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    Alix 2D13 Success

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved 2.1.1 Snapshot Feedback and Problems - RETIRED
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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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