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    NEW to pfSense (2.0) impressions, some problems

    General pfSense Questions
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    • R
      redsquare
      last edited by

      Hi Everyone!

      Installed, 2.0 final on Supermicro D510, 4GB, Intel SSD. pfSense seems awesome!

      Only package is Snort so far.

      PROBLEMs

      #1 This stuff in sys log
      'snort[28496]: Warning: flowbits key 'http.chm' is set but not ever checked.'

      #2 Snort getting killed due to 'out of swap'
      RAM usage is 51% under load, it must spike when I'm not around? Maybe #1 is related??
      I didn't make a swap partition since I don't want the SSD to die.

      #3 After i press 'clear system log', the UI becomes unresponsive, restarting browser doesn't help

      I am considering using PF for production, i really hope i can figure out these problems. Please help me.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Cry HavokC
        Cry Havok
        last edited by

        #1 - can be safely ignored

        #2 - you need more RAM, or to tune your Snort install

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • R
          redsquare
          last edited by

          There are 2GBs free at the highest level of usage. Very strange for it to magically eat up 2GB more.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • marcellocM
            marcelloc
            last edited by

            @redsquare:

            #3 After i press 'clear system log', the UI becomes unresponsive, restarting browser doesn't help

            Wait few minutes, if it do not get back, open console and Restart webConfigurator (option 11).
            Do no use Internet Explorer, as I saw in other posts ITS UNSUPPORTED!!!

            @redsquare:

            I am considering using PF for production, i really hope i can figure out these problems. Please help me.

            Be sure you will do. pfSense 2.0 is awesome!  ;)

            Treinamentos de Elite: http://sys-squad.com

            Help a community developer! ;D

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • R
              redsquare
              last edited by

              Installed the 64bit version, #1) #2) seem solved.
              #3 Hasn't come back,
              however i did try "11) Restart webConfigurator" before, it did not help. Manually killing a few php processes did.

              Thanks for your responses guys, I'm loving pfSense.

              Is it normal for Snort to be at 99% CPU usage on an Atom D510, with 500kb/s (under 500 connections) worth of BitTorrent traffic?

              BTW I am using rules outlined here:
              http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/security/security-howto/31451-build-your-own-utm-with-pfsense-part-2?showall=&start=2

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Cry HavokC
                Cry Havok
                last edited by

                For snort, that depends on the rules and configuration. The rule sets chosen in that article are quite long. They make a good starting point, but you should be looking at what you actually need/want and using only those. As you're running BitTorrent, the P2P rules are probably a very good candidate for removal.

                Snort has options that allow you to identify which rules are causing the highest load, that may help you reduce them. In all honesty though you'll probably need to cull the rules quite a bit before that gets you any real benefit. I'd start by dropping all the NetBIOS and ICMP WAN rules, along with the DoS and DDoS rules. Then I'd suggest you drop the "scan" rules and if you've got current AV on all your boxes drop "trojan", "worm", "malware", "virus" and "botnet", amongst others.

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                • R
                  redsquare
                  last edited by

                  Stats above are with BT Disabled.
                  I am testing pf at home in consideration/preparation for production use, trying to choose the rules accordingly.

                  How does one contribute to the project? I really hope the internals are solid because
                  there are numerous UI bugs i've seen, i.e.:

                  #4
                  clicking on pfSense logo from the 'Snort' tab, generates a '404' by trying to go here
                  'https://192.168.1.1/snort/index.php'

                  #5
                  snort > alerts > 'clear'
                  doesn't clear anything and results in a blank page, multiple browsers confirm.

                  #6 is 'Snort Whitelist doens't seem to work' at all, first reported ages ago, which is a big problem,
                  imagine getting locked out of your production servers because of this
                  http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,23647.0.html

                  I add a single external IP to the whitelist, click save everywhere i see the save button in the snort section,
                  reload snort, interface, restart pfsense, and that external IP still gets blocked.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • D
                    dhatz
                    last edited by

                    You can report issues via the pfsense bugtracker at http://redmine.pfsense.org/
                    and code patches via https://github.com/bsdperimeter

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