PPPoE reconenction fix - mpd fix ($100)

doktornotor

It might not be a proper solution, however, lets be realistic here. This probably will not ever get solved. Assumes a whole LOT more detail on the HW involved plus - I'm afraid - involves getting developers to get their hands on that very HW/ISP connectivity for testing/debugging. So, however harsh that may sound - certainly not a question of a $100 bounty.

xbipin

the reason this thread is still active because the developer has the redmine ticket still open as well as ermal last time said he would come back to this issue so was just checking as that post was quiet some time ago.

if its never going to be fixed then they might simply close this bounty as well as the redmine ticket once and for all

jimp

It's worth leaving open yet, there is a chance it may work again once we get 2.2 snapshots going on FreeBSD 10.x, newer driver set an all.

xbipin

any eta on when thats going to happen?

the weird thing about this issue is that even the most crappiest routers in the market dont suffer this issue so it all cant be blamed on the DSLAM, if it was that then most other routers would also suffer that

jimp

No ETA on usable 10.x images. Could be months.

And the problem is a combination of factors - Specific Modem/ISP/DSLAM + Specific driver

xbipin

to what i noticed is its just VIA drivers because it works fine with realtek, the isp modem i tested were 3 different types, zhone, huawei and cisco and it was same on all three, via chipset causing it, dslam which i tested was unisphere and the other was some unknown brand so the dslam, modem changed in all situations but alix was common so it suffered, i have 2 other pfsense full installs on the same isp using realtek and they work fine and always connect everytime

maverick_slo

Wow, I missed this thread :)
Sorry for late reply…
Yes, vr0 had problems, DSLAM is UNISPHERE...
Dlink, realtek, intel and broadcom nics all worked great...
VIA on-motherboard NICs failed to connect...

I tested all possibilities, from power outages to just cable disconnect and vr0 failed every time and others worked just fine EVERY time...

Regards,
Greg

xbipin

cant we take the vr drivers from FreeBSD 10.x and test it on current pfsense to see if it will actually fix this issue or no rather than wait for months for this to resolve coz its already over 2 years now

maverick_slo

Well, I replaced my nics with Intel ones and that was it….
I needed stable system and Intel gave me that...

wallabybob

@xbipin:

cant we take the vr drivers from FreeBSD 10.x and test it on current pfsense to see if it will actually fix this issue

Possible but might not be trivial: FreeBSD internal interfaces and data structures might have changed significantly requiring considerable work to backport those changes as well or rewrite the vr changes from FreeBSD 8.3 to 10.x to work in FreeBSD 8.3 context.

Best case (assuming familiarity with FreeBSD kernel build procedures): maybe an hour or two to import the 10.x source into a 8.3 build system, recompile and run some basic tests.

Worst case: maybe up to a few months to figure out what changes in FreeBSD internals to backport and do them.

xbipin

how about just check the drivers code and see the changes and cherry pick them which possibly might solve this network port stuck in a limbo state

doktornotor

Given how widespread the Alix install base is - pleeease, no. No backporting of vr drivers from FreeBSD 10.x to 2.1. While I can understand that it sucks for affected people

this can apparently be extremely easily worked around by putting a switch between the pfsense box and the modem,
this clearly affects a tiny percentage of users with specific NIC/modem/DSLAM combo on PPPoE specifically.

=> certainly not worth the risk of breaking everyone else

xbipin

lets just leave it to the developers to decide, what they can do is provide the drivers separately to install so every1 dont need to use this

vtas

I have this issue and it occurs more frequently since updating to 2.0.3-RELEASE (i386).

I doubt a switch is going to make any difference in my case because I am running pfsense in a VM that effectively has an always up (virtual) switch, connected to a physical Intel E1000 card port patched straight into a routerboard (all gear on battery) so I am not getting disconnected because of a layer 1 issue.

I'm a bit lost at how to proceed. Running a script to tear down the interface and bring it back up if it's up and experiencing no throughput (but it is present) seems like the best bet

xbipin

thats the only way to get back the link going, if u read few posts back, some1 did design a script for this and it actually worked, atleast to some extend

y dont everyone add some amount to this so some1 can develop a fix for this, probably a newer driver might solve it

vtas

@xbipin:

thats the only way to get back the link going, if u read few posts back, some1 did design a script for this and it actually worked, atleast to some extend

y dont everyone add some amount to this so some1 can develop a fix for this, probably a newer driver might solve it

Thanks for the tip about the script. How can the bounty be added to apart from just making a note in my post?

xbipin

just make a post with ur amount, few of the developers r following this thread so they will know of it

ronjns

I had similar issue with FreeBSD 9.1 RELEASE and pppoe('8'). The fix was to 'enable echo' in ppp.conf.

echo
Default: Disabled. When this option is enabled, ppp will send
LCP ECHO requests to the peer at the frequency defined by
echoperiod''. Note, LQR requests will supersede LCP ECHO requests if enabled and negotiated. See set lqrperiod'' below
for details.

Prior to ppp version 3.4.2, echo'' was considered enabled if lqr was enabled and negotiated, otherwise it was considered dis- abled. For the same behaviour, it is now necessary to enable
lqr echo'' rather than just ``enable lqr''.

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ppp&sektion=8

senser

I am wondering if this thread is about fixing the issue that I have (excuse my ignorance, but this thread is quite long):

When I unplug the cable to my DSL modem (Alix, pfSense 2.1) and plug it back in, I cannot establish the pppoe connection again (a reboot will fix it, haven't tried anything else, sorry). If I disable the pppoe connection in pfSense prior to reconnecting the cable, I can establish the pppoe connection again.

xbipin

any1 tried enabling echo if it solves it or no?

PPPoE reconenction fix - mpd fix ($100)

We use the mighty pf, we cannot be fooled.