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    Cron Job Once/Day

    pfBlockerNG
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    • NollipfSenseN
      NollipfSense @jrey
      last edited by

      @jrey said in Cron Job Once/Day:

      Typically you want to have this set for "Every Hour", the default, and then control how often the various lists process (update) with the "Frequency" setting on them.

      Not for the typical home/lab user...it's unnecessary to run every hour...I have had it configured that way for years without issue.
      On pfBlockerNG-devel net 3.2.0_6 under pfSense + 23.05.1

      pfSense+ 23.09 Lenovo Thinkcentre M93P SFF Quadcore i7 dual Raid-ZFS 128GB-SSD 32GB-RAM PCI-Intel i350-t4 NIC, -Intel QAT 8950.
      pfSense+ 23.09 VM-Proxmox, Dell Precision Xeon-W2155 Nvme 500GB-ZFS 128GB-RAM PCIe-Intel i350-t4, Intel QAT-8950, P-cloud.

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      • J
        jrey @NollipfSense
        last edited by

        @NollipfSense said in Cron Job Once/Day:

        Not for the typical home/lab user...it's unnecessary to run every hour

        Perhaps, However running this particular cron job, one the only checks a couple of lists to see if they "should" has almost zero impact on the system.
        The proper place to set the "Once a day" if that is what you want is on the list itself under frequency.

        I can tell you that there was an issue previously regarding cron and it not triggering as expected. I happen to be "the guy" that provided the code change to the package maintainer. This would be a specific case, that would not have been considered or checked, as again the impact of the cron job itself running every hour has minimal impact at best. 1 hour is fine, then set the frequency of the specific list to "Once a day"

        @NollipfSense said in Cron Job Once/Day:

        I have had it configured that way for years without issue.

        Sounds like you have it sorted out then, because if it worked for years without issue, then it should work now.

        Good luck

        NollipfSenseN 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • NollipfSenseN
          NollipfSense @jrey
          last edited by

          @jrey said in Cron Job Once/Day:

          This would be a specific case, that would not have been considered or checked, as again the impact of the cron job itself running every hour has minimal impact at best. 1 hour is fine, then set the frequency of the specific list to "Once a day"

          That however, would just be running for nothing if most feeds are set for once per day and a few once per week. On a firewall, I believe, in the sake of efficiency, not to have anything running for no reason; so, unless the maintainer says otherwise, I believe I am operating the package in the scope it was intended. Appreciate your response, thank you.

          pfSense+ 23.09 Lenovo Thinkcentre M93P SFF Quadcore i7 dual Raid-ZFS 128GB-SSD 32GB-RAM PCI-Intel i350-t4 NIC, -Intel QAT 8950.
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          • NollipfSenseN
            NollipfSense
            last edited by

            So, after a reboot, there is no cron jog running and a schedule is presented. Once that time has elapsed, it seems that the cron job get stuck looping

            Screenshot 2023-10-29 at 10.53.57 PM.png

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            • J
              jrey @NollipfSense
              last edited by

              @NollipfSense

              Not worth discussing further,

              the maintainers recommendation is pretty obvious, when it says "Default: Every hour" in bold letters even.

              You seem unwilling to try the change and report back the observation, simply because "it has always worked"
              You seem unwilling "to install another package just to see." (not even something I'm recommending)
              No it is not "difficult to tell if it's actually running" but again you are at a road block of "it has always worked"

              Again if you are unwilling to try the suggestions just because "I have had it configured that way for years without issue." then it will be very difficult for people who are just trying to help you..

              I'm not the one experiencing the issue, you are.
              Good luck

              NollipfSenseN 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • NollipfSenseN
                NollipfSense @jrey
                last edited by

                @jrey said in Cron Job Once/Day:

                the maintainers recommendation is pretty obvious, when it says "Default: Every hour" in bold letters even.

                Can you share a link to that? I will comply upon seeing...in the meanwhile I look through the doc.

                pfSense+ 23.09 Lenovo Thinkcentre M93P SFF Quadcore i7 dual Raid-ZFS 128GB-SSD 32GB-RAM PCI-Intel i350-t4 NIC, -Intel QAT 8950.
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                • J
                  jrey @NollipfSense
                  last edited by

                  @NollipfSense

                  you have already shared it with us in your screen capture with the big red arrow, pointing at your current setting.

                  "Default: Every Hour" by implication the provided default is the recommendation. The developer didn't just picked it out of the sky. (you are certainly welcome to change it, as you have) but that doesn't imply what you are setting it too isn't broken for some yet unknown reason.

                  As I stated I use 2 hours so I don't use the "default" recommended value either.

                  have you looked in the log file? I don't see anything to suggest you have. The cron starts should be recorded in there.

                  As mentioned I have my cron set to start on the 30 minute mark rather than the top of the hour, and the frequency of each list set per my screen shot above. The lowest interval being 2 hours. this means that based on my schedule it would check for something to do at 00:30, 2:30...6:30, 8:30, 10:30 .. etc

                  so I temporarily changed it to 1 hour and by doing so 9:30 then becomes possible time things could run (if their frequency says so). I have nothing on my system that says so. However it took no time to tell me it had nothing to do at 9:30 in the log file.

                  CRON  PROCESS  START [ v3.2.0_6 ] [ 10/30/23 09:30:00 ]
                  
                   No Updates required.
                  CRON  PROCESS  ENDED
                  UPDATE PROCESS ENDED
                  

                  again what frequency do you have set on your individual lists ?

                  It's not a case of you being forced to "comply", just basic troubleshooting.
                  Again, you are firm on "Once a day" it's always worked. You have a suggestion to try something, you don't answer the questions, please propose then how we can help?

                  NollipfSenseN 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • NollipfSenseN
                    NollipfSense @jrey
                    last edited by

                    @jrey So, after your last response, I went checking the doc on Netgate and could not find anything specific to cron job yet, then went back to look at the interface without making any changes and now it's say as below despite it should be about 23h and a few minutes...

                    Screenshot 2023-10-30 at 9.16.06 AM.png

                    pfSense+ 23.09 Lenovo Thinkcentre M93P SFF Quadcore i7 dual Raid-ZFS 128GB-SSD 32GB-RAM PCI-Intel i350-t4 NIC, -Intel QAT 8950.
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                    • J
                      jrey @NollipfSense
                      last edited by jrey

                      @NollipfSense said in Cron Job Once/Day:

                      then went back to look at the interface without making any changes and now it's say as below despite it should be about 23h and a few minutes

                      and that implies that
                      a) it is not running now,
                      b) that it is going to run again at midnight, and that is 14:49:54 away from that time. Is that correct based on your timezone? are your 14:49 away from midnight (00:00)

                      why are you thinking 23h be the correct display here?

                      will run at 00:00 with 14:49:54 time remaining

                      your system clock isn't fluctuating wildly is it ?

                      NollipfSenseN 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • NollipfSenseN
                        NollipfSense @jrey
                        last edited by

                        @jrey said in Cron Job Once/Day:

                        again what frequency do you have set on your individual lists ?

                        Screenshot 2023-10-30 at 9.37.30 AM.png
                        Screenshot 2023-10-30 at 9.38.21 AM.png

                        pfSense+ 23.09 Lenovo Thinkcentre M93P SFF Quadcore i7 dual Raid-ZFS 128GB-SSD 32GB-RAM PCI-Intel i350-t4 NIC, -Intel QAT 8950.
                        pfSense+ 23.09 VM-Proxmox, Dell Precision Xeon-W2155 Nvme 500GB-ZFS 128GB-RAM PCIe-Intel i350-t4, Intel QAT-8950, P-cloud.

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                        • NollipfSenseN
                          NollipfSense @jrey
                          last edited by

                          @jrey said in Cron Job Once/Day:

                          why are you thinking 23h be the correct display here?

                          will run at 00:00 with 14:49:54 time remaining

                          Okay, I messed up on the 23hr...thinking it's from the time I rebooted; so, now the crob job is showing the correct time to the next run, since it's 9:40am approximately. Thank you for pointing that out.

                          pfSense+ 23.09 Lenovo Thinkcentre M93P SFF Quadcore i7 dual Raid-ZFS 128GB-SSD 32GB-RAM PCI-Intel i350-t4 NIC, -Intel QAT 8950.
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                          • J
                            jrey @NollipfSense
                            last edited by

                            @NollipfSense

                            So looks like the problem is resolved and "time" will tell at this point.

                            Let us know tomorrow if the run is successful overnight and the time remaining until next run when you view in the morning appears correct.

                            (did you happen save or re-save any of the configuration screens along the way?)

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                            • NollipfSenseN
                              NollipfSense @jrey
                              last edited by

                              @jrey said in Cron Job Once/Day:

                              @NollipfSense

                              So looks like the problem is resolved and "time" will tell at this point.

                              Let us know tomorrow if the run is successful overnight and the time remaining until next run when you view in the morning appears correct.

                              (did you happen save or re-save any of the configuration screens along the way?)

                              No change other than reboot and yes will follow up as you're correct that only time will tell.

                              pfSense+ 23.09 Lenovo Thinkcentre M93P SFF Quadcore i7 dual Raid-ZFS 128GB-SSD 32GB-RAM PCI-Intel i350-t4 NIC, -Intel QAT 8950.
                              pfSense+ 23.09 VM-Proxmox, Dell Precision Xeon-W2155 Nvme 500GB-ZFS 128GB-RAM PCIe-Intel i350-t4, Intel QAT-8950, P-cloud.

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                              • NollipfSenseN
                                NollipfSense
                                last edited by

                                Well, this morning Cron job was stuck again and it seems that it occurs when list constantly fail to download , such as [ DNSBL_Malicious - MDL ] Download Fail [ 09/3/23 00:00:32 ]. It had failed every day and was removed this morning. Also removed/disabled was the shellalist...I had advertising and tracking only and those failed.
                                [ DNSBL_Shallalist - Shallalist_adv ] Download Fail [ 10/31/23 00:00:33 ]
                                [ DNSBL_Shallalist - Shallalist_tracker ] Download Fail [ 10/31/23 00:00:33 ]

                                The same was enabled in the UT-list. I'll continue to monitor

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                                • J
                                  jrey @NollipfSense
                                  last edited by

                                  @NollipfSense

                                  I'm not really surprised by that.

                                  Good luck.

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                                  • NollipfSenseN
                                    NollipfSense @jrey
                                    last edited by

                                    @jrey said in Cron Job Once/Day:

                                    I'm not really surprised by that.

                                    That's because the bug is still present...see here: https://forum.netgate.com/topic/178357/active-pfblockerng-cron-job-never-ends/4

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                                    • NollipfSenseN
                                      NollipfSense
                                      last edited by NollipfSense

                                      @BBcan177 It appears that the cron job bug or a bug that causes cron job to constantly run which was supposedly fixed in v3.2.0_3 is still present in v3.2.0_6. Yes, I have wildcard blocking TLD enabled; however, that's one of the main features to run pfBlockerNG. Is there another work around other than disabling that feature? My feeds and cron job are set to update/run once per day.

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                                      • J
                                        jrey @NollipfSense
                                        last edited by jrey

                                        Not really where I was going with my comment, but ok

                                        @NollipfSense said in Cron Job Once/Day:

                                        That's because the bug is still present.

                                        You must realize, of course, this is new information to your problem description, as it is the first time you have mentioned that

                                        @NollipfSense said in Cron Job Once/Day:

                                        I have wildcard blocking TLD enabled

                                        Good to know.

                                        are you seeing the TLD processing mentioned in the log file ?

                                        "Assembling DNSBL database...... completed [ 05/22/23 22:47:03 ]
                                        TLD:
                                        TLD analysis..xx completed [ 05/22/23 22:47:21 ]

                                        are you
                                        Unbound mode or;
                                        Unbound python mode
                                        ?

                                        Edit: on the dashboard widget does it show the DNSBL_* -- what is the value in the Count column ?

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                                        • NollipfSenseN
                                          NollipfSense @jrey
                                          last edited by

                                          @jrey said in Cron Job Once/Day:

                                          this is new information to your problem description,

                                          That's because I discovered it doing a search of the problem I am facing...the same exact issue, cron job constantly running...

                                          @jrey said in Cron Job Once/Day:

                                          are you seeing the TLD processing

                                          It's working remember I had added snapshots.netgate.com and was able to download v2.8dev.

                                          @jrey said in Cron Job Once/Day:

                                          Unbound python mode

                                          yes

                                          @jrey said in Cron Job Once/Day:

                                          on the dashboard widget does it show the DNSBL

                                          pfBlockerNG is functioning normally except for the cron job...just notice the yellow dot with ! when it should be green...

                                          Screenshot 2023-11-02 at 3.00.43 PM.png

                                          pfSense+ 23.09 Lenovo Thinkcentre M93P SFF Quadcore i7 dual Raid-ZFS 128GB-SSD 32GB-RAM PCI-Intel i350-t4 NIC, -Intel QAT 8950.
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                                          • J
                                            jrey @NollipfSense
                                            last edited by

                                            @NollipfSense said in Cron Job Once/Day:

                                            are you seeing the TLD processing

                                            sorry, I meant can you show the log file output (part) that shows TLD being processed. I don't see an image of that.

                                            is there an error in the error.log ?

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