DHCP pool fully used, server not handing out IP's

bmsadmin · Nov 17, 2014, 7:45 PM

Hi all

Have been using PfSense for years, and lurked here a fair bit. Never had cause to post until now :D

I just today experienced an issue that I have seen posted here in the past - my LAN DHCP pool was fully utilized but with about 40% of the clients off-line. New clients were not being given an IP address, and the gateway was very slow in passing traffic. As well, the connection to webconfigurator keeps timing out.

Following the idea of deleting all current leases that I found here
https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=5231.0
I was able to get DHCP working for clients, but the PfSense gateway is still very sluggish in responding to requests via webconfigurator and via SSH command-line

The processors are barely above idle and less than 20% of the RAM is being used. I perform no traffic shaping and the box is basically stock PfSense.
I am an IT generalist (support workstations/web/email/telephone/printers/Mac/Win/linux/wifi/cabling/etc) so I have not developed expertise in any one area. In addition, PfSense has been bullet-proof until now, so I don't really have an inkling of where to start the trouble-shooting here.

Thanks
Ken
ADDENDUM: Somehow the server has rebuilt the DHCP lease pool, despite the fact that there is not enough active devices to consume them - again about 30-40% are off-line.

johnpoz · Nov 17, 2014, 8:32 PM

did you try the old standby turn if off and back on again trick ;)

bmsadmin · Nov 17, 2014, 8:41 PM

Yep.

Then when that didn't work, pull all power cables, count to 30, and re-power just to be sure that all caches clear….....

K

johnpoz · Nov 17, 2014, 9:02 PM

so your saying its still sluggish and cpu is idle? And your dhcp pool filled up again?

Paul47 · Nov 20, 2014, 12:34 AM

No recent configuration changes? Firewall rules?

Is traffic to the clients slow too? Maybe see what static addressing does to change that, with a client or two.

How many clients are there?

Harvy66 · Nov 24, 2014, 6:42 PM

I'm not sure about the sluggish issue, but the other issue of running out of IP addresses, if you have more devices than you have IP addresses, and too many offline devices are holding leases, then you need to reduce the lease length to a value that allows those leases expire in a timely fashion.