Lights are on and no one is home after power outages with battery backup.
-
Is it possible that you have the pfSense box accidentally plugged in to one of the surge protected only outlets on the UPS. I ask because I have done this myself on one of those days that I wake up dumber than a stump! DOH!!
Phizix
-
@Phizix I thought I was the only one that did that...
-
@Phizix Thanks, but it is on a PDU bar that has the router and one of the servers on it as well where that server still has an uptime. I'll try switching it to a different outlet to double check though.
-
@SephYuyX said in Lights are on and no one is home after power outages with battery backup.:
@SteveITS It is an APC UPS, and I have a network card on it that I can access and syslog off of to a server. I am strictly monitoring the UPS, and not doing any sort of powering off of other devices based on its status.
Did I understand correctly that you do not use NUT neither the APC package on pfSense ?
-
@Gertjan Correct.
-
When the power goes down, your 3100 wouldn't know about it.
Eventually, the UPS battery gets drained enough, and shut down the power : that's not good.
Ripping out the power is never a good idea - very bad for the file system.You 'have to use' NUT (or APC) package, with a direct USB to the UPS, or, have it connected to another remote NUT server.
With NUT (or the APC) package, your 3100 would go for a clean halt situation.
If at that moment the power comes back - and the 3100 was halted, then probably some one has to come over to 'remove the power', wait 5 sec and put the power back in : the 3100 would boot normally.
If the UPS really shut down the 230 V (110 ?), and it comes back, your 3100 should boot normally.If you use the recently introduced ZFS file system, you risk less, but the older ones can break more easier: your 3100 won't boot any more and you might be good for a re install.
See also How to Run a pfSense Software File System Check (5/2020) -
@Gertjan I'll look back into it.
So far I've never had an outage long enough to drain the batteries out (around 8 hours), but it will happen one day I am sure.
Still does not make sense why the Netgate appliance is having this issue when everything else is fine when switching back and forth between UPS and mains.
-
@SephYuyX How old is the UPS? I think you said it was an APC? What is it's sensitivity setting to switch from battery and mains?
It could be the power supply/power input to the 3100 is overly sensitive. -
@SephYuyX said in Lights are on and no one is home after power outages with battery backup.:
Still does not make sense why the Netgate appliance is having this issue
It's just a question of having some luck, or not.
DO not try to proof me wrong (or right), but :
Remove the power cable from your PC portable.
Power up the portable.
Remove the battery.
And try to reboot your MAC/Windows PC .... chances are big you (file system) have issues.Your : way easier to test : your Windows 10/11 desktop : rip out the power. After less then 10 times you're good for a re install as windows won't boot any more.
These issues don't happen often these days, as people are now trained to do a start menu click - click power down - or sleep mode.Using a more resilient file-system like ZFS helps
Using an UPS, and hook it up logically, so your system can do a clean shut down before the power really dies, is best. -
I don't think the 3100 can do ZFS per this thread - Netgate 3100, 22.01 and ZFS?. So that does not seem to be an option for the OP.
Phizix
-
-
I wasn't sure.
The older UFS ( ? ) file system is far less resilient against sudden power downs.
That's why the "How to Run a pfSense Software File System Check (5/2020)" video was published by Netgate, as many people do shut down properly their 'big' devices, but treat router/firewall devices as "rip out the power is just fine".
Well, that is not the case.
Shutting down by removing the power will leave "dents" in the file system. Some of them can stop the system from booting. -
My SG-5100 originally did not have ZFS until a power blip took out the config. Fortunately I had a recent enough backup that I updated it to ZFS from scratch and then restored the config.
It happened when one of the kids just turned off the UPS and I had not yet set up my RasPi 4 NUT server.
If I am home I shut things down manually before the NUT client shuts it down, but If I am not we will see. I don't think it has had a full real world test of the NUT environment.
What drives me crazy is if I am not home often my wife or kids will just turn off the UPSs without shutting down the attached devices first - DOH!
Phizix
-
@Phizix said in Lights are on and no one is home after power outages with battery backup.:
or kids will just turn off the UPSs without shutting down the attached devices first
Another to set up stuff "as it was meant to be done".
When they cut the UPS (it will start to beep beep), and at that moment your server farm, pfSense etc will get 'halted'.Me curious : but why would the cut the power from the UPS ?
Mine have labels : "don't touch - or be ready to assume ....".
-
Trust me, they did get a good bollocking from me when it corrupted the SG-5100 gateway.
Occasionally they will still do it and I get pretty cross at them.
Phizix
-
I'd consider the UPS an "older" model, but not ancient. I'm using a 240v "Double Conversion Online" SmartUPS RT SURTD5000VA, so in theory there is near zero fluctuation or spikes when transferring. It has an additional external battery pack, and I then use an APC SURT003 isolation and step-down transformer for 120v devices, which leads to a couple PDUs, and then feeds devices off of that. There are other PDUs off of the main unit that feed 240v devices.
Not much to configure on this device other than upper and lower bypass ranges, but those only apply when bypass mode is utilized, which I never do. Output always hovers around +-1 at 240v, same with 60hz.
Nothing else connected to the 3100, just power, wan, and lan1.
