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    pfsense box crashed while I was on vacation but I can't find anything in the logs as to why

    General pfSense Questions
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    • I
      imthenachoman
      last edited by

      I was on vacation for a week. On the 3rd day, my pfsense box crashed. I know it crashed because my home security cameras were no longer accessible.

      My wife got home before I did and force rebooted the system which brought it and my network back online. So I'm not sure what the screen said before she rebooted it.

      I'm checking the system logs but I don't see anything.

      This is an excerpt from /var/log/system.log. It crashed sometime on/after the 10th.

      Is there anywhere else I should be looking?

      Apr  9 19:29:00 pfs sshguard[7364]: Exiting on signal.
Apr  9 19:29:00 pfs sshguard[91065]: Now monitoring attacks.
Apr  9 20:59:00 pfs sshguard[91065]: Exiting on signal.
Apr  9 20:59:00 pfs sshguard[64946]: Now monitoring attacks.
Apr  9 22:33:00 pfs sshguard[64946]: Exiting on signal.
Apr  9 22:33:00 pfs sshguard[33940]: Now monitoring attacks.
Apr 10 00:07:00 pfs sshguard[33940]: Exiting on signal.
Apr 10 00:07:00 pfs sshguard[10146]: Now monitoring attacks.
Apr 10 01:43:00 pfs sshguard[10146]: Exiting on signal.
Apr 10 01:43:00 pfs sshguard[41518]: Now monitoring attacks.
Apr 10 03:15:00 pfs sshguard[41518]: Exiting on signal.
Apr 10 03:15:00 pfs sshguard[4972]: Now monitoring attacks.
Apr 10 04:40:00 pfs sshguard[4972]: Exiting on signal.
Apr 10 04:40:00 pfs sshguard[39171]: Now monitoring attacks.
Apr 16 19:46:16 pfs syslogd: kernel boot file is /boot/kernel/kernel
Apr 16 19:46:16 pfs kernel: ---<<BOOT>>---
Apr 16 19:46:16 pfs kernel: Copyright (c) 1992-2021 The FreeBSD Project.
Apr 16 19:46:16 pfs kernel: Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
Apr 16 19:46:16 pfs kernel: 	The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Apr 16 19:46:16 pfs kernel: FreeBSD is a registered trademark of The FreeBSD Foundation.
Apr 16 19:46:16 pfs kernel: FreeBSD 12.3-STABLE RELENG_2_6_0-n226742-1285d6d205f pfSense amd64
Apr 16 19:46:16 pfs kernel: FreeBSD clang version 10.0.1 (git@github.com:llvm/llvm-project.git llvmorg-10.0.1-0-gef32c611aa2)
Apr 16 19:46:16 pfs kernel: VT(efifb): resolution 1024x768
      GertjanG 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • GertjanG
        Gertjan @imthenachoman
        last edited by

        @imthenachoman

        No mention of a crashed kernel ... that means the system wasn't able to make a 'selfie' from itself before going down/restart.

        True, some forensic work could have be done before the power remove / power on.

        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 0
        • stephenw10S
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by

          Are you running RAM disks for /var and/or /tmp?

          It looks like you lost 5 days of logs there. If you're not using RAM disks that could be a failing drive.
          In that situation the firewall cannot write logs or a crash report. But it will keep running until something critical requires disk read/write access.

          Steve

          I 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • I
            imthenachoman @stephenw10
            last edited by

            @stephenw10 I don't think I am. I just installed pfsense and didn't make any wonky changes -- just creating some VLANs.

            Thanks both of y'all. I guess I'll have to keep an eye out for the next time it crashes. :/

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

              Check the SMART data. Is it an SSD? Regular spining drives don't usually come back if they fail like that but SSDs can do after a power cycle.

              I 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • I
                imthenachoman @stephenw10
                last edited by

                @stephenw10 No issues found. :/

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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