxx.xxx.1 port 67
                              Jan 16 11:32:49 	dhclient 	91921 	DHCPREQUEST on ngeth0 to 172.xxx.xxx.1 port 67 
                              

                              OpenVPN Log is just inactivity timeouts

                              Jan 16 11:28:46 	openvpn 	22069 	TLS Error: TLS key negotiation failed to occur within 60 seconds (check your network connectivity)
                              Jan 16 11:28:46 	openvpn 	22069 	TLS Error: TLS handshake failed
                              Jan 16 11:28:46 	openvpn 	62216 	TLS Error: TLS key negotiation failed to occur within 60 seconds (check your network connectivity)
                              Jan 16 11:28:46 	openvpn 	62216 	TLS Error: TLS handshake failed
                              Jan 16 11:29:41 	openvpn 	39749 	[chicago421] Inactivity timeout (--ping-restart), restarting
                              Jan 16 11:29:41 	openvpn 	39749 	SIGUSR1[soft,ping-restart] received, process restarting
                              Jan 16 11:29:41 	openvpn 	98794 	[denver420] Inactivity timeout (--ping-restart), restarting
                              Jan 16 11:29:41 	openvpn 	98794 	SIGUSR1[soft,ping-restart] received, process restarting
                              Jan 16 11:29:41 	openvpn 	22362 	[montreal424] Inactivity timeout (--ping-restart), restarting
                              Jan 16 11:29:41 	openvpn 	22362 	SIGUSR1[soft,ping-restart] received, process restarting 
                              

                              I guess what's key is that the DHCP server for WAN stops responding, but I don't really understand why manually running the pfatt script fixes that.

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                              • stephenw10S
                                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                last edited by

                                Hmm, this seems odd:

                                Jan 16 11:34:20 	root 	11114 	[PIA-API] Error! Failed to bind received port!
                                

                                What is that? Some custom script?
                                Seems unlikely to be a cause but...

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                                • S
                                  SeaMonkey @stephenw10
                                  last edited by

                                  That's this:
                                  https://github.com/SeaMonkey82/PIA-NextGen-PortForwarding

                                  I suppose I could disable it for a while just to test, but it's worked without issue for a long time.

                                  As I mentioned, the connection remains perfectly stable when my state table usage remains low. To verify this, I suspended my Ethereum client testing setup, which is normally the bulk of my traffic. For context, I'm testing 20 client pairs and each client is configured to connect to anywhere from 45-160 peers at a time, and all of this uses 53 exposed ports on the firewall. I noticed that even when I suspended testing, state table usage remained high until I disabled the associated NAT rule for all of these ports.

                                  I just checked my firewall log and there are almost 10,000 blocks of attempted connections to this port range within the past few minutes, despite it being disabled since some time yesterday. Do you suppose my whole problem is just that my connection is being DDOSed?

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                                  • stephenw10S
                                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                    last edited by

                                    Hmm, potentially. Though I can see no reason that would remove the ngeth interface entirely. I guess netgraph itself could be hitting a resource limit. that we don't normally see. 🤔

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                                    • S
                                      SeaMonkey @stephenw10
                                      last edited by

                                      I should have mentioned in my updated posts that I realized the ngeth0 interface disappearing was only happening when I ran the commands under the "Reset netgraph" section of the pfatt README and then failed to manually run the script to bring it back up afterwards.

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                                      • stephenw10S
                                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                        last edited by

                                        Ah, I think you did mention that. Too many threads!

                                        Hmm, so if it just stops passing traffic it could be something in netgraph overloaded. Though I would expect to see some log entries.

                                        Can you see any debug info using ngctl status?

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                                        • S
                                          SeaMonkey @stephenw10
                                          last edited by

                                          ngctl status returns No status available for all <path>. Did you mean ngctl show?

                                          Here's what it looks like when everything's working.

                                          [2.6.0-RELEASE][root@fallia.thegalaxy]/: ngctl list
                                          There are 9 total nodes:
                                            Name: ix0             Type: ether           ID: 00000001   Num hooks: 0
                                            Name: ix1             Type: ether           ID: 00000002   Num hooks: 1
                                            Name: em0             Type: ether           ID: 00000003   Num hooks: 0
                                            Name: alc0            Type: ether           ID: 00000004   Num hooks: 0
                                            Name: <unnamed>       Type: socket          ID: 00000007   Num hooks: 0
                                            Name: vlan0           Type: vlan            ID: 0000000d   Num hooks: 2
                                            Name: ngeth0          Type: eiface          ID: 00000010   Num hooks: 1
                                            Name: ngctl22422      Type: socket          ID: 00000319   Num hooks: 0
                                            Name: <unnamed>       Type: socket          ID: 0000001f   Num hooks: 0
                                          [2.6.0-RELEASE][root@fallia.thegalaxy]/: ngctl show ix1:
                                            Name: ix1             Type: ether           ID: 00000002   Num hooks: 1
                                            Local hook      Peer name       Peer type    Peer ID         Peer hook      
                                            ----------      ---------       ---------    -------         ---------      
                                            lower           vlan0           vlan         0000000d        downstream     
                                          [2.6.0-RELEASE][root@fallia.thegalaxy]/: ngctl show vlan0:
                                            Name: vlan0           Type: vlan            ID: 0000000d   Num hooks: 2
                                            Local hook      Peer name       Peer type    Peer ID         Peer hook      
                                            ----------      ---------       ---------    -------         ---------      
                                            vlan0           ngeth0          eiface       00000010        ether          
                                            downstream      ix1             ether        00000002        lower          
                                          [2.6.0-RELEASE][root@fallia.thegalaxy]/: ngctl show ngeth0:
                                            Name: ngeth0          Type: eiface          ID: 00000010   Num hooks: 1
                                            Local hook      Peer name       Peer type    Peer ID         Peer hook      
                                            ----------      ---------       ---------    -------         ---------      
                                            ether           vlan0           vlan         0000000d        vlan0         
                                          

                                          Once I'm home again, I'll intentionally break things and see if the results are different.

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                                          • stephenw10S
                                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                            last edited by

                                            Hmm, no I meant status but I'm also seeing the same output...

                                            The status data might show more. If I could work out the syntax!

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