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    PFsense Blocking Some Traffic

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • N
      noob @noob
      last edited by

      It doesn't flush/reset all states (box is unticked) and I've disabled gateway monitoring.
      But that was more of a side quest.....
      Anyone got any ideas about the original issue? It's still happening.
      Not being able to watch virgin TV go app on my android TV box is a killer (for the Mrs) and if I can't resolve it I'll have to rip out pfsense and ditch it.

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      • N
        noob
        last edited by

        Anyone got any other ideas?

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        • T
          tim.mcmanus @noob
          last edited by

          @noob said in PFsense Blocking Some Traffic:

          Anyone got any other ideas?

          Yeah, a few questions:

          You are saying that your configuration is: modem->switch->pfSense? And other devices are connected to the switch? Just want to confirm this.

          What or where is the gateway monitor? Is it the modem? Google's DNS servers? Someplace else?

          The issues you're experiencing are more than likely DNS-related issues. How do you have DHCP and DNS configured in pfSense? Please post screen shots.

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          • N
            noob
            last edited by

            Yes virgin superhub3 into switch. Pfsense into switch (vlan'd) so all traffic passes through pfsense.
            DHCP is handled exclusively by pfsense.
            DNS is also via pfsense.
            Pfsense currently has virgin media's own DNS servers set.... 194.168.4.100 and 194.168.8.100
            These were filled in automatically (not by me)
            I have tried manually changing them to Google's DNS servers 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4
            Same issues remained.

            Trying travertine and pinging the servers that wouldn't load via wife's phone work fine when pinging/tracing via pfsense.

            If it's a DNS issue why would the websites load on some devices but not others??
            I'll post screen shots later as I've had to take pfsense down for now

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            • N
              noob @tim.mcmanus
              last edited by

              @tim-mcmanus 0_1545600362573_Interfaces.jpg 0_1545600370051_DHCP.jpg
              i hope these screen shots contain the info you requested?
              the DNS servers listed have all been automatically assigned (i assume via DHCP from the modem)

              the gateway listed, belongs to virgin media and again has been automatically filled in, however this is not my modems public IP address.
              i had to disable gateway monitoring as it was throwing up false information, claiming my gateway was offline yet i was still online with no issues (i'm guessing because it was monitoring virgin media's gateway and not my public IP?)

              MTU is automatically set to 1500 on both wan/lan.

              my virgin media superhub 3 is in modem only mode so DHCP is not active, neither is NAT or any form of firewalling

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              • T
                tim.mcmanus
                last edited by

                Thanks for posting those screen shots.

                What I didn't see was which DNS servers your DHCP server is giving out.

                Also, when you say pfSense is doing DNS, are you running the DNS resolver?

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                • N
                  noob @tim.mcmanus
                  last edited by

                  @tim-mcmanus 0_1545601740130_services.jpg 0_1545601744691_dns servers.jpg
                  the DNS resolver is running (i have not changed this, so default configuration must be to have this on)

                  did you need a screen shot of the DNS resolver general settings page?

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                  • T
                    tim.mcmanus
                    last edited by

                    No, this is good. Can you go to Diagnostics->DNS Lookup and run some queries for the sites you are having problems with? I am interested to see if Resolver (127.0.0.1) is timing out on any of those lookups.

                    What can happen is this: Your ISP may be blocking DNS lookups to the root servers, which pfSense would normally do. That delay can cause a client timeout when looking for a site, and that client won't be able to get to that site temporarily. You'd need to do a second lookup, and then the query would be caches for any additional client lookups.

                    What's happening in your situation, if I understand correctly, only some devices have a problem, and it's sporadic. It could be a symptom of lookups failing or timing out, and then the next device gets a working/cached DNS result from a subsequent and successful lookup.

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                    • N
                      noob @tim.mcmanus
                      last edited by noob

                      @tim-mcmanus

                      alt text
                      alt text
                      alt text

                      all the DNS lookups i have tried show similar results, 127.0.0.1 being quicker than the others

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                      • T
                        tim.mcmanus
                        last edited by

                        When you have a device that cannot connect, run a DNS query from that device.

                        This is an elusive issue.

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                        • johnpozJ
                          johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                          last edited by johnpoz

                          Its going to be VERY elusive if you have such high packet loss.. Sorry but dns is going to be crapshoot over such a connection because its going to be hit or miss..

                          Most dns is always going to be UDP.. So you throw the ball over the fence and hope the person catches it but you don't know... Unless you get an answer - and which such a high loss connection he might of answered but you never get it.

                          What is the average packet loss your seeing... Look on your quality graph..

                          0_1545648946537_quaity.png

                          And yeah pulling from a local cache is always going to be way faster then doing an actual query to some remote NS...

                          With such high packet loss - I would expect horrible everything.. Sure tcp will retrans, but its going to be a horrible experience overall with such high packet loss if it actually is loss and just not your gateway answering pings... Do a sniff on your wan traffic.. Are you seeing lots of retransmits?

                          An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                          If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                          Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
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                          • N
                            noob @johnpoz
                            last edited by

                            @johnpoz the packet loss from another post was a red herring, pfsense was not monitoring my modem, it was monitoring virgin media's gateway which is way out of my control.
                            i setup "think broadband" to monitor my public IP (and so monitoring my own gateway) and packet loss was 0.11% max
                            i have disabled pfsense gateway monitor, as it was monitoring the wrong thing and giving irrelevant into, and was easier than getting pfsense to monitor the correct gateway

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                            • johnpozJ
                              johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                              last edited by johnpoz

                              Well if you believe the problem is dns related.. look at your timing and any loss in unbound... Dump your stats

                              unbound-control -c /var/unbound/unbound.conf stats_noreset

                              What is your recursion time average, etc..
                              What sort of % hit on cache are you getting, etc. etc.
                              if your not getting a high amount of cache hits, you prob want to turn on prefetch and zero ttl. These can help with problems with long recursion times and or timeouts.

                              total.recursion.time.avg=0.158804
                              total.recursion.time.median=0.0505461

                              total.num.queries=126887
                              total.num.cachehits=110479

                              So Im at about 87% cache hit rate...

                              Look at the stats page in the gui.
                              Status / DNS Resolver

                              Are you seeing timeouts? You really should have all Zeros

                              An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                              If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                              Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                              SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                              • T
                                tim.mcmanus @noob
                                last edited by

                                @noob said in PFsense Blocking Some Traffic:

                                @johnpoz the packet loss from another post was a red herring, pfsense was not monitoring my modem, it was monitoring virgin media's gateway which is way out of my control.
                                i setup "think broadband" to monitor my public IP (and so monitoring my own gateway) and packet loss was 0.11% max
                                i have disabled pfsense gateway monitor, as it was monitoring the wrong thing and giving irrelevant into, and was easier than getting pfsense to monitor the correct gateway

                                I actually have pfSense monitoring a point on the Internet, not my modem. When I am experiencing issues, I want to test a point off of my ISP's network. Yes, on occasion it will trigger some false-positives, but generally speaking, I won't "feel" that issue on the network. When I am suspicious that my network is having issues, then I can check the monitor to see if/what the loss is.

                                If you want to monitor the quality of your connection, try this smokeping tool: https://www.dslreports.com/smokeping

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                                • johnpozJ
                                  johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                                  last edited by

                                  heheeh - yeah I think I know how to monitor my connection... But thanks ;)

                                  An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                                  If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                                  Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                                  SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                                  • T
                                    tim.mcmanus @johnpoz
                                    last edited by

                                    @johnpoz said in PFsense Blocking Some Traffic:

                                    heheeh - yeah I think I know how to monitor my connection... But thanks ;)

                                    Not you, the other guy. Although, I didn't want to assume... ;)

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                                    • N
                                      noob @johnpoz
                                      last edited by noob

                                      @johnpoz total.recursion.time.avg=0.125316
                                      total.recursion.time.median=0.0505173
                                      just booted up pfsense as it took it down again last night
                                      total.num.queries=55
                                      total.num.cachehits=4

                                      i have just turned prefetch on to see what difference it makes

                                      DNS Reseolver timeout A, timeout AAAA and timeout other are all zero's

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                                      • johnpozJ
                                        johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                                        last edited by

                                        Well stats right after it boots not going to point to any sort of problem.

                                        An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                                        If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                                        Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                                        SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                                        • N
                                          noob @johnpoz
                                          last edited by johnpoz

                                          @johnpoz how long would you like me to leave it before re-posting stats?
                                          hours, days? i dont know how long ill need to collect data for before it becomes of any use for fault diagnosis

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                                          • johnpozJ
                                            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                                            last edited by johnpoz

                                            After you have been seeing a dns related problem.

                                            Total number of queries 55.. There is nothing on your network doing anything at that point.. Notice mine was 126,000

                                            An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                                            If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                                            Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                                            SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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