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

    Settings for the most responsive browsing?

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
    59 Posts 6 Posters 13.4k 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.
    • johnpozJ
      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @Octopuss
      last edited by

      @octopuss that raceface.com is a cname

      ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
      ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096
      ;; QUESTION SECTION:
      ;www.raceface.com.              IN      A
      
      ;; ANSWER SECTION:
      www.raceface.com.       86400   IN      CNAME   shops.myshopify.com.
      shops.myshopify.com.    3600    IN      A       23.227.38.74
      
      ;; Query time: 146 msec
      ;; SERVER: 192.168.3.10#53(192.168.3.10)
      ;; WHEN: Mon Mar 13 04:52:50 Central Daylight Time 2023
      ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 91
      

      Now do trace.. and since its a cname - you will have manually follow it.. Do you show where in the trace your having a problem?

      But since your not resolving and forwarding - any time to get an answer for what you ask for is on who you forward to, or you connection to them.. If I query say quad9 for that I get..

      ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
      ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 512
      ;; QUESTION SECTION:
      ;www.raceface.com.              IN      A
      
      ;; ANSWER SECTION:
      www.raceface.com.       43200   IN      CNAME   shops.myshopify.com.
      shops.myshopify.com.    58      IN      A       23.227.38.74
      
      ;; Query time: 44 msec
      ;; SERVER: 9.9.9.9#53(9.9.9.9)
      ;; WHEN: Mon Mar 13 04:56:34 Central Daylight Time 2023
      ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 91
      

      Pfsense can not answer your dns query any faster than it gets a reply.. Turn on logging of queries and replies in unbound..

      This is in the custom options box of unbound.

      server:
      log-queries: yes
      log-replies: yes
      

      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

      O 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • O
        Octopuss @johnpoz
        last edited by

        @johnpoz It's always the first time I open a website that's slow. I have no idea why. Also I restarted pfSense and raceface.com still loads instantly.
        I guess this is way above what I am supposed to dig in.

        O johnpozJ 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • O
          Octopuss @Octopuss
          last edited by

          Oh and btw what option am I supposed to use in "DNS Resolution Behavior"?

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

            @octopuss said in Settings for the most responsive browsing?:

            It's always the first time I open a website that's slow.

            who exactly are you forwarding too? When you forward you are at the mercy of how fast they respond, there is nothing pfsense can do about that.

            I would suggest you turn on logging so you can see how long it takes to get a response..

            Once its been looked up then pfsense would cache it.. If it takes 2 seconds to get a response.. That is how long it takes, and pfsense can do nothing about that..

            "DNS Resolution Behavior"?

            Default is fine.. That is pretty meaningless to anything other than pfsense.. That has nothing to do with what happens when a client on your network asks pfsense for something.

            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

            O 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • O
              Octopuss @johnpoz
              last edited by

              @johnpoz I use my ISP's DNS server for logical reasons. They have a really good network and the servers are like 1km away, unlike whatever else I might be using, like Google DNS that are located in who knows what hole.

              O johnpozJ 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • O
                Octopuss @Octopuss
                last edited by

                @octopuss Oh and I have no idea what unbound is and where to find it, sorry.

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

                  @octopuss said in Settings for the most responsive browsing?:

                  s DNS server for logical reasons

                  And its quite possible their dns just blows.. If it takes you 2 seconds to get a response asking for www.raceface.com for example.

                  Why don't you try just resolving vs forwarding.. Or forward to a major player quad9, cloudflare, google, etc..

                  When you forward how fast something is answered is completely on who you asked.. If they do not have it cached, they have to resolve it before they answer you, etc.

                  If you enable logging you can get an idea on how long it takes to get responses for stuff. you could use something like dnsbench to test how fast your isp dns is in general, etc.

                  It is the resolver in pfsense - the one you stated you have set to forward.

                  resolver.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

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

                    @octopuss
                    My fault.

                    'unbound' is the name of the program that does the DNS resolving, or forwarding.
                    Its like people that say 'apache' or 'nginx' when they talk about their web server.
                    Or "Microsoft Word 365" when they talk about their text editor.
                    Or, very known, 'iptables' when they talk about their firewall (on a Linux OS).

                    It's this process that listens in your LAB interfaces for DNS requests, and talks to the 'Internet' DNS servers, or the DNS servers you want to forward to, like the ISP DNS servers

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

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • O
                      Octopuss @johnpoz
                      last edited by

                      @johnpoz Uh, ok, why is it called something else than what's in the web config I do not understand, but it's confusing as hell.

                      My other reasoning for using their DNS servers is that the "local" ones are most likely to work 24/7 even if there is an outage somewhere in the world and whatever else I might add might not be available.
                      But I am of course open to suggestions.
                      I try to avoid anything Google like plague, so what else is out there that's fast and available in most countries? OpenDNS maybe?

                      P.S. Why does raceface.com open immediatelly despite rebooting pfSense and the main switch? I thought that should reset it to the default slowness.

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

                        @octopuss said in Settings for the most responsive browsing?:

                        I try to avoid anything Google like plague, so what else is out there that's fast and available in most countries? OpenDNS maybe?

                        What about : just resolve ?!!
                        The default DNS setup, the one that came with pfSense, with you adding nothing, will work just fine - out of the box.

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

                        O 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • O
                          Octopuss @Gertjan
                          last edited by

                          @gertjan Sure, but I have no idea what the defaults are, having changed a ton of settings since installing the thing :D

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • O
                            Octopuss @johnpoz
                            last edited by Octopuss

                            @johnpoz said in Settings for the most responsive browsing?:

                            server:
                            log-queries: yes
                            log-replies: yes

                            So what do I do with this? I have it set, but where do I go in the logs and what should I see?

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

                              @octopuss in the log section.. Let me enable logging, I don't leave it setup.. Lot of logs for no reason unless troubleshooting something.

                              edit:

                              Mar 13 05:50:21 	unbound 	8231 	[8231:2] info: 192.168.9.100 www.raceface.com. A IN NOERROR 0.139835 0 91
                              Mar 13 05:50:21 	unbound 	8231 	[8231:2] info: 192.168.9.100 www.raceface.com. A IN
                              

                              There is my client asking, and the response.

                              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

                              O 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • O
                                Octopuss @johnpoz
                                last edited by

                                @johnpoz ok I don't know where this is.
                                All I found is Status-System Logs-System-DNS Resolver, where it looks like this:
                                68ad748d-660e-42d7-8ca2-3f7bf2a46ea5-image.png

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

                                  @octopuss and what is it that your not understanding.. you see your client ask.. see the gdprcdn.b-cdn.net A IN, that is 1.100 asking for that..

                                  Then above that you see where the reply and how long it took to lookup .004280 or 4ms

                                  see there at the end where took 1.76 and 1.72 those taking long time to get answer

                                  Most likely since you didn't get a response it was asked for multiple times..

                                  I would prob run dnsbench against your ISP dns your using to see what sort of responses you get to random stuff being asked.. But if you asked your dns, and it took 1.7 seconds to get an answer.. There is nothing pfsense can do about that..

                                  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

                                  O 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • O
                                    Octopuss @johnpoz
                                    last edited by

                                    @johnpoz Your log looks completely different and is readable. What I have on my end makes no sense to me.
                                    But this gets me nowhere anyway.

                                    I'll try connecting my PC directly to the AP and try different DNS servers too.

                                    johnpozJ 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • johnpozJ
                                      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @Octopuss
                                      last edited by

                                      @octopuss its the same log..

                                      I just did a copy of specific record as text..

                                      log.jpg

                                      I hid my work vpn info there - freaking stupid work laptop queries for that like crazy..

                                      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
                                      • johnpozJ
                                        johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @Octopuss
                                        last edited by johnpoz

                                        @octopuss said in Settings for the most responsive browsing?:

                                        But this gets me nowhere anyway.

                                        It shows that it took pfsense 1.7 seconds to get an answer for that fqdn.. That is on where your asking, not pfsense..

                                        Look in your status for resolver - are you seeing timeouts, what is the RTT and RTO etc..

                                        timeouts.jpg

                                        I resolve so I see all the ns I am talking to - you forward so you will only see where your forwarding too..

                                        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

                                        O 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • O
                                          Octopuss @johnpoz
                                          last edited by

                                          I have tried to replace the ISP's DNS servers with Cloudflare, and the resolution, as seen in the browser console, is anything from a few miliseconds to half a second.
                                          I don't know, I guess this is just how it works.
                                          I won't bother with it anymore.

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • O
                                            Octopuss @johnpoz
                                            last edited by

                                            @johnpoz said in Settings for the most responsive browsing?:

                                            timeouts.jpg

                                            I resolve so I see all the ns I am talking to - you forward so you will only see where your forwarding too..

                                            What happens if I don't enable forwarding? I won't be able to specify what DNS servers to use, right? What's used in that situation then?

                                            johnpozJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                            • First post
                                              Last post
                                            Copyright 2025 Rubicon Communications LLC (Netgate). All rights reserved.