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    A few basic questions about features from a NOOB -

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • ?
      Guest
      last edited by

      Same game today:

      21:00 firewall block rule
      21:00 eMail report for "pfctl -ss | grep 10.XXX.YYY.ZZZ" COMPLETELY EMPTY
      21:01 Cron job "01  21  *  *  *  root  pfctl -F state"

      so far so good, but

      21:14 I check states for the blocked IP via Diagnostics -> States and find: 32 states alive AS WELL AS by press "SEND NOW" for the eMail Report job for 21:00, same result dozends of states alive…

      I erased the Cron job as well as the eMail report jobs yesterday and made them new. Makes no difference, as you see. Don't know what to do next...

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      • ?
        Guest
        last edited by

        Question:

        Found this in my logs:

        php: rc.start_packages: The command '/usr/local/etc/rc.d/cron.sh stop' returned exit code '1', the output was ''

        Might this result in impaired Cron functionality?

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        • stephenw10S
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by

          That's not necessarily a problem. Cron is stopped and restarted along with all packages, usually in response to an IP change on one of your interfaces though could be a config change etc. As long as it starts again correctly it shouldn't be causing an issue though you could end up with multiple instances if it wasn't stopped correctly for example.

          Steve

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          • ?
            Guest
            last edited by

            Status -> Services shows Cron as up and running

            Diagnostics -> Sockets shows only one instance for Cron

            Re-installed Cron package, but I still don't see proper functioning, as apparently the states are not killed (pfctl -F state) and the output from eMail reports (performed via Cron jobs) doesn't provide accurate information on the states present.

            No idea why…

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            • ?
              Guest
              last edited by

              ..got an idea why. Question:

              In wich directory are the commands executed in the Diagnosics -> Execute Command window of the GUI?

              Is it /usr/bin/ ?

              That could make my Cron job for killing states work, if I find the right directory to execute the Cron job in…

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              • BBcan177B
                BBcan177 Moderator
                last edited by

                To display the location of your current working directory, enter the command

                pwd

                The output should look similar to:

                /home/user

                "Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it."

                Website: http://pfBlockerNG.com
                Twitter: @BBcan177  #pfBlockerNG
                Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/pfBlockerNG/new/

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                • ?
                  Guest
                  last edited by

                  Hey, many thanx!

                  Apparently it's

                  /usr/local/www

                  … I'll try that this evening... :-D

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                  • stephenw10S
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by

                    Make sure you use the absolute path to all the commands in your cron job. That way it doesn't matter where it's executed from.
                    Edit: Or, importantly, that the process executing the cron job may not have the same default paths as a shell prompt.

                    Steve

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                    • ?
                      Guest
                      last edited by

                      Definitely! But at first you have to know the correct absolute path!  ;)

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                      • BBcan177B
                        BBcan177 Moderator
                        last edited by

                        Stephen is correct always use absolute paths in the scripts.

                        To find the location of a file, you can run the following command.

                        find / -name pfctl

                        "Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it."

                        Website: http://pfBlockerNG.com
                        Twitter: @BBcan177  #pfBlockerNG
                        Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/pfBlockerNG/new/

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                        • ?
                          Guest
                          last edited by

                          OK, then it should be /sbin/pfctl … Try this today

                          What I really don't understand is the problem with the eMail Reports. When I press "Send Now" at the setup page for the respective job everything is fine and the eMail contains the information on the states for the requested IP. But when the Cron runs the respective php script the eMail contains no states at all... tried the /sbin/ path for the eMail Report command, too, let's see if it works... :-D

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                          • BBcan177B
                            BBcan177 Moderator
                            last edited by

                            Can you post the commandline?

                            "Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it."

                            Website: http://pfBlockerNG.com
                            Twitter: @BBcan177  #pfBlockerNG
                            Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/pfBlockerNG/new/

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                            • ?
                              Guest
                              last edited by

                              @chemlud:

                              ….
                              21:00 eMail report for "pfctl -ss | grep 10.XXX.YYY.ZZZ" COMPLETELY EMPTY
                              ...

                              ;)

                              Edit: Crazy, I tried the command (without /sbin/) on another box for a different IP (without a block rule at the firewall tab) and there the Cron-sent eMail Report is correct, including the states info for the requested IP. Dunno what's wrong here…

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                              • BBcan177B
                                BBcan177 Moderator
                                last edited by

                                I set that command to run and it emailed thru without issue. I did include " " around the IP address thou.

                                /sbin/pfctl -ss | grep "10.XXX.YYY.ZZZ"

                                "Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it."

                                Website: http://pfBlockerNG.com
                                Twitter: @BBcan177  #pfBlockerNG
                                Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/pfBlockerNG/new/

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                                • ?
                                  Guest
                                  last edited by

                                  See my edit above, worked for me without the "" for the IP, but not on the box I need the command to work.  Unfortunately the eMail Report page of the GUI allows no minutes to be entered, so only every full hour the job can be tested…

                                  To be continued... :-)

                                  Edith:

                                  Cron job with

                                  /sbin/pfctl -k 10.XXX.YYY.ZZZ

                                  1 minute after the block rule WORKED! PAAARTY!  8)

                                  And the eMail Report for
                                  pfctl -ss | grep 10.XXX.YYY.ZZZ

                                  gave no output, while

                                  /sbin/pfctl -ss | grep 10.XXX.YYY.ZZZ

                                  correctly reported the states!

                                  Problems solved, Block rule works

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                                  • stephenw10S
                                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                    last edited by

                                    Persistence pays off!  ;)

                                    Steve

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                                    • ?
                                      Guest
                                      last edited by

                                      Yeaaaah, but sometimes you simply need the right path, to look for the solution…  ;D ;)

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                                      • N
                                        n3by
                                        last edited by

                                        hello,

                                        Let me thank you for using your "pfctl -k ip & cron" solution to be able to use schedule on pfsense 2.1.5 ( because upgrade to 2.2 failed for me… some packages I use in 2.1.5 did not worked any more on 2.2 ) and now I need help if possible:

                                        question is: how to clear only connections that go ( or come ) to specific destination port, I tried to find on internet some help but no luck.

                                        The problem is that children are playing minecraft all day long if possible and I want to clear only the connection with port 25565 used to go to minecraft servers and not all connection established at the expiration time, in case something important is going on background and of course as you know at scheduling expiration rule is not kill established connection on that port.

                                        Anybody who can help ?

                                        thank you

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