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    Can't access the GUI after a reboot

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • B
      bazzacad
      last edited by

      I was logged into my XG-7100 1U (22.05-RELEASE) last night & I notice the CPU usage was high so I rebooted it. After the reboot, I could no longer log into the GUI. I get a time-out error. The firewall seems to be running fine, just not the GUI. I can SSH into the box & have physical access. I've tried most of the suggestions from here:
      https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/troubleshooting/connect-to-gui.html
      and
      https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/troubleshooting/locked-out.html
      But still no luck. I tried the following:
      Restarted the webConfigurator & PHP-FPM from the council
      HTTP & HTTPS
      Added the EasyRule
      SSH Tunneling with Putty
      When I run sockstat | grep nginx I don't get any results back.

      Any suggestions on how I can gain access to the GUI again?

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      • stephenw10S
        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
        last edited by

        After you have attempted to restart the webconfgurator from the console menu chech the system log to see what errors are shown: cat /var/log/system.log You can also try the nginx log in /var/log/nginx.log

        Steve

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        • B
          bazzacad @stephenw10
          last edited by

          @stephenw10 Thanks for the reply. I was able to get back into the GUI now. But I think I still have issues. From the nginx.log, I found that nginx was failing because /var/run was full.
          I moved the large php-cgi.core to the /tmp folder & then rebooted again & I was able to get back into the GUI. But /dev & /var/dhcp/dev are still 100% full after the reboot.
          46529418-c1fa-4e71-b15b-327d86a153da-image.png

          And now the state table size & CPU usage seem really high & no one is logged in right now.
          57a35723-5493-4e14-86ef-f55ae8c04069-image.png

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          • S
            SteveITS Galactic Empire @bazzacad
            last edited by

            @bazzacad said in Can't access the GUI after a reboot:

            /dev & /var/dhcp/dev are still 100% full

            That's normal: https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/troubleshooting/filesystem-usage.html

            re: states, that would imply a lot of connections. Any chance you're having a DoS?

            Pre-2.7.2/23.09: Only install packages for your version, or risk breaking it. Select your branch in System/Update/Update Settings.
            When upgrading, allow 10-15 minutes to restart, or more depending on packages and device speed.
            Upvote ๐Ÿ‘ helpful posts!

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            • B
              bazzacad @SteveITS
              last edited by

              @steveits Thanks again, after posting & looking at the states some more, I realized I had a network monitoring service running in the background on my workstation. I've now turned that off & the states are now back to 0%-1%.

              Was the large php-cgi.core file and filling up /var/run normial?

              S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • S
                SteveITS Galactic Empire @bazzacad
                last edited by

                @bazzacad The .core is a core dump indicating the PHP process crashed. Unless you're planning to investigate further you can delete it. (I would just delete it)

                I see /var/run is tmpfs so do you have a 4 MB RAM disk set in System/Advanced/Misc.? That is super small. The 7100 has 8 GB so I'd go with maybe 1 GB for each /tmp and /var if that's what you wanted.

                Plus, I don't recall seeing /var/run mounted separately...? I have only installs with RAM disks to look at, at the moment, but /var/run isn't its own mount on either router I checked.

                Pre-2.7.2/23.09: Only install packages for your version, or risk breaking it. Select your branch in System/Update/Update Settings.
                When upgrading, allow 10-15 minutes to restart, or more depending on packages and device speed.
                Upvote ๐Ÿ‘ helpful posts!

                B 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • B
                  bazzacad @SteveITS
                  last edited by

                  @steveits Here is what I have, I think this was the default.
                  89ac6e9f-4504-4951-ad3b-b04fd07144f6-image.png

                  B S 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • B
                    bazzacad @bazzacad
                    last edited by

                    OK I've changed them to 1GB. now
                    c88d6ac1-0ea0-4a67-85e7-03f6cc7db3cd-image.png

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                    • S
                      SteveITS Galactic Empire @bazzacad
                      last edited by

                      @bazzacad Off is the default. You might try to find another df -h on the forums. All I was saying was 4 MB seemed odd but I donโ€™t have a comparison.

                      Pre-2.7.2/23.09: Only install packages for your version, or risk breaking it. Select your branch in System/Update/Update Settings.
                      When upgrading, allow 10-15 minutes to restart, or more depending on packages and device speed.
                      Upvote ๐Ÿ‘ helpful posts!

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                      • stephenw10S
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by

                        /var/run is always 4MB, that's the expected size. It should only ever have PID files in there so 4MB is plenty.

                        I'm not sure how the core dump ended up in there, it shouldn't have been put there.

                        I would disable ram disks again unless you have a good reason to use them.

                        Steve

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                        • B
                          bazzacad @stephenw10
                          last edited by

                          @stephenw10 Hmmm, I decreased /var to 128MB, and it's already 75% full again. How can I turn off the RAM disk, but still adjust the size of /var?

                          4d7d132b-ee29-475a-806e-121c412fb058-image.png

                          S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • S
                            SteveITS Galactic Empire @bazzacad
                            last edited by

                            @bazzacad /var is not normally set separately, except apparently /var/run. You can just uncheck the "use RAM disks" option above to not use a RAM disk. Otherwise you have to set a size, and it needs to be big enough for whatever pfSense needs, which will vary by logging and package usage.

                            Sorry for going down the wrong path on /var/run, I didn't remember that was tmpfs and while I did try to search for a "df -h" output online I didn't find one with that.

                            Pre-2.7.2/23.09: Only install packages for your version, or risk breaking it. Select your branch in System/Update/Update Settings.
                            When upgrading, allow 10-15 minutes to restart, or more depending on packages and device speed.
                            Upvote ๐Ÿ‘ helpful posts!

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

                              Yeah if you just disable RAM disks there's no restriction on the size of /var or /tmp.

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