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    There were error(s) loading the rules: pfctl: DIOCADDRULENV: Device busy

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • A
      a.dresner @stephenw10
      last edited by

      @stephenw10 I wish I could say, but its a remote location and has only acted this way when I'm not on site... last time was 24 hours after I left...frustrating

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      • stephenw10S
        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
        last edited by

        Are you able to upload a status file to us to review?

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        • A
          a.dresner @stephenw10
          last edited by

          @stephenw10 of course, pls tell me what to do =)

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          • stephenw10S
            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
            last edited by

            Great, you can pull the status_output file from the GUI. See:
            https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/recipes/diagnostic-data.html#view-and-download-diagnostic-data-in-the-gui

            Then upload it here:
            https://nc.netgate.com/nextcloud/s/YfciQktBin7fLEM

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            • A
              a.dresner @stephenw10
              last edited by

              @stephenw10 All done sir

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              • stephenw10S
                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                last edited by

                Great I see that. Checking....

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                • stephenw10S
                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                  last edited by

                  Mmm, OK nothing obvious there. I'm going to consult developers on this.

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                  • stephenw10S
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by

                    Ok, the likely cause here is a race condition between filter reloads triggered close to simultaneously.

                    That obviously shouldn't happen but you can probably mitigate it by tuning your gateway parameters for the WG_VPN_HQ gateway. Currently that is continually throwing alarms and reloading the filter every time it does. I suspect when you see this error it ends up thowing several alarms and queing up reloads.

                    I would try either setting the monitoring values to far higher numbers, say 50% and 500ms, or disabling monitoring action on the gateway. If that prevents or reduces the errors you're seeing that would prove the theory.

                    Steve

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                    • A
                      a.dresner @stephenw10
                      last edited by

                      @stephenw10 From a troubleshooting standpoint, it makes sense since these overseas vpn can have spotty connection from time to time. I already made those adjustments... waiting to see what happened :D Thanks @stephenw10 much appreciated!

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                      • W
                        wblanton
                        last edited by

                        I’m also seeing this message pop up a lot recently on one of my 23.09.1 firewalls. I’m counting 8 messages between 4/15 to today (4/28).

                        It’s always an alert saying:

                        There were error(s) loading the rules: pfctl: DIOCADDRULENV: Device busy - The line in question reads [0]:

                        Followed by another alert saying:

                        PF was wedged/busy and has been reset.
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                        • stephenw10S
                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                          last edited by

                          Same question as the OP here. Anything logged? Any 'exotic' rules? Anything else unusual?

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                          • M
                            mangelot
                            last edited by

                            Same issue here, almost every day (some times twice a day)

                            06:30:00 PF was wedged/busy and has been reset.
                            06:30:00 There were error(s) loading the rules: pfctl: DIOCADDRULENV: Device busy - The line in question reads [0]:

                            system general log
                            Aug 26 06:30:00 php-cgi 51879 rc.filter_configure_sync: New alert found: There were error(s) loading the rules: pfctl: DIOCADDRULENV: Device busy - The line in question reads [0]:
                            Aug 26 06:30:00 php-cgi 51879 rc.filter_configure_sync: New alert found: PF was wedged/busy and has been reset.
                            Aug 26 06:28:00 sshguard 54936 Now monitoring attacks.
                            Aug 26 06:28:00 sshguard 55063 Exiting on signal.

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                            • stephenw10S
                              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                              last edited by

                              Is there anything else logged? An alert shown in the system?

                              Can you replicate it by running Status > Filter Reload?

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                              • M
                                mangelot
                                last edited by

                                Only the warning in GUI and by email (twice a day)

                                yesterday
                                16:15:00 PF was wedged/busy and has been reset.
                                16:15:00 There were error(s) loading the rules: pfctl: DIOCADDRULENV: Device busy - The line in question reads [0]:
                                19:00:00 PF was wedged/busy and has been reset.
                                19:00:00 There were error(s) loading the rules: pfctl: DIOCADDRULENV: Device busy - The line in question reads [0]:

                                monday:
                                06:30:00 PF was wedged/busy and has been reset.
                                06:30:00 There were error(s) loading the rules: pfctl: DIOCADDRULENV: Device busy - The line in question reads [0]:
                                01:30:00 PF was wedged/busy and has been reset.
                                01:30:00 There were error(s) loading the rules: pfctl: DIOCADDRULENV: Device busy - The line in question reads [0]:

                                Q: Can you replicate it by running Status > Filter Reload?
                                A: Cannot replicate the error, no issues when running filter reload, all rules are loaded normally

                                I can provide the status_output file from the GUI

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                                • A
                                  a.dresner
                                  last edited by

                                  Happened for me again 3x, on a different pfsense box..

                                  pf_busy

                                  PF was wedged/busy and has been reset. @ 2024-08-08 16:20:11
                                  PF was wedged/busy and has been reset. @ 2024-08-13 06:44:50
                                  PF was wedged/busy and has been reset. @ 2024-08-21 14:50:18
                                  Filter Reload

                                  There were error(s) loading the rules: pfctl: DIOCADDRULENV: Device busy - The line in question reads [0]: @ 2024-08-08 16:20:12
                                  There were error(s) loading the rules: pfctl: DIOCADDRULENV: Device busy - The line in question reads [0]: @ 2024-08-13 06:44:51
                                  There were error(s) loading the rules: pfctl: DIOCADDRULENV: Device busy - The line in question reads [0]: @ 2024-08-21 14:50:19

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                                  • stephenw10S
                                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                    last edited by

                                    You can upload a status file here: https://nc.netgate.com/nextcloud/s/fLa8Rr8Km5Bq4rt

                                    M A 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • M
                                      mangelot @stephenw10
                                      last edited by

                                      @stephenw10 uploaded the status

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                                      • stephenw10S
                                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                        last edited by

                                        Hmm, nothing obviously an issue there.

                                        You have a lot of bad requests against the pfSense GUI from a single IP. If that's not a scan of some sort from an internal IP you should check that you don't have open ports to the WAN.

                                        One in stance showed just after em2 disconnected. But only one.

                                        It looks like you have lcdproc installed but misconfigured.

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                                        • M
                                          mangelot @stephenw10
                                          last edited by

                                          @stephenw10

                                          bad requests against the pfSense GUI from a single IP?
                                          Can you tell me which IP? or which log file?

                                          It looks like you have lcdproc installed but misconfigured.
                                          I'm running lcdproc on a watchguard xtm550, the lcd is showing the correct info?

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                                          • stephenw10S
                                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                            last edited by

                                            An XTM5 you mean? In that case lcdproc is probably just trying to start multiple times:

                                            Aug 26 19:56:41 firewall-home LCDd[98016]: sock_send: socket write error
Aug 26 19:56:41 firewall-home LCDd[98016]: sock_send: socket write error
Aug 26 19:56:41 firewall-home LCDd[98016]: sock_send: socket write error
Aug 26 19:56:41 firewall-home LCDd[98016]: sock_send: socket write error
Aug 26 19:56:42 firewall-home LCDd[98016]: sdeclcd: cannot release IO-permission for 0x378!
Aug 26 19:56:43 firewall-home php[92308]: lcdproc: Start client procedure. Error counter: (0)

                                            Some of those are expected for sdeclcd since it's hard coded for the parallel port at 0x378.

                                            I see you upgraded the CPU. 👍

                                            You have a bunch of arp movement logs:

                                            arp: 192.168.2.187 moved from 52:04:aa:49:5d:ce to da:53:be:3f:8b:a7 on em1
arp: 192.168.2.187 moved from da:53:be:3f:8b:a7 to 52:04:aa:49:5d:ce on em1
arp: 192.168.2.187 moved from 52:04:aa:49:5d:ce to da:53:be:3f:8b:a7 on em1
arp: 192.168.2.187 moved from da:53:be:3f:8b:a7 to 52:04:aa:49:5d:ce on em1

                                            If that's something known to share a MACs (internal teamed NICs etc) consider suppressing that logging as it's hiding other stuff:
                                            https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/troubleshooting/logs-arp-moved.html

                                            The logs showing the potential scan attempts are in the main system log like:

                                            Aug 28 23:56:22 firewall-home nginx: 2024/08/28 23:56:22 [error] 67396#100121: *36847 open() "/usr/local/www/.env" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 78.153.140.151, server: , request: "GET /.env HTTP/1.1", host: "81.x.x.55"
Aug 28 23:56:22 firewall-home nginx: 2024/08/28 23:56:22 [error] 67396#100121: *36849 open() "/usr/local/www/.config.yaml" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 78.153.140.151, server: , request: "GET /.config.yaml HTTP/1.1", host: "81.x.x.55"
Aug 28 23:56:23 firewall-home nginx: 2024/08/28 23:56:23 [error] 67396#100121: *36851 open() "/usr/local/www/.env.bak" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 78.153.140.151, server: , request: "GET /.env.bak HTTP/1.1", host: "81.x.x.55"
Aug 28 23:56:24 firewall-home nginx: 2024/08/28 23:56:24 [error] 67396#100121: *36854 open() "/usr/local/www/.env.example" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 78.153.140.151, server: , request: "GET /.env.example HTTP/1.1", host: "81.x.x.55"

                                            That is an external device at 78.153.140.151 sending requests that are hitting the pfSense webgui. It's looking for files that might be present in known vulnerabilities. They aren't on pfSense so it throws an error but that traffic should never be allowed to reach the webui.

                                            It looks like you have some floating rules in place that pass all traffic that is not subsequently blocked but you don't have any block rules so everything is passed!

                                            anchor "userrules/*"
pass inet from any to any ridentifier 1609758534 keep state label "USER_RULE" label "id:1609758534"
pass inet6 from any to any ridentifier 1609758534 keep state label "USER_RULE" label "id:1609758534"

                                            You almost certainly don't want that! Disable or remove that rule.

                                            None of that would cause that pfctl error though.

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