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    PfSense 2.2 503 - Service Not Available

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved webGUI
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    • jimpJ
      jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
      last edited by

      See above, re: Reinstall is the best option.

      Something has corrupted /etc, it's unfortunately common these days since fsck in FreeBSD 10.1 seems to be over-eager about "fixing" things when the filesystem has issues after a panic or unclean shutdown.

      Reinstall from whatever install media was used originally.

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      • B
        Blue Thunder
        last edited by

        Right I've reinstalled and reconfigured my pfSense virtual machine and, as expected, everything is working again.

        What could end-users do to prevent this from happening again? For my situation, I've thought of the following solutions:

        1. Take a snapshot of the pfSense virtual machine using XenCenter and restore it when needed.
        2. Use ZFS as the storage backend for the pfSense virtual machine, take [periodic] snapshots and restore it when needed.
        3. Connect my physical XenServer host to an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) unit to prevent a mains power failure from ungracefully shutting down the machine.

        One problem with solution 1 and 2 is that I will lose any information written to the logs since the last snapshot. However logging to a remote syslog server might solve this issue.

        Having a UPS seems to be the best solution, if it is able to properly:

        • take over (depending on the UPS type) and keep the physical machine running when the mains power shuts off.
        • automatically and gracefully shut down the physical machine.
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        • L
          lcabezas
          last edited by

          @Marv21:

          I deleted bandwidthd. Since then i got no Problems.

          Thanks Marv21.

          I deleted bandwidthd based on your post after I restarted PHP-FPM. So far, it's still working.
          I will update this post if I encounter it again.

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          • R
            rlabaza
            last edited by

            I too have had this issue.  I can get into the web console for a few minutes after boot up but then it just shows "503 Service not available"  SSH'd in and restarted PHP-FPM using option 16.  Immediately removed bandwidthd… so far so good -- 20 minutes and still able to access the web console.
            I really wanted to run bandwithd, too.  :(

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            • O
              Overlord
              last edited by

              Hey guys

              Since today we have the same issues. I shutdown the Firewall (no virtualisation / native installation with lagg) at friday and startet it at sunday. After the first start i got into the https webpage, had an issue with the apinger service and restart over ssh.

              After the restart I can't connect to vpn, ssh and the webpage- same issue as all here.

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              • M
                Marv21
                last edited by

                @Overlord:

                Hey guys

                Since today we have the same issues. I shutdown the Firewall (no virtualisation / native installation with lagg) at friday and startet it at sunday. After the first start i got into the https webpage, had an issue with the apinger service and restart over ssh.

                After the restart I can't connect to vpn, ssh and the webpage- same issue as all here.

                No SSH?`No VPN -> other Problem. Here are only People with no access to the webgui. Everything else is fine

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                • O
                  Overlord
                  last edited by

                  Hey guys

                  I found the issue today. The system killed the group "wheel" and after this it was not possible for the system to create the
                  php-fpm.pid and php-fpm.socket file.

                  Greetz

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                  • G
                    gessel
                    last edited by

                    This is massively, massively bad.    Like "blocker" hair on fire bad.  One of the great things about pfSense has been the appliance-like reliability which permits confident headless operation and operation in challenging environments where power isn't reliable.  It has always just come back from power failures.

                    Today our UPS went batshit.  It happens a lot here (in Iraq) where the AC line voltage varies from 80-260V, 40-65Hz, and goes out about 6-8 times per day.  A UPS just doesn't last long under that kind of abuse (and this is a tiny little logic supply fanless box running on a SmartUps 3000 rack-mount, so it should have at least a day's run-time, which it needs on generator service days).

                    Today I got the 503 Service Unavailable error after spending half the day replacing the UPS.  I take the time to drag a monitor up to the data cabinet (sealed, air:air self-cooled) and I see the attached:

                    (searchable as)
                    [ERROR] [pool lighty] cannot get gid for group 'wheel'
                    [ERROR] FPM initialization failed

                    And I tried restarting several times, restarting the webconfigurator (11), and restarting PHP-FPM (16), and then found this thread and realized it was to no avail.  Time to reconfigure the network to permit download of the current version (this one has been UI upgraded for the last 3 years) and hope the last config backup has the DHCP assignments for the 60 or so machines that were added recently.

                    How far back would one have to downgrade to escape the over-eager fsck?

                    Bluethunder's suggestions are good, but in my case, it is the UPS that is the problem.

                    Migrating to boot from ZFS would escape FSCK completely.  I boot from ZFS on my FreeBSD servers already and it is quite reliable and fairly easy to configure now that it is integrated into the 10.1 installer.

                    It might also help as a stop-gap to specify fsck_y_enable="NO" in /etc/rc.conf.  You'd hang at startup, but at least you could intervene in the FSCK process and possibly prevent the system from eating itself.

                    20150410_211807_pfSense_fucked.jpg
                    20150410_211807_pfSense_fucked.jpg_thumb

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                    • L
                      lw9474
                      last edited by

                      We have the same issue with one in the Bahamas.  Power issues over the weekend and now not able to access the router.  It is running but not passing any traffic.  No DHCP and error 503 on the gui.  Unfortunately SSH is turned off.

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                      • G
                        gessel
                        last edited by

                        If you can get console (or have someone do it) it is pretty easy to pull the config off```
                        /cf/conf/backup

                        
                        A remote KVM with virtual media adapters may be essential with newer versions of pfSense that are at risk until this is addressed (which may be never).
                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • jimpJ
                          jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                          last edited by

                          Until we figure out how to fix this (it's a FreeBSD/fsck issue) it might also be wise for those prone to multiple instances of it to keep a tarball of /etc somewhere… If it breaks then untar the file back over /etc, reboot, and keep going.

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                          • D
                            doktornotor Banned
                            last edited by

                            Is there any way to disable fsck altogether (without breaking non-interactive boot)? Since, this does more harm than good apparently.

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                            • jimpJ
                              jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                              last edited by

                              No. If we disable the call to fsck it won't mount the slice and will drop to a console… and the fix is to run fsck. catch-22.

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                              • G
                                gessel
                                last edited by

                                If it is possible to recover from a tarball, then perhaps a script that runs on startup that tests for some indication of this problem and automatically executes recovering /etc from the archive?  An ugly hack, but the problem I could easily see for myself (pfSense instances running 20 hours of travel apart) is that the manual fix is not an easy talk-through for a non-technical hands-on person and if the system goes down and it is awfully hard to get in from the WAN side to do the work remotely.

                                I don't want to attempt this again unintentionally, but does SSH successfully start when this happens and are the rules that permit WAN side access working?

                                Otherwise a remote box pretty much necessitates a remote KVM on an accessible IP outside the firewall to give console access. Having a tarball of /etc/ squirreled away would save from reinstalling and I'll prepare my instances for the worst by doing that and making sure WAN side SSH works.

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                                • jimpJ
                                  jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                                  last edited by

                                  It may be possible to make an ugly hack like that, but it's not something we'd actually code up and put in the images (not that I can see happening anyhow) unless things got really desperate.

                                  For those especially prone to this, you might also try adding "sync,noatime" (sans quotes) to the mount options for the disk in /etc/fstab – in my testing it still ran fsck and found errors but I didn't see any corruption. Though whether that was pure luck or due to the change is unclear yet. For example:

                                  Before:

                                  /dev/ufsid/552d6d027debc466		/		ufs	rw		1	1
                                  

                                  After

                                  /dev/ufsid/552d6d027debc466		/		ufs	rw,sync,noatime		1	1
                                  

                                  Disk performance may take a slight hit for that but if it does help, it's worth the extra stability.

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                                  • G
                                    gessel
                                    last edited by

                                    This seems like a sensible fix.  It should help reduce the risk of corruption on data loss.    The mitigants seem to me:

                                    • Make sure SSH access works from wherever one needs to manage a dead firewall from (probably WAN)

                                    • Backup /etc to someplace sensible

                                    • adjust /etc/fstab to trade performance for reliability

                                    Hopefully this will get sorted.

                                    I would think that moving to boot on ZFS would be a reasonable migration path.  No more fsck.

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                                    • jimpJ
                                      jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                                      last edited by

                                      zfs is more of a long term goal (and it is one of our goals, definitely) – not something we can implement fast or without lots of testing, and not an option for upgrades. So it is great for the future, but not what we need to fix right now.

                                      Remember: Upvote with the 👍 button for any user/post you find to be helpful, informative, or deserving of recognition!

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                                      Do not Chat/PM for help!

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                                      • P
                                        prairie-sky
                                        last edited by

                                        I'm having this same issue at a remote site.

                                        does it just kill the GUI or does it kill the routing as well?  I can still ping the box but I'm really hoping it's still allowing traffic to flow through…...

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                                        • Y
                                          yaplej
                                          last edited by

                                          I just ran into this issue on two VM instances of pfSense I was setting up.  Iv been struggling to get CARP working between two KVM hosts and would reboot the hosts without shutting down the pfSense VM first (simulating power failure).  Have now re-installed the pair 3 times.  Trying the ",sync,noatime" option in /etc/fstab to see if it prevents needing to re-install.

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                                          • G
                                            gessel
                                            last edited by

                                            yaplej: please report if it does help - seems like you're doing the right kind of testing to verify.  I've made the changes on all my pfSense instances: fingers crossed power doesn't go out at a remote site and kill it.

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