Netgate Discussion Forum
    • Categories
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Search
    • Register
    • Login

    High Avail secondary node IPs - How to find it

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
    45 Posts 4 Posters 2.3k Views 3 Watching
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • M Offline
      michmoor LAYER 8 Rebel Alliance @stephenw10
      last edited by

      @stephenw10 @viragomann
      Thank you both you are correct!
      Now the secondary isn’t responding to ssh or https. Yet there are no errors when syncing. Weird. .

      Firewall: NetGate,Palo Alto-VM,Juniper SRX
      Routing: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
      Switching: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
      Wireless: Unifi, Aruba IAP
      JNCIP,CCNP Enterprise

      V 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • V Offline
        viragomann @michmoor
        last edited by

        @michmoor
        Did you check the outbound NAT and firewall rules on the sync interface?

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • M Offline
          michmoor LAYER 8 Rebel Alliance @viragomann
          last edited by

          @viragomann hmm

          Maybe thats the problem? I am trying to access the secondary node over VPN.

          Here are the outbound rules i am using

          f706a02c-bf57-4ae3-a353-8a59d55c17a9-image.png

          Source - My office LAN address that goes over the VPN
          Destination - pfSync address of the backup node
          NAT Address - That is the LAN address of the master (not the VIP lan address)

          Is this accurate?

          Firewall: NetGate,Palo Alto-VM,Juniper SRX
          Routing: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
          Switching: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
          Wireless: Unifi, Aruba IAP
          JNCIP,CCNP Enterprise

          M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • M Offline
            michmoor LAYER 8 Rebel Alliance @michmoor
            last edited by michmoor

            Ok...That fixed it. It was the outbound NAT rule requirement

            Backup node is accessible over VPN and boy..........does not look good.

            I also see packages not synced over - such as SUDO, OpenVPN client export, mtr...
            Firewall rules are there but things appear missing.

            d83be4bd-6b91-476c-b239-25829104ee87-image.png

            Firewall: NetGate,Palo Alto-VM,Juniper SRX
            Routing: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
            Switching: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
            Wireless: Unifi, Aruba IAP
            JNCIP,CCNP Enterprise

            S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • S Offline
              SteveITS Rebel Alliance @michmoor
              last edited by

              @michmoor I was going to say, disconnect the primary and log in using the shared IP. :)

              Package installs do not automatically install on the secondary. Package config may sync if the package supports it.

              Only install packages for your version, or risk breaking it. Select your branch in System/Update/Update Settings.
              When upgrading, allow 10-15 minutes to reboot, or more depending on packages, and device or disk speed.
              Upvote 👍 helpful posts!

              M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • M Offline
                michmoor LAYER 8 Rebel Alliance @SteveITS
                last edited by

                @SteveITS Full disclousre. This is my second time working on a HA configuration on pfsense so the nuances I'm not familiar with namely package sync.

                So on the standby node i have to manual install the same set of packages? Thats no problem i just wanted to be clear.

                And get this....The secondary had the pfSync interface using WAN while the primary had the pfSync interface using the dedicated interface labeled HA

                So clearly this can work but its so weird.

                Firewall: NetGate,Palo Alto-VM,Juniper SRX
                Routing: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                Switching: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                Wireless: Unifi, Aruba IAP
                JNCIP,CCNP Enterprise

                S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • S Offline
                  SteveITS Rebel Alliance @michmoor
                  last edited by

                  @michmoor yeah…agree with your label.

                  https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/highavailability/settings.html

                  There is state sync and one-way config sync. The latter I’d think could be allowed on WAN by firewall rules, but why???

                  Yes install packages yourself.

                  Only install packages for your version, or risk breaking it. Select your branch in System/Update/Update Settings.
                  When upgrading, allow 10-15 minutes to reboot, or more depending on packages, and device or disk speed.
                  Upvote 👍 helpful posts!

                  M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • M Offline
                    michmoor LAYER 8 Rebel Alliance @SteveITS
                    last edited by

                    @SteveITS
                    One last thing. Im using IPsec here and I'm testing failover. So far it does failover to the Backup node but i noticed the firewall rules are not syncing to my VTI interface.

                    According to the documentation i must create the interface manually which i understand but shouldn't the firewall rules come over as well?

                    Firewall: NetGate,Palo Alto-VM,Juniper SRX
                    Routing: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                    Switching: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                    Wireless: Unifi, Aruba IAP
                    JNCIP,CCNP Enterprise

                    V 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • V Offline
                      viragomann @michmoor
                      last edited by

                      @michmoor
                      Yes, presumed you have configured the VTI interface on the backup node as well.

                      M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • M Offline
                        michmoor LAYER 8 Rebel Alliance @viragomann
                        last edited by

                        @viragomann yep. Same interface assignment

                        Firewall: NetGate,Palo Alto-VM,Juniper SRX
                        Routing: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                        Switching: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                        Wireless: Unifi, Aruba IAP
                        JNCIP,CCNP Enterprise

                        M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • M Offline
                          michmoor LAYER 8 Rebel Alliance @michmoor
                          last edited by

                          Im really not understanding why my VTI interfaces are not syncing up.
                          The interface assignments are the exact same

                          Master
                          49472093-4e44-4359-9ff3-c9c625924dce-image.png

                          Backup
                          6e4bb5ba-48eb-4626-8525-7cffd66eed28-image.png

                          de6128e4-e354-463c-8a36-6e6ca7b4fbc6-image.png

                          Yet the only interface with firewall rules not syncing is the VTI. Very strange behavior.

                          Firewall: NetGate,Palo Alto-VM,Juniper SRX
                          Routing: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                          Switching: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                          Wireless: Unifi, Aruba IAP
                          JNCIP,CCNP Enterprise

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • stephenw10S Online
                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                            last edited by

                            Is it ipsec1 on the primary too or ipsec0?

                            Yeah sync can work between any interfaces but it's much better to use a dedicated sync interface if you can.

                            M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • M Offline
                              michmoor LAYER 8 Rebel Alliance @stephenw10
                              last edited by

                              @stephenw10 ipsec1 on both. I shared pictures above

                              Firewall: NetGate,Palo Alto-VM,Juniper SRX
                              Routing: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                              Switching: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                              Wireless: Unifi, Aruba IAP
                              JNCIP,CCNP Enterprise

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • stephenw10S Online
                                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                last edited by

                                Is the IPSec filter option set to VTI mode on both nodes?

                                M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • M Offline
                                  michmoor LAYER 8 Rebel Alliance @stephenw10
                                  last edited by

                                  @stephenw10 Yep it sure is.

                                  Firewall: NetGate,Palo Alto-VM,Juniper SRX
                                  Routing: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                                  Switching: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                                  Wireless: Unifi, Aruba IAP
                                  JNCIP,CCNP Enterprise

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • stephenw10S Online
                                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                    last edited by

                                    Hmm, well it's possible to set individual rules to not sync. That might have been done for some reason.

                                    M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • stephenw10S stephenw10 referenced this topic on
                                    • M Offline
                                      michmoor LAYER 8 Rebel Alliance @stephenw10
                                      last edited by

                                      @stephenw10

                                      I thought the same as well but the "No XMLRPC Sync" checkbox is unchecked.

                                      Logs show no errors. I even tried re-creating the interface and still no luck

                                      081b3fcf-0b63-4561-b86b-af67a9d7492c-image.png

                                      Firewall: NetGate,Palo Alto-VM,Juniper SRX
                                      Routing: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                                      Switching: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                                      Wireless: Unifi, Aruba IAP
                                      JNCIP,CCNP Enterprise

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • stephenw10S Online
                                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                        last edited by

                                        No error on the Secondary either?

                                        M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • M Offline
                                          michmoor LAYER 8 Rebel Alliance @stephenw10
                                          last edited by michmoor

                                          @stephenw10

                                          Figured it out.
                                          The primary has OPT3 - IPsec1
                                          The secondary has OPT4 - IPsec1

                                          I was just looking at the IPsec1 identifier but clearly the OPT has to match. So i deleted the interface on the secondary and made sure that when it got recreated the OPT identifier matched. Once that's done Rules synced across.

                                          The last thing I'm dealing with now is IPsec failover is very slow. An outage of over 3-4 minutes. CARP WAN address is being used but i do notice in my logs that the firewall keeps trying to initiate a connection using the WAN address and not the WAN CARP address. Is this normal?

                                          Eventually, the firewalls speak and all is well.

                                          Firewall: NetGate,Palo Alto-VM,Juniper SRX
                                          Routing: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                                          Switching: Juniper, Arista, Cisco
                                          Wireless: Unifi, Aruba IAP
                                          JNCIP,CCNP Enterprise

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                          • stephenw10S Online
                                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                            last edited by

                                            What are they connected to?

                                            If the IPSec is on the CARP VIP at this end the secondary should start trying to connect as soon as it fails over but the remote side will have to time-out before starts trying.

                                            M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                            • First post
                                              Last post
                                            Copyright 2025 Rubicon Communications LLC (Netgate). All rights reserved.