Successful Install on Watchguard Firebox X700!
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In fact, I haven't seen any timeouts whatsoever using any 2.0b4 build (ignoring an odd issue with a macbook pro) since this post:
http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,25870.msg147085.html#msg147085Did the MBP cause timeouts on the build you're using today?
Also, reading your other post, I do experience the "went backwards" error at bootup, however it doesn't stop anything from working.
I'm using an HP Procurve switch between my pfsense and machines. In my inital testing, I did have my laptop plugged directly into the FB, but still no timeouts were seen
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Just to keep everyone updated, I ran some Windows CIFS tests with my laptop connected directly to a port on the Firebox. The CIFS servers is connected to another interface however there is a switch between server and FB.
My first test was 5 or 6 files totalling around 1GB. My second test was lots of smallish (30MB) files totalling around 200MB. During the tests, I had a Traffic Graph open in Firefox on my desktop machine (connected to same interface as CIFS server).
Not a single watchdog timeout happened. I have yet to see any timeouts on my current build (2.0-BETA5 (i386) built on Sat Jan 1 19:56:40 EST 2011), and the box has had an uptime of 1 day, 03:19 with 4 interfaces activated (5 during my CIFS tests).
The only things I noticed during my CIFS tests was that it was capped at around 60Mbps, and as I removed the network cable from my laptop after the 2nd test (after a few hours of inactivity), I noticed that "check_reload_status: Linkup starting re5" was displayed in system.log, but this is probably normal.
The capping issue could be due to some default config changed that has potentially stopped the timeouts. But that's ok as within our company, I have designated these boxes for use in "Medium Traffic Sites", or at least I will once we've had a few weeks of no timeouts.
(Btw, The "Low Traffic Sites" have ALIX 2D3 and the "High Traffic Sites" have Supermicro Servers)
What you all think?
Thanks
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It wouldn't surprise me to find that the 60Mbps cap is a result of the low quality Realtek NICs, especially since all the offloading options have been disabled.
Edit: Thinking about it the offloading options are supposed to free up the cpu not the NIC so in fact, unless the cpu is maxxed out, this may be the faster setup.
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It wouldn't surprise me to find that the 60Mbps cap is a result of the low quality Realtek NICs, especially since all the offloading options have been disabled.
Yeah, you're probably right. The ALIX boards which are good quality parts cap at around 80Mbps, so 60Mbps on low quality hardware seems ok. I'm just interested to hear from anyone who is having timeout issues with the current 2.0 build. I may buy another x700 and deploy it at another office so at least we will have 2 real-life tests going on
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I'm really trying to get to the bottom of why things are beginning to work now. Can any devs comment on if any defaults have changed? Looking at the FreeBSD code:
http://svn.freebsd.org/viewvc/base/stable/8/sys/dev/re/if_re.c?view=log
you will notice that the Firebox NICS (8139) hasn't been mentioned since April 2009 (which in fact does address the timeout issue on the FB NICs). So either the Apr 09 fix didn't make it to pfSense until recently, or that a more recent driver change has fixed it (i.e. the Apr 09 fix did nothing). Or pfsense default tuning has changed
I'm clueless as to how the freebsd svn code relates to what goes into pfSense beta snapshots..
Any clues are appreciated
Cheers
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Did the MBP cause timeouts on the build you're using
Honestly, it only happens when browsing pfsense's webgui, so I don't know.
The machine has been used for all kinds of other Internet related activities, so I'm confident that it doesn't cause timeouts during normal use.Also, regarding the speed of the firebox:
I use the fireboxe to firewall a 120/10 connection and it reaches a sustained 98.8 mbit down while uploading at 9.89 mbit with around 48% CPU usage (tends to fluctuate up and down a lot).
When I only just got the fireboxes I ran some tests using a 100/100 connection and while the machine still threw up watchdog timeouts back then (February or march) it was able to firewall 98/98 mbit when testing with FTP transfers. -
I'm really trying to get to the bottom of why things are beginning to work now. Can any devs comment on if any defaults have changed? Looking at the FreeBSD code:
The change was not in FreeBSD but in pfsense. The defaults were changed such that all the cpu offloading was turned off. You can still turn it back on manually.
Also, regarding the speed of the firebox:
I use the fireboxe to firewall a 120/10 connection and it reaches a sustained 98.8 mbit down while uploading at 9.89 mbit with around 48% CPU usage (tends to fluctuate up and down a lot).
When I only just got the fireboxes I ran some tests using a 100/100 connection and while the machine still threw up watchdog timeouts back then (February or march) it was able to firewall 98/98 mbit when testing with FTP transfers.That's interesting. It ties in better with Watchguards claimed 275/300Mbps 'firewall throughput', under their linux based OS.
Steve
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@iFloris, that's interesting stats regarding your throughput. It could just my CIFS server or something. I guess I need to set up an HTTP server locally and test via that. However, 60Mbps is ok for me as my fastest WAN connection is 15/1
Now for some more test results:
This time, I transfered a whole directory of files from a CIFS server to my laptop which is plugged directly into the FB. The CIFS servers goes via an HP procurve switch. I also ran "cat /dev/random > /dev/null" from a SSH shell. I was also viewing the RRD graph. The whole test lasted about 6 or 7 minutes.
Not a single timeout :D
Pics attached. You'll notice a dip in traffic in the RRD graph. Not sure what this was about (Probably just Windows CIFS being silly). You'll notice not a single timeout in system.log (also attached)
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That's interesting. It ties in better with Watchguards claimed 275/300Mbps 'firewall throughput', under their linux based OS.
That's interesting indeed, I never knew that Watchguard claimed such a throughput.
This morning I had to get a large file for a project and thought I'd post the throughput and cpu use as a reference.It would seem that the cpu usage / speed ratio I reporter earlier either changed somewhat in the past months or that there is some process going on that I don't know about causing a few percents of cpu usage on the firebox.
See attached image, sorry about all the white space.
Pfsense reports a speed in of 98.47 and out of 3.47 mbit at a cpu usage of around 50% with less than 500 states.
This is with a minimal amount of firewall rules, as I only have a few port forwards configured.
Packages installed are minimal; OpenVPN Client Export Utility, RRD Summary, Unbound, arpwatch, ifBWStats, phpSysInfo and vnstat2.Also, I hadn't noticed before that the cpu graphs to the above right note something way different to what the bar in system information shows.
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That's really interesting. There are always people asking what throughput different hardware is capable of, at last here's some numbers! :)
Watchguards specs are here: http://www.watchguard.com/products/x2500.asp
You have to look at the top X-Core model as all ther others are software restricted.
You've inspired me to do some testing. However to do this I'd have to swapout my box as my wan connection is only ~10Mbps. Would a test between two of the other ports be equivalent? I can't see why not they are still firewalled.
Then I'm possibly up against streaming a file at a sufficient speed. There must be a software package for doing this that doesn't rely on disk speed anyone recommend anything?Steve
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So here is my dreaded post. I finally managed to make my x700 timeout :(
It happens when I VNC from my LAN (re2 in my case) to a server on the other side of an IPSEC tunnel.
Does anyone have any clues on what I can try to do to fix this?
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Oh no! >:(
Can't help with that I'm afraid. You might want to check that VNC isn't sending some crazy packet size or using an odd protocol.
I have ended up using ttcp for network speed testing seems a useful package. Easy to install it to pfsense, pkg_add -r ttcp, but also windows and linux versions and all seem compatible.
I'm pretty impressed that iFloris managed 98.4Mbps from a 100M interface using a suposedly bad NIC chip. I'm only getting around 85Mbps. -
It happens when I VNC from my LAN (re2 in my case) to a server on the other side of an IPSEC tunnel.
Does anyone have any clues on what I can try to do to fix this?
What I've found is that the firebox nics are very sensitive to mtu sizes.
Make sure that you are sending regular sized, e.g. 1500 byte packages as opposed to irregular sized 1501 byte packages or something of that ilk.If that doesn't help, lay off the IPSEC and switch to OpenVPN, which, in my usage (road warrior setup) hasn't caused a timeout yet.
I'm pretty impressed that iFloris managed 98.4Mbps from a 100M interface using a suposedly bad NIC chip. I'm only getting around 85Mbps.
If you like, I can do some additional tests, but I download a few files at that speed nearly every day.
I actually have two fireboxes, originally an x500 and the x700 currently in use.
Since I did something stupid yesterday I switched out the disk drive to the x500 and the speeds remain the same, so my speeds aren't a fluke/oddity.
It'll be interesting to see if my original measurements of being able to firewall 100/100 hold up since I'm upgrading / crossgrading my home office 120/10 docsis 3.0 connection to a 100/100 fiber connection in a month or two.
When that change is complete I'll be able to test more completely for what I think (or hope) is full duplex linespeed capability. -
What I've found is that the firebox nics are very sensitive to mtu sizes.
Make sure that you are sending regular sized, e.g. 1500 byte packages as opposed to irregular sized 1501 byte packages or something of that ilk.Any idea on how I can change the MTU size of the VNC packets? Or force it VPN wide?
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If it's an MTU problem try pinging through your vpn tunnel with increasing packet size until you get timeouts.
ping -l 1480 -f (remote IP)The f option prevents the packet being fragmented, in Windows.
You could try capturing some packets in pfsense. I've never used that function so can't help you.What OS's are you running ?
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All Linux, bar pfsense of course.
BTW, it's the LAN NIC on my side that times out
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I bought today an X700 firebox, flashed latest nightly on a 4GB CF, and inserted on Firebox.
Firebox booted correctly into pfSense, followed the setup and assigned two NICs, and then continue booting until "Bootup complete" message, and beeper play pfSense ring. And nothing …. serial terminal don't respond, no welcome string, no main menu, no Control+C response, nothing ....
Only way is switching off the Firefox.
What I'm doing wrong ?
Edit: I already tried with differents nightlies, with equal results. Tried different NIC configurations, with LAN cables pluged and unplugged ... Nothing. Already tried the "hint.acpi.0.disabled=1". Nothing.
(sorry for my bad english)
Thanks!
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I bought today an X700 firebox, flashed latest nightly on a 4GB CF, and inserted on Firebox.
Firebox booted correctly into pfSense, followed the setup and assigned two NICs, and then continue booting until "Bootup complete" message, and beeper play pfSense ring. And nothing …. serial terminal don't respond, no welcome string, no main menu, no Control+C response, nothing ....
Only way is switching off the Firefox.
What I'm doing wrong ?
Edit: I already tried with differents nightlies, with equal results. Tried different NIC configurations, with LAN cables pluged and unplugged ... Nothing. Already tried the "hint.acpi.0.disabled=1". Nothing.
(sorry for my bad english)
Thanks!
I have the same issue, but even tho the console was useless the webgui was up on the LAN port.
I have since taken a break from working on the Firebox, waiting on my 512 RAM, 1.4Gz Celeron and 4GB microdrive to arrive.
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I bought today an X700 firebox, flashed latest nightly on a 4GB CF, and inserted on Firebox.
Firebox booted correctly into pfSense, followed the setup and assigned two NICs, and then continue booting until "Bootup complete" message, and beeper play pfSense ring. And nothing …. serial terminal don't respond, no welcome string, no main menu, no Control+C response, nothing ....
Only way is switching off the Firefox.
What I'm doing wrong ?
Edit: I already tried with differents nightlies, with equal results. Tried different NIC configurations, with LAN cables pluged and unplugged ... Nothing. Already tried the "hint.acpi.0.disabled=1". Nothing.
(sorry for my bad english)
Thanks!
I have the same issue, but even tho the console was useless the webgui was up on the LAN port.
I have since taken a break from working on the Firebox, waiting on my 512 RAM, 1.4Gz Celeron and 4GB microdrive to arrive.
But, it's the first run. I have no chance to assign an IP address to the LAN port. So, how can I access the webgui without an IP address ?
Edit: pfSense 1.2.3 works perfectly. So, problem is with 2.0-BETA5.
Thanks.
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Interesting. What is the date on the snapshot you were using?
