PfBlockerNG v2.0 w/DNSBL
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I have been banging my head against the desk for almost a month now and have not been able to find a way to get either of my 2 pfSense VMs (vmware esxi host) to remain stable for ~12 hours with DNSBL enabled while using feeds that were on the first few pages of this forum post. Issues that I tend to have, sometimes as little as a few hours of uptime.. sometimes around 12-20 hours. I have been using pfblockerng for quite some time using the traditional ipv4 blocklists with no problems. Only after I have enabled DNSBL, and added several feeds have I had these symptoms:
- The Web GUI becomes unresponsive
- Unbound becomes unresponsive, leading to DNS being unable to resolve for clients
- The console is unresponsive
- DHCPD stops functioning
- Less frequently than the above symptoms, routing stops all together. Most of the time as long as Unbound is responsive, then everything is fine besides being able to make changes or view anything in the WebGUI or console.
All of these issues are only fixed by hard rebooting the instances. Because of this, I have had to reinstall and restore via the xml config quite a few times, as I have had issues upgrading due to the instability.
Things I have tried (but none seem to help):
- Increasing the memory of my VMs from 4gb -> 8gb
- Increasing Max Threads of the WebGUI to 12
- Using Service Watchdog on impacted services
The only thing that has improved my stability is disabling DNSBL, and I do not want to do this. I would love to retain this functionality, but at this point it seems like no matter what I do I end up with the above symptoms.
Any advice would be much appreciated. I am on the latest 2.4 daily snapshots, and update as frequently as I can.
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Do you see any errors in the Resolver.log?
Its best not to use the Service watchdog with DNSBL, since it can try to restart Unbound at in appropriate times…
Are you using the literal IP address to access to webgui?
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Do you see any errors in the Resolver.log?
Its best not to use the Service watchdog with DNSBL, since it can try to restart Unbound at in appropriate times…
Are you using the literal IP address to access to webgui?
I have been connecting to the WebGUI only via ip address, not hostname. I have turned off the service watchdog for DNSBL and Unbound.
Here is the entire log for 1 of my VMs, I am in the process of restoring the other one from XML at the moment, but will give you that one when I have a chance.
https://pastebin.com/059BCEeV
Edit:
Here are some screenshots of everything that occured during syncing the DNSBL feeds of my other VM whilst restoring the XML. I had to hard reboot the instance a few times for it to complete:https://imgur.com/a/788UU
Here is the resolver.log:
https://pastebin.com/R9jGU7XsI have disabled DNSBL on 1 of my VMs, as I need at least 1 of them to be stable today (working from home). Will monitor the other one for instability and provide an updated log when I can. Are there any other logs that you may be interested in?
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Did you disable the two "DHCP registrations" checkboxes?
@BBcan177:Some recommendations:
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The DNS Resolver can also be used in 'Forwardering mode'; however its best to not use this 'Forwarding mode' and keep it in 'resolver mode' as this will query the Root DNS servers for the DNS queries instead of relying on an ISPs DNS etc…
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If you use the 'DNS Resolver Forwarder mode', only configure 'DNSSEC' if the configured DNS servers support DNSSEC. The enabling of 'DNSSEC' to harden your DNS security is highly recommended.
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Disable the two "DHCP registrations" checkboxes, unless you really require those options.
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Did you disable the two "DHCP registrations" checkboxes?
@BBcan177:Some recommendations:
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The DNS Resolver can also be used in 'Forwardering mode'; however its best to not use this 'Forwarding mode' and keep it in 'resolver mode' as this will query the Root DNS servers for the DNS queries instead of relying on an ISPs DNS etc…
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If you use the 'DNS Resolver Forwarder mode', only configure 'DNSSEC' if the configured DNS servers support DNSSEC. The enabling of 'DNSSEC' to harden your DNS security is highly recommended.
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Disable the two "DHCP registrations" checkboxes, unless you really require those options.
1 of my VMs has them enabled, the other does not (before reading your message). Just wanted to point out that they are both experiencing the same, despite the initial difference in settings. I have disabled those settings on the VM that initially had that set.
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Look at the DHCP logs.
DHCP registrations restart Unbound, that may takes minutes to complete.
If another registration happens before unbound completed the restart, unbound may crash.Use DNS Resolver Host Overrides.
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Look at the DHCP logs.
DHCP registrations restart Unbound, that may takes minutes to complete.
If another registration happens before unbound completed the restart, unbound may crash.Use DNS Resolver Host Overrides.
Good to know. Thank you for the tip.
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I haven't had any stability issues since disabling DNSBL across both of my VMs. But on one of them I am getting a strange error that I cannot seem to get to go away on boot. This doesn't seem to impact the functionality of pfBlockerNG, but it is bugging me that I can't get it to go away. I have even tried restoring an older XML on a fresh install, but it seems that the XML is not older than when the issue began.
Starting package pfBlockerNG… Something wrong happened while reading request.
How can I troubleshoot this and alleviate this issue from my system? Thank you in advance!
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I haven't had any stability issues since disabling DNSBL across both of my VMs. But on one of them I am getting a strange error that I cannot seem to get to go away on boot. This doesn't seem to impact the functionality of pfBlockerNG, but it is bugging me that I can't get it to go away. I have even tried restoring an older XML on a fresh install, but it seems that the XML is not older than when the issue began.
Starting package pfBlockerNG… Something wrong happened while reading request.
How can I troubleshoot this and alleviate this issue from my system? Thank you in advance!
I read some of your posts, but there isn't much details to help you… Did you use all the default settings for DNSBL? What interfaces did you select? What VIP address? Do these overlap with other subnets? What feeds are you using in DNSBL? Did you review the pfblockerng.log/System Log/Resolver Log for clues?
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I fixed the stability problem and the issue was not DNSBL. It just appears that enabling DNSBL was a catalyst in setting off the real issue (I/O). I was getting some SCSI errors after updating to the latest version of ESXI. Once I changed the device that my VM's disks were attached to to the SATA device rather than SCSI, all issues were eliminated. My VMs have been stable with DNSBL enabled for over 24 hours now, which has never happened before. I am sorry for going down the wrong rabbit hole initially, but I am excited that I can now use DNSBL without any issues! Thank you BBcan177 for all of your hard work on pfBlockerNG!
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<title>400 - Bad Request</title>
What URL are you using? Load the URL in the browser and see what it returns. You're getting a 400 error on connection. Check the Alerts tab if something is blocking access to that URL.
"The 400 Bad Request error is an HTTP status code that means that the request you sent to the website server, often something simple like a request to load a web page, was somehow incorrect or corrupted and the server couldn't understand it."
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Hi,
It's not an URL.
Is a WHOIS based on AS number.Thanks
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Is a WHOIS based on AS number.
So you select "whois" and enter an AS for example: AS13414 in the source field? Is this an IPv4 or v6 alias? Maybe post a screenshot…
What does this command report when you run it from the shell? You can change the ASN to the number that you configured above:
mwhois -h whois.radb.net \!gAS13414UPDATE:
You can see if its listed in DNSBL and if the host cmd responds with the DNSBL VIP, then it need to be whitelist in DNSBL.host -t A whois.radb.net -
Is a WHOIS based on AS number.
So you select "whois" and enter an AS for example: AS13414 in the source field? Is this an IPv4 or v6 alias? Maybe post a screenshot…
What does this command report when you run it from the shell? You can change the ASN to the number that you configured above:
mwhois -h whois.radb.net \!gAS13414UPDATE:
You can see if its listed in DNSBL and if the host cmd responds with the DNSBL VIP, then it need to be whitelist in DNSBL.host -t A whois.radb.netHi, is an IPV4 alias.
mwhois -h whois.radb.net \!gAS13414 ```returs: mwhois -h whois.radb.net \!gAS14061 A3848 5.101.96.0/21 5.101.104.0/22 5.101.108.0/24 5.101.109.0/24 5.101.110.0/24 5.101.111.0/24 37.139.0.0/19 45.55.32.0/19 45.55.64.0/19 45.55.96.0/22 45.55.100.0/22 45.55.104.0/22 45.55.116.0/22 45.55.120.0/22 45.55.124.0/22 45.55.128.0/17 45.55.128.0/18 45.55.192.0/18 46.101.0.0/18 46.101.64.0/22 46.101.68.0/22 46.101.72.0/21 ….. a lot more Andhost -t A whois.radb.net
whois.radb.net has address 198.108.0.18 DNSBL are disable. Thanks.   -
You're on an older version of pfSense and pfBlockerNG… I'd suggest updating to the latest versions...
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BBcan, I've read and been using most of the feeds mentioned in the first few pages of this thread. Is there an exhaustive list of feeds or any "must have" feeds that I might have missed? Thank you! 8)
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BBcan, I've read and been using most of the feeds mentioned in the first few pages of this thread. Is there an exhaustive list of feeds or any "must have" feeds that I might have missed? Thank you! 8)
I am working on the next version of pfBlockerNG v3.0 which will have a Feeds Management Tab for IPv4/v6/DNSBL feeds … plus many other features ...
Currently listing:
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IPv4: 105 Feeds
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IPv6: 9 Feeds
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DNSBL: 71 Feeds
Just working on the last bits … Hope to have it out soon....
I will post some screenshots when I can... -
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BBcan, I've read and been using most of the feeds mentioned in the first few pages of this thread. Is there an exhaustive list of feeds or any "must have" feeds that I might have missed? Thank you! 8)
I am working on the next version of pfBlockerNG v3.0 which will have a Feeds Management Tab for IPv4/v6/DNSBL feeds … plus many other features ...
Currently listing:
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IPv4: 105 Feeds
-
IPv6: 9 Feeds
-
DNSBL: 71 Feeds
Just working on the last bits … Hope to have it out soon....
I will post some screenshots when I can...Awesome! Can't wait for it's release! Thank you for your continued contribution, pfBlockerNG is already great but this is the icing on the cake!
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