Watchdog for 4200?
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Is there a watchdog available for the 4200?
I have a remote 4200 that I've rebooted numerous times, but this last time the system did not come back on-line. The last lines from my ssh session look normal:
Netgate pfSense Plus is rebooting now.
Stopping package sudo...done.
Stopping package nut...done.
Stopping package suricata...done.
Stopping /usr/local/etc/rc.d/haproxy.sh...done.
Stopping /usr/local/etc/rc.d/pfb_dnsbl.sh...done.
Stopping /usr/local/etc/rc.d/pfb_filter.sh...done.
Stopping /usr/local/etc/rc.d/shutdown.nut.sh...done.
client_loop: send disconnect: Broken pipeI received the Rebooting... notification, but the Bootup complete never arrived, so it looks like I have a few hours of drive-time tomorrow...
Wondering if there is a BIOS or other form of watchdog available that might help in a situation like this? Advanced / Miscellaneous help suggests that there are watchdogs for some models.
--Larry
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@LarryFahnoe said in Watchdog for 4200?:
Wondering if there is a BIOS or other form of watchdog available that might help in a situation like this?
"Pulling the plug" out of a system like that is very bad.
"pfSense, actually the device you are using, is like your phone or PC (MAC) : smash the reste button, or remove the power a couple of time, and it will not boot anymore, you might even be good for a re install if your not a "partition expert".Still, your 4200 (pfSense plus) is probably using the ZFS file system which is pretty resilient.
Your 4200 is probably waiting with some message on the command line (console) and I get it : that one needs a hands-on access - so
@LarryFahnoe said in Watchdog for 4200?:
client_loop: send disconnect: Broken pipe
That's probably the SSH client noticing that the system you are connected to is broadcasting 'shut down' to all processes, so also the SSH server.
freebsd client_loop: send disconnect: Broken pipe -
Yes, I understand. I'm an old system admin who long ago learned the wisdom of not power-cycling. To my mind the power button is a bit like one's middle finger, just plain disrespectful to an operating system.
The reboot hang took me by surprise as it was the first time I've encountered such a situation with pfSense. I'll be able to find out what the console is telling me in a few hours though.
--Larry
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There isn't a driver/gui component for any hardware watchdog. Yet.
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Good to know Stephen, thank you.
In this case it turns out that a watchdog wouldn't have hurt or helped. Although I've not gotten to the bottom of it just yet, it appears to be an extraordinary coincidence that the cable company introduced an outage at roughly the same time I rebooted. When I got to the site I found the 4200 with its normal blue diamond light on solid & responding on the LAN interface. Cable company couldn't "see" the modem so I drove for a replacement, but they couldn't see the new one either. This is new service with the cable left laying on the grass prior to burial and working fine, however when I arrived I found that the cable had been buried, so my theory is that they damaged the cable when they buried it. Haven't been able to get them to confirm just when the cable was buried...
--Larry
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Urgh that sucks! But good to find a cause.
