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    Every couple of weeks pfSense completly stops responding?

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • J
      JohnnyBeGood
      last edited by

      Hello,

      This happened about 2 weeks ago where in the morning I did not had internet on any of the devices on my network and initially I was thinking it was my modem, rebooted it but no joy. Tried accessing pfSense GUI but got no response. As soon as I rebooted pfSense (pressing power button once) I got internet back and everything was back to normal.
      Today evening out of nowhere same issue. Obviously only rebooting pfSense fixed it and I was able to get online and access GUI.
      How can I troubleshoot and figure out what is causing this?
      Logs only show what happened after the reboot but nothing before.

      TIA!

      I like to fill my tub up with water, then turn the shower on and act like I'm in a submarine that's been hit!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • GertjanG
        Gertjan
        last edited by

        Hi,

        If the problems wasn't a software issue, chances are good that you'll be having "dirty disk" issues very sson : hitting the reset or power button isn't a clean shutdown.
        Do an fsck after reboot every time you have to pull the plug.

        Some thoughts :
        Use an UPS.
        Set up an external log collector.
        Open at least a SSH connection - or better : console access and leave it open. See what it captures.
        Use a tool like Munin (many other exists) so you can follow memory usage, disk usage, processor usage file descriptors, etc etc on a close really time manor. Example.
        During testing : disable/remove all packages : just keep a clean pfSense.

        Keep in mind that the software part (pfSense) can run for month if not years (if you don't upgrade, which is a bad choice). Mine runs on an old (10 years ?) former, stripped down Dell desktop PC. Classic hard disk. Never saw a crash ...

        No "help me" PM's please. Use the forum, the community will thank you.
        Edit : and where are the logs ??

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • J
          JohnnyBeGood
          last edited by

          Thanks for the reply!
          pfSense is already on UPS and I just setup syslog to my other Ubuntu server but I'm not sure what from these log would tell me the cause of no response?

          root@ts-ubuntu:~# ls -la /var/log/pfsense.mydomain.net/
          total 568
          drwxr-xr-x  2 syslog syslog   4096 Feb 16 13:57 .
          drwxrwxr-x 20 root   syslog   4096 Feb 16 13:48 ..
          -rw-r-----  1 syslog adm      2724 Feb 16 14:13 dhcpd.log
          -rw-r-----  1 syslog adm       440 Feb 16 14:13 dhcpleases.log
          -rw-r-----  1 syslog adm     46517 Feb 16 14:14 filterlog.log
          -rw-r-----  1 syslog adm       917 Feb 16 14:10 .log
          -rw-r-----  1 syslog adm    496753 Feb 16 14:14 nginx.log
          -rw-r-----  1 syslog adm       261 Feb 16 13:48 php-fpm.log
          root@ts-ubuntu:~#
          

          Can you please explain this "Open at least a SSH connection - or better : console access and leave it open. See what it captures." I'm in the shell in ubuntu but I'm not seeing changes as they happen?

          I like to fill my tub up with water, then turn the shower on and act like I'm in a submarine that's been hit!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • T
            tim.mcmanus
            last edited by

            Are you using RealTek NICs?

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • stephenw10S
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              When it stops responding on the GUI is it completely unresponsive? I.e. cannot ping it, cannot SSH into, the direct console is dead?

              What hardware is this? What pfSense version?

              Steve

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • J
                JohnnyBeGood
                last edited by

                dmesg shows "<RTL8251 1000BASE-T media interface>" so it is RealTek and its been working without this issue for few years now in a Shuttle DS437

                pfSense 2.4.4-RELEASE-p2 (amd64)

                I like to fill my tub up with water, then turn the shower on and act like I'm in a submarine that's been hit!

                T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • T
                  tim.mcmanus @JohnnyBeGood
                  last edited by

                  @johnnybegood said in Every couple of weeks pfSense completly stops responding?:

                  dmesg shows "<RTL8251 1000BASE-T media interface>" so it is RealTek and its been working without this issue for few years now in a Shuttle DS437

                  pfSense 2.4.4-RELEASE-p2 (amd64)

                  I am incredibly biased against ReakTek NICs. I've had them take down countless pfSense/ESXi boxes over the years. So I tend to stay away from them.

                  I had to ask because that was usually the RC in my random lockups.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • J
                    JohnnyBeGood
                    last edited by

                    Ok, if it would be a regular desktop I would put Intel NICs but this is as it looks AIO without option to swap out anything 🙄

                    I like to fill my tub up with water, then turn the shower on and act like I'm in a submarine that's been hit!

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • stephenw10S
                      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                      last edited by

                      You might try the alternative Realtek driver:
                      https://forum.netgate.com/topic/135850/official-realtek-driver-binary-1-95-for-2-4-4-release

                      That has resolved similar issues for some.

                      Steve

                      J 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • johnpozJ
                        johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                        last edited by

                        You happen to be running arpwatch?

                        Not saying that is it, but had a problem on my sg4860.. After installing arpwatch.. All of sudden could not access, no gui, no ssh and even console just nothing.. Had to power cycle..

                        This happened a few times... I uninstalled arpwatch, and never happened again.. So if your running arpwatch - try removing it for a few weeks and see if your problem goes away.

                        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

                        J 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • J
                          JohnnyBeGood @stephenw10
                          last edited by

                          @stephenw10 I'm hesitant to mess with the drivers since it was working good for a long time.

                          I like to fill my tub up with water, then turn the shower on and act like I'm in a submarine that's been hit!

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • J
                            JohnnyBeGood @johnpoz
                            last edited by

                            @johnpoz said in Every couple of weeks pfSense completly stops responding?:

                            You happen to be running arpwatch?

                            No, I never used arpwatch ☹

                            I like to fill my tub up with water, then turn the shower on and act like I'm in a submarine that's been hit!

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • stephenw10S
                              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                              last edited by

                              So how many times has it done this?

                              Did it start after you upgraded perhaps? Or made some other change?

                              Just how dead is it when it stops? Does the console still respond?

                              I would still try that driver myself. It has helped a lot of people who were seeing issues with Realtek NICs. If you can't swap out the Realtek for a real NIC of course! But with a locked NIC you usually still see traffic on the other NICs and the console remains responsive.

                              Steve

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • J
                                JohnnyBeGood
                                last edited by

                                This is 2d time with same issue. No access to GUI, does not responds to ping and every device on the network can't see each other.
                                Last upgrade was to v.2.4.4 and I did not notice any issues afterwards. This started out of nowhere and I did not made any changes nor did I installed any new packages so I'm confused. Remote log files don't have any useful info http://prntscr.com/mmupuy

                                I do have really old HD in it though. Can that be an issue? Should I upgrade to a small SSD?
                                If I remember correctly, a while back I read that pfSense once its running it loads everything into the memory and does not use HD?

                                I like to fill my tub up with water, then turn the shower on and act like I'm in a submarine that's been hit!

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • johnpozJ
                                  johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                                  last edited by johnpoz

                                  @johnnybegood said in Every couple of weeks pfSense completly stops responding?:

                                  every device on the network can't see each other.

                                  That has nothing to do with pfsense.. Your router/gateway has ZERO to do with clients talking to each other.. Your router is how you get off the network, to a different L3.. How a client talks to another client on the same L2 has zero to do with the L3 router.

                                  So unless your box failed in such a fashion that is was flooding the network with so much traffic that prevents others from talking.. You can turn pfsense off, unplug it from the network and box A can still talk to B.. Only at such time that their dhcp lease expires and the dhcp server is not there (pfsense) would it matter, or if they were trying to resolve a name and pfsense is not there to resolve it, etc.

                                  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

                                  J 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                  • J
                                    JohnnyBeGood @johnpoz
                                    last edited by

                                    @johnpoz said in Every couple of weeks pfSense completly stops responding?:

                                    So unless your box failed in such a fashion that is was flooding the network with so much traffic that prevents others from talking.. You can turn pfsense off, unplug it from the network and box A can still talk to B.. Only at such time that their dhcp lease expires and the dhcp server is not there (pfsense) would it matter, or if they were trying to resolve a name and pfsense is not there to resolve it, etc.

                                    Thanks for the explanation, makes perfect sense.

                                    I remember that pfSense was not responding to pings nor I could get GUI to respond.

                                    I like to fill my tub up with water, then turn the shower on and act like I'm in a submarine that's been hit!

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • johnpozJ
                                      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                                      last edited by

                                      @johnnybegood said in Every couple of weeks pfSense completly stops responding?:

                                      I remember that pfSense was not responding to pings nor I could get GUI to respond.

                                      Ok that has nothing to do with box A pinging box B on your network - if that is not working then you got something more wrong than just pfsense locking up..

                                      So either it failed in spectacular fashion and is flooding your network with crap which prevents anyone else from talking.. That would be RARE!!! Or yeah it failed hard, if you can not get to console then yeah something major wrong..

                                      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

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • J
                                        JohnnyBeGood
                                        last edited by

                                        I've tried pings from box A to pfSense and box B to pfsense. No response.
                                        After I did reboot (power button once) 3 days ago its working normal like before. I think I should get SSD to rule out problem with my old HD.

                                        I like to fill my tub up with water, then turn the shower on and act like I'm in a submarine that's been hit!

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • johnpozJ
                                          johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                                          last edited by

                                          And did you ping from A to B? ;)

                                          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

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • J
                                            JohnnyBeGood
                                            last edited by

                                            Now I question my self if I did :)

                                            I like to fill my tub up with water, then turn the shower on and act like I'm in a submarine that's been hit!

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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