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    Pfsense hangs every two weeks!

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Hardware
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    • jimpJ Offline
      jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
      last edited by

      It was very idle in that output compared to the last one.

      The fact that it's all storage controllers on that IRQ means it would almost have to be a disk or optical drive on there causing it.

      Are there any BIOS options for IRQs or PnP or similar?

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      • W Offline
        wallabybob
        last edited by

        @fneto:

        I'm having a problem with an installation of PfSense that every 2 weeks stop working.

        What build of pfSense?

        Please provide more details of what you mean by "stop working"? Shuts down by itself? Stops forwarding packets? Stops responding to console keypresses?

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        • F Offline
          fneto
          last edited by

          First thanks by your help and support!

          Below is the details that I think is relevant to help in find the solution of this problem ok!

          The hardware:
          Dell Optiplex 390
          Core i3-2120
          4Gb de RAM
          1 DVD-RW
          1 SATA 500GB Hard drive
          2 x Realtek 8111E Gigabit (1 onboard IRQ 16 and 1 offboard pci-express on IRQ 17)
          I have only one VGA monitor and the dell keyboard plugged in this machine.

          As I told you this is a production machine and is very difficult to me to reboot and check all the BIOS options, but I really don't remenber of IRQ or PNP options in this machine, I only remenber that when I was installing I could install it only in a specific SATA mode, but I don't remenber now what mode is it ok!

          What I want tell when I say the it stop work is the every 15 days exactly the machine stop forwarding packets on the network. One time that nobody is there to reboot the server it start to work again after 10 minutes, the other times that it happens we run until the machine and restart it using the console and choosing "Reboot Server"

          So the problem didn't freeze the consolebut it stops the packet forwarding.

          If you need more information fell free to ask me!

          thanks!

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          • W Offline
            wallabybob
            last edited by

            What build of pfSense are you using? (See the version string on the home page for the box.)

            @fneto:

            What I want tell when I say the it stop work is the every 15 days exactly the machine stop forwarding packets on the network. One time that nobody is there to reboot the server it start to work again after 10 minutes, the other times that it happens we run until the machine and restart it using the console and choosing "Reboot Server"

            Before restarting the computer it would be good to get the output of the shell command```
            netstat -m

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            • F Offline
              fneto
              last edited by

              Sorry by the delay, the build that I'm using in this server is: 2.0.2-RELEASE (i386) built on Fri Dec 7 16:30:38 EST 2012

              below is the output of the command that you suggest me, but now the server is running for 4 days only!

              The only time that the server come back working without a reboot I analysed the RRD graphs and saw a little network outage as you can see in the image attached to this post. The blue circle show the hour that the server has failed!

              $ netstat -m
              518/2557/3075 mbufs in use (current/cache/total)
              4/1408/1412/131072 mbuf clusters in use (current/cache/total/max)
              3/893 mbuf+clusters out of packet secondary zone in use (current/cache)
              1/215/216/12800 4k (page size) jumbo clusters in use (current/cache/total/max)
              512/593/1105/6400 9k jumbo clusters in use (current/cache/total/max)
              0/0/0/3200 16k jumbo clusters in use (current/cache/total/max)
              4749K/9652K/14401K bytes allocated to network (current/cache/total)
              0/0/0 requests for mbufs denied (mbufs/clusters/mbuf+clusters)
              0/0/0 requests for jumbo clusters denied (4k/9k/16k)
              0/10/6656 sfbufs in use (current/peak/max)
              0 requests for sfbufs denied
              0 requests for sfbufs delayed
              0 requests for I/O initiated by sendfile
              0 calls to protocol drain routines

              graph.png
              graph.png_thumb

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              • W Offline
                wallabybob
                last edited by

                A single report from netstat is not sufficient to establish a trend. A single snapshot at the time of the "hang" would be useful to see if mbuf usage contributes to the hang.

                The System -> Processor RRD graph shows number of processes. Is this graph flat or does it increase up to the time of the hangs then drop significantly on the reboots? (PERHAPS you are running low on free memory because something is starting new processes which aren't terminated.)

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                • K Offline
                  kejianshi
                  last edited by

                  Have you tried 2.03 or is the install time too much down time?

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                  • F Offline
                    fneto
                    last edited by

                    Unfortunately I don't have the processor and memory graph from that day, but I attached the processor and memory graphs from these last days, maybe it can help.

                    The server was turned off because of a big maintence of the eletric power of the building, and the memory usage for me is strange but I'd like to hear your opinion!

                    About the upgrade to the latest 2.03 version, we don't do it until now because I work about 120 miles from the main build and these PC is working with a compiled and manual installation of the Realtek 8111E driver. We are afraid that after the update the system loose the network drivers (stored in /boot and called in loader.conf) and we can't turn the server again.

                    So we need to schedule a visit there to make the upgrade and if is the case manually install the network drivers again!

                    memory1.png
                    memory1.png_thumb
                    memory2.png
                    memory2.png_thumb
                    memory3.png
                    memory3.png_thumb
                    processor.png
                    processor.png_thumb

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                    • K Offline
                      kejianshi
                      last edited by

                      Have them reboot every 3 days in the dead of night then if you don't get it worked out.

                      However, it looks like something one of mine was doing.  MBUFS and CPU usage climbing and climbing.

                      I reinstalled made the changes recommended for the MBUFS and for the specific NICs I have and the issue never returned.

                      But that doesn't sound like an option for you, so I'd recommend reboots as a chron job.

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                      • K Offline
                        kejianshi
                        last edited by

                        Are you running squid?

                        Never mind.  I see it.

                        What are your memory cache settings?

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                        • F Offline
                          fneto
                          last edited by

                          Hi kejianshi we are running squid and squidguard on this server. What MBUFS paramenter should I verify/change on the server?

                          Actually I have only it on system tunables: kern.ipc.nmbclusters="131072"

                          Thanks!

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                          • K Offline
                            kejianshi
                            last edited by

                            Squid cache settings please?

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                            • F Offline
                              fneto
                              last edited by

                              The squid settings is attached ok!

                              squid1.png
                              squid1.png_thumb
                              squid2.png
                              squid2.png_thumb

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                              • F Offline
                                fneto
                                last edited by

                                The squid settings is attached ok!

                                squid3.png
                                squid3.png_thumb
                                squid4.png
                                squid4.png_thumb

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                                • K Offline
                                  kejianshi
                                  last edited by

                                  Squid doesn't seem ok to me.  To me it seems there is far to much HD cache given his ram.

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                                  • K Offline
                                    kejianshi
                                    last edited by

                                    How much Ram does this box have?

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                                    • K Offline
                                      kejianshi
                                      last edited by

                                      I'll put it this way.  I have several times your RAM with basically the same size cache stipulated and I'll hit 35% in a couple days of running.  40% sometimes.  Mine used to crash daily til I reduced my disk cache and mem cache.  Indexing 40GB of drive can take upwards of 2GB ram or more if the cache is full of lots little things.

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                                      • F Offline
                                        fneto
                                        last edited by

                                        This server has 4Gb of RAM, but I have another server with similar hardware (Processor speed, disk size and ram sise) in another installation with the same squid settings and it is working without a reboot for almost an year. We have rebooted it only to upgrade PfSense!

                                        So I really don't believe that squid is the cause of the problem!

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                                        • K Offline
                                          kejianshi
                                          last edited by

                                          Then it must not be.  Its a mystery.  Hope you get it worked out.

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                                          • F Offline
                                            fneto
                                            last edited by

                                            Tomorrow we schedule the updating to PfSense 2.0.3. After the update we Will start again the monitoring and verify it the problem get solved or not ok!

                                            Soon I have some news I post here!

                                            Thanks!

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