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    Alix 2D13 Success

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved 2.1.1 Snapshot Feedback and Problems - RETIRED
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    • P
      phil.davis
      last edited by 

      2.1.1-PRERELEASE (i386)
built on Fri Jan 17 15:24:41 EST 2014
FreeBSD 8.3-RELEASE-p14

You are on the latest version.

      Tricks to remember before upgrading:

      1. Go to System->Firmware, Updater Settings tab and check "Unsigned images"
      2. Make sure the system has good free memory, my upgrade died the first time with "killed: out of swap space" messages. If you have a few things on your Alix and it has been up for a while, first check the dashboard and see that there is a decent amount of memory free. Reboot first so as to start the upgrade with maximal free memory. (I think mine was 80% used, and straight after boot it had only 50% used)

      It installed all my packages automagically and ran fine. 2 OpenVPN site-to-site clients came up, Dynamic DNS registered its name, all the usual DHCP, DNS, firewall rules… seem to be fine.

      As the Greek philosopher Isosceles used to say, "There are 3 sides to every triangle."
      If I helped you, then help someone else - buy someone a gift from the INF catalog http://secure.inf.org/gifts/usd/

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      • P
        pvoigt
        last edited by

        I am glad to hear there is a  new prerelease of pfSense. After my bad WLAN experiences on my Alix 2D13 - http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,68531.0.html - I hope there might have been some changes in the WLAN code as well. Are you using a WLAN card with your Alix? Is there a kind of changelog available for this prerelease?

        Peter

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        • J
          jasonlitka
          last edited by

          Link to the list of changes is in the sticky.

          https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/2.1.1_New_Features_and_Changes

          I can break anything.

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          • P
            pvoigt
            last edited by

            @Jason:

            Link to the list of changes is in the sticky.

            https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/2.1.1_New_Features_and_Changes

            Yep, thanks for the link. I am obviously sometimes blind for the obvious  :)

            Peter

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            • P
              phil.davis
              last edited by

              My test Alix does not have a WiFi card in it, but I do have a spare card - I suppose I should put it in and test it, good to know it works on 2.1.1 before upgrading a remote production system. It is the same card as https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,68531.msg376884.html#msg376884
              In any case, there are no changes to WiFi drivers, so I don't expect that previously-not-supported cards would start working on 2.1.1.

              As the Greek philosopher Isosceles used to say, "There are 3 sides to every triangle."
              If I helped you, then help someone else - buy someone a gift from the INF catalog http://secure.inf.org/gifts/usd/

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              • P
                phil.davis
                last edited by

                I put a WiFi card in the Alix 2D13 and it works with 2.1.1. Here are the relevant system log entries identifying the card:

                Jan 19 11:28:15 	kernel: ath0: <atheros 5212=""> mem 0xe00c0000-0xe00cffff irq 9 at device 12.0 on pci0
Jan 19 11:28:15 	kernel: ath0: [ITHREAD]
Jan 19 11:28:15 	kernel: ath0: AR5212 mac 5.9 RF5112 phy 4.3
Jan 19 11:28:15 	php: rc.bootup: Cloning new wireless interface ath0_wlan0
Jan 19 11:28:15 	kernel: wlan0: changing name to 'ath0_wlan0'
Jan 19 11:28:21 	php: rc.bootup: The command '/sbin/ifconfig 'ath0_wlan0' regdomain 'row' country 'NP'' returned exit code '1', the output was 'ifconfig: SIOCS80211: Invalid argument'</atheros>

                I think that last "Invalid argument" message was there in 2.1 also - it probably does not like a regulatory domain with country "NP", we do not have regulations here in Nepal :)
                The WiFi connected fine.

                As the Greek philosopher Isosceles used to say, "There are 3 sides to every triangle."
                If I helped you, then help someone else - buy someone a gift from the INF catalog http://secure.inf.org/gifts/usd/

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                • D
                  doktornotor Banned
                  last edited by

                  3 Alix 2D13 boxes upgraded OK, no regressions…

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                  • P
                    pvoigt
                    last edited by

                    @phil.davis:

                    In any case, there are no changes to WiFi drivers, so I don't expect that previously-not-supported cards would start working on 2.1.1.

                    Thank you for your feedback. I ask for wireless changes because I just want to continue using my WLAN card that is working stable under pfSense 2.0.3 as descibed under https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,68531.0.html.

                    It is good to know that your WLAN card is working as expected. If I remember correctly, my Atheros AR5413 WLAN card has been recognized by the the kernel under pfSense 2.1. But it does not produce any logging data and no client can connect.

                    I have read in the pfSense 2.1.1 changelog:

                    Fix ALIX upgrade crash during RRD processing

                    I have observed my Alix regularly producinng errors when generated RDD under 2.1. More specific, I have never been able to produce any RDD data - even after a reflashing of my compact flash card. I am assuming that my wireless problems might be related to this. Therefore I will give the current snapshot a try.

                    Peter

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                    • D
                      doktornotor Banned
                      last edited by

                      @pvoigt:

                      It is good to know that your WLAN card is working as expected. If I remember correctly, my Atheros AR5413 WLAN card has been recognized by the the kernel under pfSense 2.1. But it does not produce any

                      I am using CM9 (Atheros AR5213A) and CM10 (AR5214) without any problems.

                      
ath0@pci0:0:12:0:       class=0x020000 card=0x1012185f chip=0x0013168c rev=0x01 hdr=0x00
    class      = network
    subclass   = ethernet


                      ath0@pci0:0:12:0:       class=0x020000 card=0x1600185f chip=0x001b168c rev=0x01 hdr=0x00
    class      = network
    subclass   = ethernet
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                      • P
                        pvoigt
                        last edited by

                        @doktornotor:

                        @pvoigt:

                        It is good to know that your WLAN card is working as expected. If I remember correctly, my Atheros AR5413 WLAN card has been recognized by the the kernel under pfSense 2.1. But it does not produce any

                        I am using CM9 (Atheros AR5213A) and CM10 (AR5214) without any problems.

                        
ath0@pci0:0:12:0:       class=0x020000 card=0x1012185f chip=0x0013168c rev=0x01 hdr=0x00
    class      = network
    subclass   = ethernet


                        ath0@pci0:0:12:0:       class=0x020000 card=0x1600185f chip=0x001b168c rev=0x01 hdr=0x00
    class      = network
    subclass   = ethernet

                        Yep, good to know, thanks. I have recently bought this Wistron CM9 http://varia-store.com/Hardware/MiniPCI-cards/Wistron-CM9-miniPCI-UF-L-IPEX-Connector-2-4-5GHz::599.html now on a recent advice of phil.davis. Could change to this card if my AR5413 still fails with 2.1.1.

                        If only I would have some more time left for testing pfSense. I will report in this forum  :)

                        Peter

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                        • P
                          phil.davis
                          last edited by 

                          2.1.1-PRERELEASE (i386)
built on Thu Feb 6 02:09:26 EST 2014
FreeBSD 8.3-RELEASE-p14

                          All good - 4 packages reinstalled automatically, so the issues with the package script code changes (adding escapeshellarg() calls) is now all good. OpenVPN server, 2 clients, Dynamic DNS name and policy-routing firewall rules all fail over and back between 2 WANs.

                          As the Greek philosopher Isosceles used to say, "There are 3 sides to every triangle."
                          If I helped you, then help someone else - buy someone a gift from the INF catalog http://secure.inf.org/gifts/usd/

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                          • P
                            phil.davis
                            last edited by

                            Just a note about memory issues on the 256MB Alix 2D13. It is the same in 2.1 and 2.1.1. This system has 1 LAN, 2 ordinary WANs (no VLAN or anything fancy), 1 OpenVPN "Road Warrior" server and 2 OpenVPN clients connecting out to 2 main offices. When a WAN fails, all the failover actions see the memory use really spike for 30 seconds - like in the screen shot. And sometimes memory runs out - like this:

                            Feb  6 22:30:38 home-rt-01 kernel: pid 25946 (php), uid 0, was killed: out of swap space
Feb  6 22:30:43 home-rt-01 kernel: pid 36203 (php), uid 0, was killed: out of swap space
Feb  6 22:30:46 home-rt-01 kernel: pid 61264 (php), uid 0, was killed: out of swap space
Feb  6 22:55:11 home-rt-01 kernel: pid 86238 (php), uid 0, was killed: out of swap space
Feb  6 23:05:01 home-rt-01 kernel: pid 81244 (php), uid 0, was killed: out of swap space

                            Line 1, 2 and 3 happened during the initial post-install bootup and package reinstall (but the package reinstall seems fine, so it doesn't seem to have been a critical process that got killed).
                            Line 4 was during my first failover test.
                            Line 5 was during a failback to 2-WANs-working state.

                            I think this is being addressed in 2.2 with a smaller footprint PHP and maybe some more serialization of the things that happen at failover… Looking forward to having 2.2 snapshots available to try.

                            Alix-Failover-Memory.png
                            Alix-Failover-Memory.png_thumb

                            As the Greek philosopher Isosceles used to say, "There are 3 sides to every triangle."
                            If I helped you, then help someone else - buy someone a gift from the INF catalog http://secure.inf.org/gifts/usd/

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                            • P
                              phil.davis
                              last edited by 

                              2.1.1-PRERELEASE (i386)
built on Mon Feb 10 07:07:46 EST 2014
FreeBSD 8.3-RELEASE-p14

                              Running fine with failover… working as per previous posts, and new bits also working - Traffic Graph displays traffic for "Remote" and "All" filter selections, when adding/editing rules "LAN net", "WAN net" etc are shown in the standardized form.

                              As the Greek philosopher Isosceles used to say, "There are 3 sides to every triangle."
                              If I helped you, then help someone else - buy someone a gift from the INF catalog http://secure.inf.org/gifts/usd/

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