PfSense firewall completely frozen
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Upon trying to connect remotely to my newly install pfSense router today, I found it was not accepting remote connections. When I arrived on site, no connection methods would work, no ping, no ssh, no webgui, no internet access to client machines, nothing at all. Also serial console was non responsive, when I press enter it only shows check marks instead of showing the menu. (see attachment 1)
I powered it off, and reattached the power and it's working fine (for the moment!).
I am running version 1.2.2 embedded on Alix hardware, which is less than a month old. This network is relatively small, 13 computers and 2 servers. I don't have any unusual settings on the box, it's a brand new install. I only added RDP ports access, everything else is default configs. Network is pretty basic, pfsense lan side is connected to a switch, which has one other switch attached to it. The wan side is connected to a public IP address. Early this week, I configured OpenVPN and have been using it all week without a problem.
What could cause the device to completely freeze up? Maybe bad hardware or did I configure something wrong? Any help appreciated….. Thanks
config-pfsense.20090707000432.xml.txt
BootLog.txt -
Bad hardware can most definitely cause this.
An overheating CPU / Bad ram will for example.
I had similar problem once (nothing loaded, but the PC had booted). And it was caused by PARTIALLY faulty ram.
The ram would get the system booted and all - but I couldn't access the PC remotely.If this has only happened once - I wouldn't sweat it.( has it more than?)
To be sure - you should run passed on memtest.
Now - here's something I WANT to know.
How do you access pfsense via hyper terminal? : D
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Serial Port Connection…
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Yep this is the embedded version running on an Alix, which is a tiny little mobo with memory integrated on the board, specifically designed to be SMB firewall. The filesystem is read-only on a CF card. There's no video, so you have to use Hyperterm to see it booting etc. And, no CD drive so no way to boot to memtest that I know of. I checked the box and it seemed cool to the touch, I don't think its overheating.
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You might try one of the newer 1.2.3-RC nanobsd snapshots.
http://snapshots.pfsense.org/FreeBSD_RELENG_7_2/pfSense_RELENG_1_2/nanobsd/There have been quite a few improvements to the handling of embedded since 1.2.2 was released.
Don't feel too gun shy about running 1.2.3-RC2, as it's really been quite stable and is rapidly nearing release.
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I think this was actually caused by some power issue, maybe a brown out. A server at the site with no UPS was also down, I found out this morning.
