Errors on LAN interface
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First of all, thanks for the reply KOM.
Yes the number is quite small, especially in the context of the number of packets processed (348 packets discarded out of 56,202,561 unicast packets; the percentage is so small that it comes out in scientific notation on the Windows calculator.) I was just concerned that it was a sign of a much greater issue as on other threads users stated that any number of errors was cause for alarm.
I haven't noticed any issues and the LAN is quite small (2 PCs, 1 Smart TV, 1 PS3 and one WAP serving an 2 iPads and 2 Android devices.) I do use a Powerline network to link my upstairs office to the downstairs entertainment center, where the pfSense box is. Since the discards seem to be related to running out of receive buffers on the LAN and dev.bge.1.stats.InputErrors: has remained at 0, I didn't think we were looking at a bad frame issue. I will try your idea of swapping the WAN and LAN and see if the errors follow. I guess in the grand scheme of things, its probably not something to worry about.
Thanks again for your input.
Carlos
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348 out of 56+ million is safe to ignore. Not even worth looking into at that low of a rate IMO, given you have no noticeable problems.
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FWIW i was getting similar on my own pfsense install; tried a different physical interface, different switch ports, different ethernet cable. Problem was resolved by replacing the switch. The errors were annoying to see, but did not affect performance in any measurable way. I don't recall the error rate now, but it was ~6000 errors over about 5 weeks of uptime.
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During most of the year, I sit around 0 errors, but around winter, the air gets dry and the errors start to go up. At one point I went to plug in an Ethernet cable into my switch, during which time I so happened to have my error counts opened, I got a static shock and I saw the count go up. I get zapped a lot in the winter.
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The reason I am writing is that I am seeing some errors on the LAN interface (bge1). 140 errors to be exact.
I'm seeing the same thing here, also on a bge interface. This is in a corporate environment with a lot of traffic, but the error rates are ridiculous:
[2.2.5-RELEASE][admin@pfsense-bitarkiv.kb.dk]/root: sysctl -a | grep dev.bge.0
dev.bge.0.%desc: HP Ethernet 1Gb 4-port 331i Adapter, ASIC rev. 0x5719001
dev.bge.0.%driver: bge
dev.bge.0.%location: slot=0 function=0 handle=_SB_.PCI0.PEX4.EMB1
dev.bge.0.%pnpinfo: vendor=0x14e4 device=0x1657 subvendor=0x103c subdevice=0x22be class=0x020000
dev.bge.0.%parent: pci2
dev.bge.0.forced_collapse: 0
dev.bge.0.msi: 1
dev.bge.0.forced_udpcsum: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.FramesDroppedDueToFilters: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.DmaWriteQueueFull: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.DmaWriteHighPriQueueFull: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.NoMoreRxBDs: 2812
dev.bge.0.stats.InputDiscards: 796042
dev.bge.0.stats.InputErrors: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.RecvThresholdHit: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.rx.ifHCInOctets: 350015645
dev.bge.0.stats.rx.Fragments: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.rx.UnicastPkts: 6926
dev.bge.0.stats.rx.MulticastPkts: 1882614
dev.bge.0.stats.rx.BroadcastPkts: 1494008
dev.bge.0.stats.rx.FCSErrors: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.rx.AlignmentErrors: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.rx.xonPauseFramesReceived: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.rx.xoffPauseFramesReceived: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.rx.ControlFramesReceived: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.rx.xoffStateEntered: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.rx.FramesTooLong: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.rx.Jabbers: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.rx.UndersizePkts: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.tx.ifHCOutOctets: 1245085
dev.bge.0.stats.tx.Collisions: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.tx.XonSent: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.tx.XoffSent: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.tx.InternalMacTransmitErrors: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.tx.SingleCollisionFrames: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.tx.MultipleCollisionFrames: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.tx.DeferredTransmissions: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.tx.ExcessiveCollisions: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.tx.LateCollisions: 0
dev.bge.0.stats.tx.UnicastPkts: 7036
dev.bge.0.stats.tx.MulticastPkts: 4
dev.bge.0.stats.tx.BroadcastPkts: 36At the time of writing, the NIC has received 7,475 packets and experienced 798,854 input errors. I have tried changing the cable but the situation is the same. I don't suspect the switch since it is a relatively new HP A5120 gigabit switch and nothing else on it is reporting errors. I don't see any errors on the switch side but that doesn't tell me anything as the errors are on the receiving side of the pfSense box.
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Hmm… This could be a coincidence but you're having the exact same problem: NoMoreRxBDs showing that the NIC port has run out of buffers but with no Input, FCS or Alignment errors. That should rule out any layer 1 problems. We're also both using the same pfsense release and using the same driver. Does anyone know if something changed with 2.2.5 vis a vis the Broadcom bge driver?
Carlos
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I don't think it's a driver issue.
I changed the NIC to a card that registered as "em0" and saw the exact same problem. Then I changed the VLAN the interface was placed in and the input errors stopped immediately.
I have now realised I have something very noise in one of my vlans but it doesn't show up in a tcp dump. It shows as "packets discarded by the kernel", so they must be malformed in some way. Problem is, I have about 500 clients in the vlan so it could take some time to find the culprit…
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Oh. Good to know. I also I am using VLANs but only on the WAN side; CenturyLink requires all WAN packets to be tagged with VLAN 201. However, I don't see pfSense having any problems with the WAN interface.
Carlos
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Hi, since 2.2.6 I suddenly get the same errors, and a lot of them.
Here the sysctl -a:dev.bge.0.%desc: Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Controller, ASIC rev. 0x004101 dev.bge.0.%driver: bge dev.bge.0.%location: slot=0 function=0 dev.bge.0.%pnpinfo: vendor=0x14e4 device=0x1659 subvendor=0x1028 subdevice=0x01b6 class=0x020000 dev.bge.0.%parent: pci3 dev.bge.0.forced_collapse: 0 dev.bge.0.msi: 1 dev.bge.0.forced_udpcsum: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.FramesDroppedDueToFilters: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.DmaWriteQueueFull: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.DmaWriteHighPriQueueFull: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.NoMoreRxBDs: 18488 dev.bge.0.stats.InputDiscards: 816676 dev.bge.0.stats.InputErrors: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.RecvThresholdHit: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.rx.ifHCInOctets: 1479529684755 dev.bge.0.stats.rx.Fragments: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.rx.UnicastPkts: 1176430502 dev.bge.0.stats.rx.MulticastPkts: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.rx.BroadcastPkts: 125 dev.bge.0.stats.rx.FCSErrors: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.rx.AlignmentErrors: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.rx.xonPauseFramesReceived: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.rx.xoffPauseFramesReceived: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.rx.ControlFramesReceived: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.rx.xoffStateEntered: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.rx.FramesTooLong: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.rx.Jabbers: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.rx.UndersizePkts: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.tx.ifHCOutOctets: 234929844784 dev.bge.0.stats.tx.Collisions: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.tx.XonSent: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.tx.XoffSent: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.tx.InternalMacTransmitErrors: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.tx.SingleCollisionFrames: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.tx.MultipleCollisionFrames: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.tx.DeferredTransmissions: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.tx.ExcessiveCollisions: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.tx.LateCollisions: 0 dev.bge.0.stats.tx.UnicastPkts: 670015355 dev.bge.0.stats.tx.MulticastPkts: 3 dev.bge.0.stats.tx.BroadcastPkts: 124 dev.bge.1.%desc: Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Controller, ASIC rev. 0x004101It's reported as in the screenshot attached. I'm seeing a high "NoMoreRxBDs: 18488"
Using NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (BCM5721 / bge0)
I don't use VLANs on the WAN side. WAN is directly attached to fibre-modem over UTP. With 2.2.5 I had (almost) no errors.
Any idea what can cause / solve this?
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I know it's not fixed in 2.3 beta. I am still getting them but nowhere near the rate you are. For my use, the percentage of discarded packets is so small (around one thousand of a percent) that I didn't bother researching it further. Have you tried the tips on Pfsense NIC tuning?
Carlos