WAN fail to renew

ung · Apr 3, 2013, 11:56 PM

Last night, my isp was down and this morning, I had to manual click on renew in the pfsense web interface. I have searched on internet and I read in a blog "However, when this does occur the DHCP lease on the WAN interface of my Pfsense box doesn’t get auto-renewed unless I actually log into the web interface and release and renew it."

Do I really need to make a cron job to make it renew when my isp fail ? I will not always have a physical access to click on renew.
From what I understand in the log, it tried 1 time to renew then I get the error " php: : The command '/sbin/dhclient -c /var/etc/dhclient_wan.conf vr1 > /tmp/vr1_output > /tmp/vr1_error_output' returned exit code '15', the output was '' "

Here the log. Thank you.

Apr 3 03:51:12 check_reload_status: Linkup starting vr1
Apr 3 03:51:12 kernel: vr1: link state changed to DOWN
Apr 3 03:51:16 php: : DEVD Ethernet detached event for wan
Apr 3 03:51:17 dhclient[5490]: connection closed
Apr 3 03:51:17 dhclient[5490]: connection closed
Apr 3 03:51:17 dhclient[5490]: exiting.
Apr 3 03:51:17 dhclient[5490]: exiting.
Apr 3 03:51:22 apinger: ALARM: WAN(MY_WAN_GATEWAY) *** down ***
Apr 3 03:51:27 check_reload_status: Linkup starting vr1
Apr 3 03:51:27 kernel: vr1: link state changed to UP
Apr 3 03:51:30 check_reload_status: Linkup starting vr1
Apr 3 03:51:30 kernel: vr1: link state changed to DOWN
Apr 3 03:51:32 php: : DEVD Ethernet attached event for wan
Apr 3 03:51:32 php: : HOTPLUG: Configuring interface wan
Apr 3 03:51:32 check_reload_status: Reloading filter
Apr 3 03:51:33 kernel: vr1: link state changed to UP
Apr 3 03:51:33 dhclient: PREINIT
Apr 3 03:51:33 dhclient[11611]: DHCPREQUEST on vr1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
Apr 3 03:51:33 dhclient[11611]: DHCPREQUEST on vr1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
Apr 3 03:51:34 dhclient[11611]: DHCPREQUEST on vr1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
Apr 3 03:51:35 php: : DEVD Ethernet detached event for wan
Apr 3 03:51:35 dhclient[12280]: connection closed
Apr 3 03:51:35 dhclient[12280]: connection closed
Apr 3 03:51:35 dhclient[12280]: exiting.
Apr 3 03:51:35 dhclient[12280]: exiting.
Apr 3 03:51:35 php: : The command '/sbin/dhclient -c /var/etc/dhclient_wan.conf vr1 > /tmp/vr1_output > /tmp/vr1_error_output' returned exit code '15', the output was ''

bblacey · Apr 5, 2013, 2:09 PM

Your ISP must be Comcast ;) I had the exact same problem twice in the past week - requires manual intervention to renew WAN DHCP address via GUI. Comcast might have changed something on their end during their recent nationwide speed increase that pfSense doesn't handle properly.


Apr  5 02:30:42 192.168.0.200 check_reload_status: Linkup starting vr2
Apr  5 02:30:42 192.168.0.200 : vr2: link state changed to DOWN
Apr  5 02:30:44 192.168.0.200 apinger: ALARM: GW_WAN(24.7.32.1)  *** down ***
Apr  5 02:30:46 192.168.0.200 php: : DEVD Ethernet detached event for wan
Apr  5 02:30:47 192.168.0.200 dhclient[28605]: connection closed
Apr  5 02:30:47: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Apr  5 02:30:47 192.168.0.200 dhclient[28605]: exiting.
Apr  5 02:30:54: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Apr  5 02:30:54 192.168.0.200 check_reload_status: Reloading filter
Apr  5 02:31:05 192.168.0.200 check_reload_status: Linkup starting vr2
Apr  5 02:31:05 192.168.0.200 : vr2: link state changed to UP
Apr  5 02:31:08 192.168.0.200 check_reload_status: Linkup starting vr2
Apr  5 02:31:08 192.168.0.200 : vr2: link state changed to DOWN
Apr  5 02:31:10 192.168.0.200 php: : DEVD Ethernet attached event for wan
Apr  5 02:31:10 192.168.0.200 php: : HOTPLUG: Configuring interface wan
Apr  5 02:31:11 192.168.0.200 dhclient: PREINIT
Apr  5 02:31:11 192.168.0.200 : vr2: link state changed to UP
Apr  5 02:31:13 192.168.0.200 php: : DEVD Ethernet detached event for wan
Apr  5 02:31:13 192.168.0.200 dhclient[42423]: connection closed
Apr  5 02:31:13: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Apr  5 02:31:13 192.168.0.200 dhclient[42423]: exiting.
Apr  5 02:31:13: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Apr  5 02:31:13 192.168.0.200 php: : The command '/sbin/dhclient -c /var/etc/dhclient_wan.conf vr2 > /tmp/vr2_output > /tmp/vr2_error_output' returned exit code '15', the output was ''
Apr  5 02:31:40 192.168.0.200 miniupnpd[53863]: ioctl(s, SIOCGIFADDR, ...): Can't assign requested address
Apr  5 02:31:40: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Apr  5 02:31:40 192.168.0.200 miniupnpd[53863]: Failed to get IP for interface vr2
Apr  5 02:31:48: --- last message repeated 1 time ---

Definitely need a solution. I noticed that others have posted WAN DHCP IP recovery scripts, perhaps that is a solution.

![Screen Shot 2013-04-05 at 7.16.34 AM.png](/public/imported_attachments/1/Screen Shot 2013-04-05 at 7.16.34 AM.png)
![Screen Shot 2013-04-05 at 7.16.34 AM.png_thumb](/public/imported_attachments/1/Screen Shot 2013-04-05 at 7.16.34 AM.png_thumb)

tim.mcmanus · Apr 9, 2013, 12:43 AM

Change the gateway monitoring IP address to something remote, not the cable company's infrastructure. I suggested 8.8.8.8 (Google DNS) to folks experiencing a similar issue (as well as myself), and that seemed to fix things.

bblacey · Apr 10, 2013, 10:44 PM

Interesting, I tried this but used Comcast's name server (75.75.75.75) because they offered a lower ping time however check_reload_status.php kept hammering my Alix CPU for hours; tried rebooting but that didn't fix it. I reverted back to using the dynamic gateway and check_reload_status.php went back to normal. Strange but clearly not a solution in my case.