Ipv6 unusable due lack of love from FreeBSD (prev: Support baby jumbo frames)

stephenw10

No they are both set at default values, which is 1492.

Steve

doktornotor

@M_Devil:

In my browser (FF, IE and Chrome) some ipv6 pages did load very slow.

This ridiculous bug has been ignored by the FreeBSD guys for ages.

https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/2762
https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=172648

IOW, you don't need baby jumbo, you need pf to stop throwing out legitimate traffic.

Harvy66

@pf3000:

@Harvy66:

PPPoE is an artifact left over from the days of dialup. Ethernet is already meant to be line rate, but now you have to add a PPPoE server and suddenly you're centralizing your contention. PPPoE has issues with high speed connections, like 1Gb and soon 10Gb. It can be done if you throw enough money at it, but that can be said of nearly anything.

Yes you are correct. But that doesn't mean PPPoE is disappearing, or even shrinking.

I was responding to "In the Netherlands fiber connections are all PPPoE. Don't know for other countries, someone?". On this side of the pond, few people have access to PPPoE, especially the type of people the devs are for PFSense. Without access to PPPoE, it's hard to test, plus it's a bit unglamorous to be working on code to support legacy systems.

Is the baby jumbo frame thing a PFSense thing or a FreeBSD thing? Maybe asking in the FreeBSD forums would gain more traction. Would be nice to check off another feature.

M_Devil

I am trying to understand the status quo: Does this mean this bug is preventing normal usage of ipv6 in pfSense and because the dev's have focus on other stuff no solution is expected in near future?

pf3000

@Harvy66:

I was responding to "In the Netherlands fiber connections are all PPPoE. Don't know for other countries, someone?". On this side of the pond, few people have access to PPPoE, especially the type of people the devs are for PFSense. Without access to PPPoE, it's hard to test, plus it's a bit unglamorous to be working on code to support legacy systems.

Is the baby jumbo frame thing a PFSense thing or a FreeBSD thing? Maybe asking in the FreeBSD forums would gain more traction. Would be nice to check off another feature.

Since when did pppoe become legacy and "unglamorous" to continue support for? Probably from a purely academic and philosophical point of view.
FWIW the way I see it pfsense supports pppoe over legacy copper dsl & cable, and not up-to-date for pppoe over optical fiber.

stephenw10

Just to be clear here I have 2x FTTC connections at home which are both PPPoE. I have not applied any special settings to either of them and have never seen any particular issues with fragmented packets.
However I don't have an IPv6 tunnel setup, nor do my ISPs offer native IPv6.
Looking at Doktornotor's links this appears to be an upstream bug in IPv6 handling in pf. It also looks as though Ermal submitted a patch at one time. I'm not aware of what happened about that though.
I can try to find out…

Steve

doktornotor

@stephenw10:

Looking at Doktornotor's links this appears to be an upstream bug in IPv6 handling in pf. It also looks as though Ermal submitted a patch at one time. I'm not aware of what happened about that though.
I can try to find out…

Yeah that bug is IPv6 specific. Until you lower the MTU/MSS, the experience is extremely annoying. Takes multiple attempts to get some sites loaded (notably, also pfsense.org ones). And then there are sites that just totally fail, like https://www.o2.cz/

pf3000

@stephenw10:

Indeed, I realise that now.
What I mean is. How does having fragmented packets cause you a problem?
Steve

@stephenw10:

I realise that the reduced MTU causes fragmentation it's just that I've never really seen that cause a problem. Both my WAN connections are PPPoE.

@stephenw10:

Just to be clear here I have 2x FTTC connections at home which are both PPPoE. I have not applied any special settings to either of them and have never seen any particular issues with fragmented packets.

Bug

root: ping -D -s 1472 yahoo.com
PING yahoo.com (206.190.36.45): 1472 data bytes
36 bytes from localhost (127.0.0.1): frag needed and DF set (MTU 1492)
Vr HL TOS  Len   ID Flg  off TTL Pro  cks      Src      Dst
 4  5  00 05dc 6b46   0 0000  40  01 abcc 2.97.247.19  206.190.36.45

Expected result

ping -D -s 1472 www.dslreports.com
PING www.dslreports.com (64.91.255.98): 1472 data bytes
1480 bytes from 64.91.255.98: icmp_seq=0 ttl=47 time=122.827 ms

The issue is for those of us who have a maximum MTU of 1500 cannot ping 1472 bytes without it getting fragmented. That itself is the issue; nothing more or less.

It seems as though you're putting the burden on us to prove that something is broken because of fragmented packets. Terribly sorry that myself or the OP can't tickle your mind in a purely academic and pedantic fashion.

doktornotor

@pf3000:

The issue is for those of us who have a maximum MTU of 1500

Except that you don't have any such thing:

36 bytes from localhost (127.0.0.1): frag needed and DF set (MTU 1492)

pf3000

@doktornotor:

@pf3000:

The issue is for those of us who have a maximum MTU of 1500

Except that you don't have any such thing:

36 bytes from localhost (127.0.0.1): frag needed and DF set (MTU 1492)

Yes I don't, because I'm using pfSense. Here's what it looks like when I'm using IPFire.

[root@box ~]# ping -M do -c 2 -s 1473 yahoo.com
PING yahoo.com (98.138.253.109) 1473(1501) bytes of data.
ping: local error: Message too long, mtu=1500
ping: local error: Message too long, mtu=1500

–- yahoo.com ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 0 received, +2 errors, 100% packet loss, time 1008ms

[root@box ~]# ping -M do -c 2 -s 1472 yahoo.com
PING yahoo.com (98.139.183.24) 1472(1500) bytes of data.
1480 bytes from ir2.fp.vip.bf1.yahoo.com (98.139.183.24): icmp_seq=1 ttl=53 time=230 ms
1480 bytes from ir2.fp.vip.bf1.yahoo.com (98.139.183.24): icmp_seq=2 ttl=53 time=232 ms

–- yahoo.com ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1001ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 230.180/231.415/232.651/1.325 ms

[root@box ~]# ifconfig
green0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0C:29:7F:27:44
inet addr:192.168.1.1 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:15078 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:12171 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:4349698 (4.1 Mb) TX bytes:3450290 (3.2 Mb)

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1
RX packets:112 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:112 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:12176 (11.8 Kb) TX bytes:12176 (11.8 Kb)

ppp0 Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
inet addr:2.97.90.54 P-t-P:117.165.190.1 Mask:255.255.255.255
UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:8070 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:9131 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:3
RX bytes:2842073 (2.7 Mb) TX bytes:3536328 (3.3 Mb)

red0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0C:29:7F:27:3A
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1508 Metric:1
RX packets:8645 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:9718 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:3300161 (3.1 Mb) TX bytes:3893666 (3.7 Mb)

This is what's like using pfSense

vmx0: flags=8843 <up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast>metric 0 mtu 1500
options=60079b <rxcsum,txcsum,vlan_mtu,vlan_hwtagging,vlan_hwcsum,tso4,tso6,lro,rxcsum_ipv6,txcsum_ipv6>ether 00:01:0a:21:6b:60
inet6 fe80::201:aff:fe21:6b60%vmx0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
nd6 options=21 <performnud,auto_linklocal>media: Ethernet autoselect
status: active
pppoe0: flags=88d1 <up,pointopoint,running,noarp,simplex,multicast>metric 0 mtu 1492
inet6 fe80::201:aff:fe21:6b60%pppoe0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x7
inet 2.98.156.223 –> 117.165.190.1 netmask 0xffffffff
nd6 options=21<performnud,auto_linklocal></performnud,auto_linklocal></up,pointopoint,running,noarp,simplex,multicast></performnud,auto_linklocal></rxcsum,txcsum,vlan_mtu,vlan_hwtagging,vlan_hwcsum,tso4,tso6,lro,rxcsum_ipv6,txcsum_ipv6></up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast>

![2015-06-16 14_31_05-box.lan - Interfaces_ PPPs_ Edit - Internet Explorer.jpg](/public/imported_attachments/1/2015-06-16 14_31_05-box.lan - Interfaces_ PPPs_ Edit - Internet Explorer.jpg)
![2015-06-16 14_31_05-box.lan - Interfaces_ PPPs_ Edit - Internet Explorer.jpg_thumb](/public/imported_attachments/1/2015-06-16 14_31_05-box.lan - Interfaces_ PPPs_ Edit - Internet Explorer.jpg_thumb)

doktornotor

Yes. Those valuable 8 bytes must be incredible loss… Probably slows down your WAN at least by 0.000000000000001%.

Now

it's been pretty clearly stated that the mpd version used in pfSense does NOT support any such thing - https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/4542
there's a bounty for whatever needs to be done - https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=93902.0
your 0.000000000000001% is hardly a top priority, plus most certainly not a bug. People generally prioritize things that scratch their own itch, unless they get paid to do something else.

pf3000

@doktornotor:

Yes. Those valuable 8 bytes must be incredible loss… Probably slows down your WAN at least by 0.000000000000001%.

Now

it's been pretty clearly stated that the mpd version used in pfSense does NOT support any such thing - https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/4542

there's a bounty for whatever needs to be done - https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=93902.0

your 0.000000000000001% is hardly a top priority, plus most certainly not a bug. People generally prioritize things that scratch their own itch, unless they get paid to do something else.

No pressure guys. I didn't demand anything and I was only trying to help. The whole thread was spent trying to get at least someone to acknowledge that something is not working as expected.

stephenw10

Well we can agree that with IPv6 the behaviour is certainly not as expected (or as desired as least).
However in IPv4 that's exactly the expected behaviour. There's not a bug there, a missing feature perhaps.

Steve

M_Devil

Yes, so

Baby jumbo frames is about missing feature without having a big problem now.
But as Doktornotor points out, there is a problem with ipv6 (https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=172648) breaking normal ipv6 usage.

As in linked post, there are two workarounds:

don't use 'scrub reassemble tcp' in PF, or disable PF
sysctl net.inet.tcp.rfc1323=0

Trying second now and seems (for now) it is working

stephenw10

Let us know how that goes.
Thanks
Steve

M_Devil

So, running with the sysctl net.inet.tcp.rfc1323=0 workaround for a week now.

The idea is it should (as a workaround) solve the problem of ipv6 websites refusing (or after approx. 10 seconds) loading.
The good news: the workaround is helping a lot, but it does not enable the same browsing experience as with ipv4. A few times a day still an ipv6 site is not loading in first attempt. After an ctrl-F5 is uasually loads the page.

Did I understand correct this problem need to be solved by FreeBSD developers and not by pfSense team?
If so, why does it take so much time to solve, because as far as I can tell, this should effect a lot of people, right?

doktornotor

Sigh. I don't know why IPv6 fragmentation got under this topic. That problem is NOT caused by missing baby jumbo. It's caused by pf discarding legitimate traffic.

As for why does it take so long, when you look at the mailing lists, it took years to get fixed with ipfw, and it's no better with pf. Generally, getting kernel bugs fixed is a completely disastrous experience with FreeBSD. Stuff rotting in bugzilla for years.

M_Devil

You are right. The discussed bug has nothing to do with Jumbo Frames. Did not know that before, as my (wrong) assumption was the bad browsing experience was causes by missing Jumbo Frames support.

I can read your frustration with fixing kernel bugs by FreeBSD *) team. So does that mean you don't expect this bug (dropping ipv6 traffic) to be fixed soon?
If so, that whould be ridiculous, because (in the assumtion I understand it good enough) ipv6 is currently useless and breaking normal Internet traffic.

*) FreeBSD is all about stability?

doktornotor

@M_Devil:

I can read your frustration with fixing kernel bugs by FreeBSD *) team. So does that mean you don't expect this bug (dropping ipv6 traffic) to be fixed soon?

https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=124933 - filed: 2008-06-24

Frustration is an extreme understatement!!! >:( >:( >:( Expect to be fixed soon? LOL.

The other bug has been sitting there since 2012 and the only response it got was "Hey guys, I cannot reproduce this" after 32 months.

Since the topic got somehow lost anyway - PR 172648 can indeed be mitigated by sysctl net.inet.tcp.rfc1323=0. OTOH, this certainly does not help with PR 124933. That only can be avoided by dropping MTU and MSS values to avoid fragmentation altogether – which is probably the issue you are still seeing:

@M_Devil:

A few times a day still an ipv6 site is not loading in first attempt. After an ctrl-F5 is uasually loads the page.

(even with sysctl net.inet.tcp.rfc1323=0). There are logs on https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/2762, see if that matches what you see.

M_Devil

So, I am naive to expect from FreeBSD team with stability as one of their main goals to fix this.
Maybe I am not that naive and FreeBSD team is not delivering (or can't I say that because I am using a free product?).

The bug reports you refer to are so old, does me wonder if pfSense (depend on FreeBSD) is my future routing/firewall platform. Until now I felt like using an platform with ultimate secure/robust/stable OS as host, apparently I am wrong.

I don't read much about ipv6 being practically unusable with pfSense. Is this because almost nobody is using it, or… ?