No State Creator Host IDs visible

[unico-dm]

After upgrading a firewall pair to pfSense 2.7.1 (from 2.6.0) I see no State Creator Host IDs under Status > CARP > State Synchronization Status on any firewall anymore.

Logs under Status > System Logs > System (both firewalls) tell multiple times

Dec 4 18:49:08 kernel Warning: too many creators!

(this could be related I think)

State table data syncing seems to work fine (>600k states synced to both fws).

Is this something I should be worried about or is this just some GUI-cosmetic because 2.7.1 doesn't support more IDs?

P.S.: I have followed troubleshooting steps under https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/troubleshooting/high-availability.html
Further this guide says "If the State Creator Host IDs do not line up under Status > CARP in the State Synchronization Status section, that can indicate that the states have not been synchronized." But the states seem to be synced. So this troubleshooting guide (even if I've followed it) doesn't seem to apply here.

[unico-dm]

I checked on another updated (2.7.1) firewall pair. Same behaviour.
On a firewall pair that has not yet been updated (2.6.0) there are pfsync nodes listed.
(assuming "pfsync nodes" means the same as "state creator host ids" because it's at the same spot in the GUI.)

[jimp]

I haven't seen that here in my lab cluster pairs but mine all have manually set IDs.

If you set a manual ID on each node at System > High Availability (e.g. primary node is 1, secondary node is 2) and then reset the states does it change behavior?

When those are unset it should be defaulting to a somewhat consistent string on each node, though.

There was also a new way of fetching the state creators introduced recently which may be a factor.

But if you have multiple clusters also make sure they aren't all sharing the same L2 to exchange state data.

[unico-dm]

Thanks for the advice Jim

I will set manual IDs next maintenance window.

Meanwhile I've upgraded another firewall pair. Here I can see State Creator Host IDs as it should be.

The difference between this pair (ok) and the pairs without IDs (nok):

• ok FWs are recently installed (2.6.0) virtual firewalls while nok FWs are older physical installations that have seen many upgrades.
• ok FWs have almost no ifs/states/workload while the nok FWs have manymany IFs, lots of states etc.

(L2 for data-stuff is separated from L2 for sync-stuff on all installations.)

I will keep you posted.

[jimp]

On the ones that are not working as expected, check the following commands from an SSH or console shell prompt:

grep hostid /tmp/rules.debug 

Even if you didn't set one manually it should be there, and it should be the last 8 characters of the NDI shown on the dashboard.

pfctl -sc

pfctl -vvss | awk '/creatorid:/ { print $4; }' | sort -u

The output of the last two commands should be identical and really should match the host ID from the first command. The second command will take much longer to process on systems with a lot of content in the state table.

On older systems before we set the host ID explicitly (Before Plus 22.05 / CE 2.7.0) the hostid/creatorid changed to a new random value on every filter reload so there were many different values even though the hosts themselves didn't change.

[unico-dm]

I have run the commands on 6 firewalls (2 pairs with the issue, 1 pair without the issue).

grep hostid /tmp/rules.debug shows on all devices

set hostid 0x(last8charofNDI)

pfctl -sc shows the same output as pfctl -vvss | awk '/creatorid:/ { print $4; }' | sort -u if run on the working pair.

On the pairs with the issue pfctl -sc shows

pfctl: Failed to retrieve creators

but pfctl -vvss | awk '/creatorid:/ { print $4; }' | sort -u shows the expected list.

The messages "Failed to retrieve creators" probably is an explanation why the GUI doesn't show the creators even if they're there.

[jimp]

Curious. How many states are in the state table on the failing systems? Are there a lot more there or about the same amount?

EDIT:

If the output of pfctl -vvss | awk '/creatorid:/ { print $4; }' | sort -u shows more than 2 creators, it would help to see what else is present in that output.

It would also be helpful to get some debugging output from a run of pfctl -sc on a failing system , for example:

truss -o creatordebug.txt -f pfctl -sc

And then attach the creatordebug.txt file here.

[marcolefo]

@jimp said in No State Creator Host IDs visible:

truss -o creatordebug.txt -f pfctl -sc

Hi. We have exactly the same problem.

We have a 2.6.0 pair that we are upgrading to 2.7.2
We have upgraded the backup. When we test the CARP Maintenance on Master or going to the CARP Status on Backup, the backup spam

kernel: Warning: too many creators!

The GUI CARP Status display no state creator Host ID

[2.7.2-RELEASE][admin@backup]/root: grep hostid /tmp/rules.debug 
set hostid 0x...
[2.7.2-RELEASE][admin@backup]/root: pfctl -sc
pfctl: Failed to retrieve creators
[2.7.2-RELEASE][admin@backup]/root: pfctl -vvss | awk '/creatorid:/ { print $4; }' | sort -u
06d0...
(64 lines of 8 alphanumeric char)

And I have attached the creatordebug.txt of this command :

2.7.2-RELEASE][admin@backup]/root: truss -o creatordebug.txt -f pfctl -sc
pfctl: Failed to retrieve creators

creatordebug.txt

As I can see in it :

97872: ioctl(3,DIOCGETCREATORS,0x93ade72a258)	 ERR#28 'No space left on device'

here is the result of df

[2.7.2-RELEASE][admin@backup]/root: df -h
Filesystem                            Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
pfSense/ROOT/default                  194G    817M    193G     0%    /
devfs                                 1.0K      0B    1.0K     0%    /dev
pfSense/tmp                           193G    1.3M    193G     0%    /tmp
pfSense/var                           193G    280K    193G     0%    /var
pfSense                               193G     96K    193G     0%    /pfSense
pfSense/home                          193G    276K    193G     0%    /home
pfSense/var/cache                     193G     96K    193G     0%    /var/cache
pfSense/var/log                       193G    3.1M    193G     0%    /var/log
pfSense/var/tmp                       193G    104K    193G     0%    /var/tmp
pfSense/var/empty                     193G     96K    193G     0%    /var/empty
pfSense/reservation                   214G     96K    214G     0%    /pfSense/reservation
pfSense/var/db                        193G    7.5M    193G     0%    /var/db
pfSense/ROOT/default/cf               193G    2.2M    193G     0%    /cf
pfSense/ROOT/default/var_cache_pkg    193G    228K    193G     0%    /var/cache/pkg
pfSense/ROOT/default/var_db_pkg       193G    4.9M    193G     0%    /var/db/pkg
tmpfs                                 4.0M    304K    3.7M     7%    /var/run
devfs                                 1.0K      0B    1.0K     0%    /var/dhcpd/dev

It's probably linked : when we launch CARP maintenance on Master (v2.6.0) it spam php-fm every second with this log

php-fpm[43047]: /rc.carpbackup: HA cluster member "(X.X.X.X@lagg1.VLAN): (WAN)" has resumed CARP state "BACKUP" for vhid 2

During 10 minutes and then everything seems working like a charm.
(vhid 2 is a CARP interface where there is 131 IP Alias)

Thanks for your help.

[jimp]

The "no space left" there probably isn't referring to disk space directly.

Thanks for getting the truss output, I created a Redmine issue for this and included some of the details there:

https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/15108

[kprovost]

I think I see how the 'No space left on device' error can happen if we have many creator ids.
It's already fixed, because current versions of that code use the netlink to communicate, so that specific bug is already gone.

That's not the root cause of this issue though, because we ought to have 1 or 2 (distinct) creator ids and no more, and the 'Warning: too many creators!' kernel message means we have 16.

A full state table output (i.e. pfctl -ss -vvv) might give us clues about why there are so many different creator ids.

[marcolefo]

@kprovost said in No State Creator Host IDs visible:

A full state table output (i.e. pfctl -ss -vvv) might give us clues about why there are so many different creator ids.

The file weighs 15 Mo so I cannot upload it here. Here is a link to download it :

https://filesender.renater.fr/?s=download&token=b5711bf0-1ff8-410a-83ff-47934c64a013

[kprovost]

@marcolefo Thanks.

We do see many (97!) different creatorids here. That at least explains the kernel warning, but I do not understand how we'd end up in that state.

One of the first things to check is to see if both the primary and secondary keep a consistent hostid. Can you check that across reboots?
It's listed in the pfctl -si -v output, and I'd expect it to be set through the rules (set hostid xxxxx in /tmp/rules.debug).

It's also interesting that the majority of states in your file (those with hostid cad3f8bd) do not have rtable set, and those that do have one of the other hostids. That strongly suggests the two facts are related, but I'm struggling to form a theory that explains those facts.

Are your primary and secondary nodes running the same software version?

[marcolefo]

@kprovost said in No State Creator Host IDs visible:

Are your primary and secondary nodes running the same software version?

Not for now. One is 2.6.0 and the other one is 2.7.2.
We are going to upgrade the first one this afternoon.

[kprovost]

@marcolefo Well, that's supposed to just work, but there's functionally several years of code evolution between 2.6.0's pf and 2.7.2. It's entirely possible that's causing this problem.

It'd be useful to know if the problem remains or not once both nodes are running 2.7.x (ideally the same version, but 2.7.0 is vastly closer to 2.7.2 already).

[marcolefo]

@kprovost said in No State Creator Host IDs visible:

It'd be useful to know if the problem remains or not once both nodes are running 2.7.x (ideally the same version, but 2.7.0 is vastly closer to 2.7.2 already).

So now the 2 pfsense are 2.7.2.
The error kernel: Warning: too many creators! is always here. It appears when we go Status > CARP (failover)

The GUI CARP Status display no state creator Host ID

[2.7.2-RELEASE][admin@master]/root: grep hostid /tmp/rules.debug 
set hostid 0xf689d9b8
[2.7.2-RELEASE][admin@backup]/root: grep hostid /tmp/rules.debug
set hostid 0xcad3f8bd
[2.7.2-RELEASE][admin@master]/root:  pfctl -sc
pfctl: Failed to retrieve creators
[2.7.2-RELEASE][admin@backup]/root:  pfctl -sc
pfctl: Failed to retrieve creators

Should I try to set the filter host ID here ?

[kprovost]

@marcolefo The hostid ought to be stable across reboots even if it's not configured, so let's confirm that first. (I.e. when you reboot the standby firewall does it have the same hostid in /tmp/rules.debug when it comes back?)

[marcolefo]

@kprovost said in No State Creator Host IDs visible:

@marcolefo The hostid ought to be stable across reboots even if it's not configured, so let's confirm that first. (I.e. when you reboot the standby firewall does it have the same hostid in /tmp/rules.debug when it comes back?)

Yes it's stable across reboots

[2.7.2-RELEASE][admin@backup]/root: grep hostid /tmp/rules.debug
set hostid 0xcad3f8bd
[2.7.2-RELEASE][admin@backup]/root: uptime
 3:08PM  up 3 mins, 2 users, load averages: 1.40, 0.76, 0.31

[kprovost]

Okay, that's good to know.

I've had another look at the state listing.

All of the the states with unexpected creatorids list an rtable of 0, none of the others do. I suspect this is a clue.
I believe those states to be imported through pfsync.

There's been a pfsync protocol change between 2.7.0 and 2.7.2. That could potentially have resulted in states being imported with invalid information, but that's highly speculative. I've also not been able to reproduce that in a setup with pfsync between a 2.7.0 and 2.7.2 host. If that were the cause it should also have gone away when both pfsync participants were upgraded to 2.7.2.

It's a bit of a long shot, but it might be worth capturing pfsync traffic, both so we can inspect it (be sure to capture full packets) and so we can verify that there's nothing other than the two pfsense machines sending pfsync traffic.

[marcolefo]

@kprovost sorry I did'nt post since my last answer, I was out of my office.

We do not have Warning: too many creators message since 2023-12-22.
And in GUI we have now State Creator Host IDs (on the 2 nodes).

pfctl -si -v displays the Creator IDs

I have tried to enter and leave persistent carp mode with no problem.

I think the problem is solved :)
But I don't know why it did not display correctly the last time.

Thanks a lot for your help and happy new year.

[kprovost]

@marcolefo That's good to know.

Given that the problem appears to have gone away after you moved both machines to the same version I think that's another data point suggesting that's at the root of this issue.
I still can't reproduce this, but it's good to know anyway.