WAN dropped connection on 2.1
-
Unfortunately I didn't
Since I run pfsense in a VM I did the following:
1. I installed an old intel 100 pro nic into the host machine.
2. Using Virtualbox I briged it with a virtual adapter (intel pro 1000).
3. Hooked up the modem to this nic.
4. In order to make sure the nic is exclusively used only by the VM I removed any ip addresses that might have been assigned to it.No Internet disconnects since
-
Steve,
I have been messing with 2.2 alpha builds for a while now, and they are just too unstable for me to be able to know if the USB drivers are better. (By unstable I mean that they throw exceptions and drop into the db when reloading the interfaces after a reboot, or a reconfiguration of the network architecture.) Perhaps as 2.2 matures, I can do some system tests that can add information about this problem with respect to 2.2.
As for 2.1.3, I have swapped the wan and opt1 and done a few other experiments. None have changed the fundamental problem with the ue usb drivers reporting a HOTPLUG event within a short time (5 minutes to 2 days). The only new symptom is that prior to dropping out the gateway monitor is reporting 66% packet loss for a while (at least a few minutes), but there is nothing about this in the logs. I can't really say if it is new or I just didn't notice it before.
Matrix200,
Did your code change:
I simply commented out interface_bring_down function from the the /etc/rc.linkup.
work? I haven't tried that yet.
-ram
-
That's funny, I was about to come here and write my experience with 2.2 over the last 5-6 days.
I did the same as you and tried with one of the latest 2.2 nightly images and it has been pretty much perfect for me since. I haven't had any drop outs for the USB nic (it's been about 4-5 days now) and pfSense itself has been running fine.
I probably have a much simpler setup than you but for me, it's running exactly how I need it to. Snort is also running as it should.
-
nug,
Thanks for the note. What you describe is very encouraging. Based on it, I built a system on 2.01 and then upgraded it to today's 2.2 alpha. I will get it configured for my network and then insert it into my network architecture and see how it works.
-ram
-
trussent, no it didn't help.
The connection would still die and I still had to reconnect on each usb device disappearing event. -
The last week or so would have been a particularly bad time to start playing with 2.2 snapshots, some large bugs crept in that prevented some major components running like the webgui! It had been relatively stable for sometime before that. It's fixed now though, I have a couple of test boxes here running fine. None using USB NICs though. ;)
Steve
-
Matrix200,
Thanks for the info, I will work on getting 2.2 working instead of messing with the code.
Steve,
Yes, I agree that the recent 2.2 builds have been hard to use. However, the build from yesterday seems to have installed correctly onto an eeePC 900HA and the pfsense web-configuration tool is working. Also encouraging is that the new build recognizes two newer model d-link brand USB NICs that were not recognized by 2.1.x; so, some serious progress has been made in this version with respect to the USB NIC ue drivers.
I am hosting a server right now with my prior architecture, and will wait to substitute the newly built box until it is not being used, or the current 2.1.3 build drops the connections. I expect to be able to do the swap and provide comments about the change sometime during the next 24 hours.
-ram
-
I must have been lucky with the nightly that I grabbed because I haven't had any issues and it hasn't dropped the connection once.
FYI - I'm on 2.2-ALPHA built on Fri June 06
-
Ok, I have reloaded a 2.2alpha snapshot (June 9) on an eeepc901ha and put it into place. The new dlink usb nics are not able to obtain dhcp leases, although they are recognized as devices. The ancient usb nics I have been using for years are recognized and also able to attach to the networks and obtain dhcp leases. Everything has been working for about 10 minutes without packet drops or ip drops. I will leave this configuration in place for a few days to see if it is stable. There are a number of reasons that this cannot be my final stable configuration, but it is ok to test in this mode for the next few days.
Thanks to everyone who has been working with me on this thread. More to follow.
-ram
-
The usb nics are working fine, but there seems to be a problem with port forwarding in the June 9 build. Updating to June 12 to see if it abates.
-ram
-
After a 72 hour test, the 2.2 usb drivers are not more reliable or different in performance than the 2.1.3 drivers (recognizing, but not utilizing, newer usb nics is nice but does not contribute to performance). Moreover, 2.2 is incompatible with port-forwarding for teamspeak, and a bunch of other servers, that worked in versions up to and including 2.1.3.
I am now just fed up and am unwilling to keep wasting my time messing pfsense, which is regressing in functionality with every revision. For now, I am installing 2.0.1, which has worked on other systems of mine with similar hardware, for a long time, and trying to forget these last few weeks.
This is so frustrating for me, because I have been using pfsense for several years, and it has been really good. But every single build after 2.0.1 is unusable for me. Not, limited, not flaky, not buggy, but unusable, because of the inability to maintain continuous server functionality, either because of firewall or driver failures.
Thanks to all the folks who have suggested solutions for my issues and to the development team, who is no doubt trying hard to make the software better. I will return to this thread in a few months, because by then I expect that my innate but seemingly irrational hope for a better future will have overcome my current despair for this project.
-ram
-
:( Sad to hear.
Yes the current 2.2 snapshots have issues but that's the nature of development snapshots. Try a Beta snapshots when they reach that stage.Steve
-
All,
Hope springs eternal. My current architecture is slightly different than it was in prior posts as I am using only one internet connection (DSL as WAN) rather than pulling two in to a group. I will get the fail over service into place if this test works with my USB NICs.
I saw that there was a new release and have updated my system from 1.2.3 onto
2.2-RELEASE (i386)
built on Thu Jan 22 14:04:25 CST 2015
FreeBSD 10.1-RELEASE-p4I have changed no hardware or wires at all. Only the Pfsense version is different. As of now, it has been up for 48 hours without USB drivers dropping the connection. Further, the port forwarding has been fine. The upgrade process retained all of my settings and it worked immediately once the interfaces were defined. This is very encouraging.
As always, thanks to everyone who contributed to this update.
-ram
-
Uptime 10 Days 07 Hours 49 Minutes 23 Seconds
Everything is working fine. Thanks again everyone.
-ram
