Seriously, whats the secret to getting this working
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Im about at the end of my tether with pfsense…
Im installing in into a VM (trying to move off depending on an entire separate squid/squidguard box that's served me well for about 4 years), and that works fine, then after a reboot it seems to be completely random as to whether I can log in to the web configurator. Assume I know what im doing and not locking myself out on a a private ip range etc....
If im lucky enough to get to the login screen, I may even then get lucky enough to get to add the squid package (which is all im really interested in...sometimes I cant even get that far before I lose the session and the login box is missing in action , only to reappear after many refreshes, even then it seems to be more like which way the wind is blowing. I know im not locking myself out as ive already tried the console fix to try and there were zero entries when I tried it.
The real problem is that ive reinstalled it like a dozen times, with the same results.
I once got as far adding squidguard (yes I followed the doco on creating a dummy category etc), only then to end back at being unable to raise the login box after a restart.....so reinstall again and cross your fingers, to no avail....
It is to me, after 35 years of IT, the buggiest single thing ive ever seen, http or https login options make zero difference, and im trying to end the insanity of the buggy mess by posting and asking the following question:
Is there actually an earlier version that actually works, stably? because the latest version is a stone cold buggy mess
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Which version are you running 2.2.6??
What VM are you trying to run it on?? I can tell you that is nothing but freaking rock solid stable on esxi..
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You are doing something wrong. Step back from the computer. Try installing on a physical box first, you could be having an issue with your hypervisor. Sorry you are having problems, but people install pfsense every day with no trouble. The software is not a buggy mess, start from scratch and sanity check your steps. I'd start with eliminating the VM.
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Which version are you running 2.2.6??
What VM are you trying to run it on?? I can tell you that is nothing but freaking rock solid stable on esxi..
2.2.6, yup
You are doing something wrong. Step back from the computer. Try installing on a physical box first, you could be having an issue with your hypervisor. Sorry you are having problems, but people install pfsense every day with no trouble. The software is not a buggy mess, start from scratch and sanity check your steps. I'd start with eliminating the VM.
Ive tried both VMware Workstation and VirtualBox, identical issue on both…kinda points to pfsense....
Im pretty sure ive done everything right :) Its has a lot of options, which if youre only going to use it for squid, you don't have to delve into the bowels of it, having read all the doco, unfortunately it has issues....ive just reinstalled it for the 13th time, logged into the web config, then walked away to boil the kettle, come back and yup, no response for the web config login for the milliontyith time...nothing to do with me. ive run the checklists, after every reinstall and the same damn maddening bugs...
Ive set static IP's so both the WAN and LAN and many other things to rule out some "user error" or DHCP weirdness...nope its pfsense....ive tried every sane combo of network setup Bridged/NAt and Local Internet etc, none fo which ahs mattered because I can always ping both interfaces successfully, so its not a routing issue...at any time when I cant get the login via https, I can strip the s off and get the http login box...of course if I then mod it to accept a http login via the console it then wont work with that (again, nothing to do with me or my setup), and round in circles you go
I reinstalled it a 14th time, and after some refreshing got into the web config eventually and long enough to install squid again, config it, egenerate a CA, export it and shock horror, even browse a few pages, until it died, and then of course when I went to login to the web config to check the logs...of course I couldn't login...
Jesus.... youre talking to someone who grew up in the dark days, when you had to write your own drivers in unix when adding new hardware, ive seen some things in my time, but this takes the cake....
Im actually thinking warmly of Windows ME (though not 10, never 10) right now just to take the edge off the pfsense experience :)
Going on this, unless someone can point out at stable version of this, ill save my time and sanity and go and buy a UTM...
Installing this on a real box defeats the entire purpose of why I was trying to use it...I already have a real box running squid and squidguard for 4 long years without a hiccup...
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You are doing something wrong with your virtual environment or the network design itself.
If you would accept that and start looking there instead of blaming the guest OS you would be on the path to figuring out what the problem actually is.
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You are doing something wrong with your virtual environment or the network design itself.
If you would accept that and start looking there instead of blaming the guest OS you would be on the path to figuring out what the problem actually is.
Ive already explained above and demonstrated how im "not doing something wrong", so if you'd care to stop trying to sound superior and at least try to offer some help, id really appreciate it
Sadly im not the only one who's ever reported issues with the web config interface being inaccessible, nor the instability underneath
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If you are looking for changes to make to pfSense to stop the behavior you are describing there are none because it doesn't behave like that. There is some other problem with your environment at play.
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You're doing something grossly wrong. The fact it's doing the same thing across multiple hypervisors that many of us use widely further points to that. Maybe putting WAN and LAN on the same subnet, which would result in intermittent and potentially unpredictable networking results (with anything). Whether or not ping works isn't necessarily telling at all when you screw up networking like that, ping can work where TCP gets out of state traffic messes from the conflicting networks.
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If you are looking for changes to make to pfSense to stop the behavior you are describing there are none because it doesn't behave like that. There is some other problem with your environment at play.
Ahh yes it does behave like that, so id really like it if you didn't call me a liar on top of trying to seem superior…
And it even behaves as ive described in VMware where its detected and profiled to be hands off in configuring....so theres that
I don't just turn up on random It boards at 6am after a 20 hour day to get my jollies inventing things that aren't actually happening....
Give me some respect....ive probably been doing this twice as long as you have...
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@cmb:
You're doing something grossly wrong. The fact it's doing the same thing across multiple hypervisors that many of us use widely further points to that. Maybe putting WAN and LAN on the same subnet, which would result in intermittent and potentially unpredictable networking results (with anything). Whether or not ping works isn't necessarily telling at all when you screw up networking like that, ping can work where TCP gets out of state traffic messes from the conflicting networks.
Nope, I was being careful, therefore after the first occurrence I isolated the subnets…same effect.
Im really not kidding folks, its bonkers
I notice a lot of people have had issues with 2.2.6, if you just want to tell me form your own experience or your longer exposure here what is the most stable version, ill be on my way...
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Perhaps you should just get a UTM. 2.2.6 is the most stable version available.
I've been doing this since you had to set the jumpers on the card when adding hardware too. Sometimes things go wrong for a variety of reasons. If they didn't they would only need the people who answer the phones and ask you to reboot your computer and try again. How did you expect your reception to be when you come into an enthusiast forum and take a piss? I'm not trying to insult you, but you don't have a problem insulting everyone else who says the software works well for them and is not a buggy mess. You think you've ruled out everything but pfsense, but I've installed it hundreds of times and only had problems when I had bad hardware, a problem with the network, etc. Sometime it helps to step back, try an install on a physical machine hooked up to a laptop for the config, then connect it to the network, or try virtual. You could also try giving some more detailed information- is it just the webgui? can you ping the box? any errors?
EDIT- Make sure your install media is good. -
2.2.6 is perfectly fine. There are no such problems in it, and certainly aren't many people having issues. It really is as simple as that. There are tens of thousands of systems running just that particular version.
We're building 2.3-RC at this moment, if you want to grab something different, the most recent snapshot from snapshots.pfsense.org probably won't be far from RC or final release.
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I'v installed pfSense 2.1.3 - 2.2.6 on ESXi, VmW and Virtualbox. It works fine. It's either your config or your environment. Unfortunately we have no details whatsoever to work with other then your general complaints so there isn't a whole lot we can do at the moment.
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Do you start encountering problems from the get-go or only after installing Squid? What about if you unplug the WAN cable, is it still unreachable? Can you ping the router and telnet into it when you can't get into the GUI?
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If you are looking for changes to make to pfSense to stop the behavior you are describing there are none because it doesn't behave like that. There is some other problem with your environment at play.
Ahh yes it does behave like that, so id really like it if you didn't call me a liar on top of trying to seem superior…
And it even behaves as ive described in VMware where its detected and profiled to be hands off in configuring....so theres that
I don't just turn up on random It boards at 6am after a 20 hour day to get my jollies inventing things that aren't actually happening....
Give me some respect....ive probably been doing this twice as long as you have...
With all due respect, I think you need to take a deep breath and step back a bit to clear your head of your obvious frustration and try not to bite back at the people who are trying to help you. There are many people who have no trouble installing PFS setups like yours - many on this forum - so despite your own years of experience it may do you some good to try being more pragmatic and little less shouty. From what I can see, nobody is questioning your professionalism - they're simply stating what is fact, nothing more.
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So do you have other OSes on this VM setup without any issues. How exactly do you have the networking setup? Out of the box VB and vmW like to NAT your connections vs just bridging them to your actual physical interface. if your having connectivity issues to pfsense, can tell you its not pfsense. The only issues I have seen anything sim to yours is when usnig Xen/KVM and vmx3 drivers..
https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=88467.0
There are plenty of people here with just as much if not longer experience as you.. I myself have been paid in the field for 25+ years, and and been play/working with computers for 35+ Remember when got first TRS80, and before that having to walk to the library to use the PET, typing in programs via machine code from a magazine and then saving them on cassette, etc.
What I can tell you is pfsense is rock freaking stable, even on a VM.. So clearly you have something wrong in your setup/network/hardware..
Been running different versions of pfsense on esxi and other played with it on VB, its been solid on esxi since back with version 5 for sure.. So that was 5, 5.1 and then 5.5 and now 6 with all the different updates inbetween, etc. Before that ran pfsense sense on hardware.. I have never once had any sort of stability issues with it.. It runs and runs and runs until you reboot it or your hardware crashes..
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Something that always works - and will make you more confident to make it work:
Do NOT use VM …. install (even temporally) pfSense on a dedicated device.
You'll will belong very quickly to 100 000++ users that made pfSense work in less then 5 minutes.
(and : bonus : you will have this positive feeling that [pfSense] is a go, and [pfSense in VM] is a no go, so you will be very motivated to find out why it will not work you right now - knowing that [pfSEnse] works ;)) -
While I agree he should take VM out of the mix to prove to himself that its not a pfsense thing.. I can assure you pfsense works on multiple flavors of VM just fine..
I also agree with the less than 5 minutes statement.. If its taking you more 10 min tops your doing something wrong that is for sure.. It really is turn it on, and it just works!!
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…. I can assure you pfsense works on multiple flavors of VM just fine..
Well, I know. Probably thousands do so already. But I never did that myself. :)
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personally i find it easier to run it on a hypervisor, in the sense that it eliminates the need to run on freebsd-compatible-hardware.
hypervisors tend to work well with any server-class hardware you throw at it …. freebsd tends to be a lot more picky ;)
