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    Gateway down - no notification received via SMTP

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • M
      mrsunfire
      last edited by

      If WAN is down, it can't be sent... You need a failover connection for that.

      Netgate 6100 MAX

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • P
        phaze75
        last edited by

        Hmm, why? The LAN interface (still up) and the SMTP server are in the same private subnet. I even configured the static IP of the SMTP server instead of the FQDN to prevent any DNS related issues.

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        • johnpozJ
          johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
          last edited by johnpoz

          Do you have pfsense set to reset states on gateway down?

          system / adv / misc

          State Killing on Gateway Failure
          Flush all states when a gateway goes down The monitoring process will flush all states when a gateway goes down if this box is checked.
          

          Wonder if that could conflict with talking to your smtp server?

          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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          • P
            phaze75
            last edited by

            Nope.

            de2d99a0-b4e7-4db8-95e2-cf7b69526c09-image.png

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            • M
              mrsunfire
              last edited by

              Normally you don‘t need that. If your WAN is down, even a smtp on LAN can‘t send the mail.

              Netgate 6100 MAX

              P 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • P
                phaze75 @mrsunfire
                last edited by phaze75

                @mrsunfire said in Gateway down - no notification received via SMTP:

                Normally you don‘t need that. If your WAN is down, even a smtp on LAN can‘t send the mail.

                So why is it then possible to successfully send and receive a test notification (within the LAN) with a disabled WAN interface?

                b3f0fd60-2bee-4be9-9db8-a4de64c28f2b-image.png

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                • chpalmerC
                  chpalmer @phaze75
                  last edited by

                  @phaze75

                  Assuming that your email server logs never log the email attempt?

                  Triggering snowflakes one by one..
                  Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4590T CPU @ 2.00GHz on an M400 WG box.

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                  • P
                    phaze75 @chpalmer
                    last edited by phaze75

                    @chpalmer
                    No, the SMTP server didn't log an email attempt at the incident "Apr 27 03:45:36 kernel igb0: link state changed to DOWN". But it logged my manually triggered SMTP test notifications properly.

                    I suspect pfsense did not try to send an email at all (bug?). What supports this suspicion is that pfsense properly logged my test notification (see below), but it did not log a notification of the "igb0: link state changed to DOWN" incident:

                    Apr 27 09:04:19 php-fpm /system_advanced_notifications.php: Message sent to @****. OK

                    GertjanG 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • M
                      mrsunfire
                      last edited by

                      Under System/Advanced/Notifications you're sure you did not check the first box "Disable SMTP"? Sometimes this happens because you think check a box enables something.

                      Netgate 6100 MAX

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                      • P
                        phaze75 @mrsunfire
                        last edited by

                        @mrsunfire
                        No.
                        7cd9fd26-0a85-433a-a148-b81fbed40c8c-image.png

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                        • stephenw10S
                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                          last edited by

                          Do you see notifications when the WAN comes back up?

                          Do you see gateway alarms logged when the WAN is down? If you just disable the WAN removing the gateway monitor on it I don't believe you will see an alert.

                          Steve

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                          • P
                            phaze75 @stephenw10
                            last edited by phaze75

                            @stephenw10 said in Gateway down - no notification received via SMTP:

                            Do you see notifications when the WAN comes back up?

                            No.

                            Do you see gateway alarms logged when the WAN is down?

                            Yes, see my first post. The first line of the log contains the gateway alarm.

                            If you just disable the WAN removing the gateway monitor on it I don't believe you will see an alert.

                            That is clear. I just disabled the WAN manually to prove that SMTP (test) notifications can still be sent by pfsense even if the WAN adapter is down/disabled.

                            I suspect there might be an issue of pfsense preventing a gateway alarm to trigger the corresponding SMTP notification.

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                            • stephenw10S
                              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                              last edited by

                              You don't have gateway action disabled in the gateway setup?

                              Though I would still expect the alarm to trigger an alert in that case. Not sure I've ever tested that though.

                              Steve

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                              • P
                                phaze75 @stephenw10
                                last edited by

                                @stephenw10 said in Gateway down - no notification received via SMTP:

                                You don't have gateway action disabled in the gateway setup?

                                No. See below.

                                e2d1f2c1-96f7-497f-ae4b-0d7e51428e89-image.png

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                                • P
                                  phaze75 @stephenw10
                                  last edited by

                                  @stephenw10 So, where do we go from here? Should I file a bug?

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                                  • GertjanG
                                    Gertjan @phaze75
                                    last edited by

                                    I guess this is it :
                                    @phaze75 said in Gateway down - no notification received via SMTP:

                                    I suspect pfsense did not try to send an email at all (bug?)

                                    I took a look at what happens when a gateway (WAN) goes down.
                                    I'm pretty sure that there are no mail notifications attempts in that case.

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

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                                    • johnpozJ
                                      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                                      last edited by

                                      This is kind of been a gray area for a while - I am not aware of any docs that spell out what triggers a notification.

                                      Would be a nice if there was some doc listing what exactly will trigger a smtp notification... Better yet would be a way to toggle different notifications on or off..

                                      Notification of wan down is prob never thought of since more than likely smtp notification would be going to outside smtp server. I just use a "free" outside monitoring service that send me email when it can not ping my wan IP..

                                      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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                                      • GertjanG
                                        Gertjan
                                        last edited by Gertjan

                                        @phaze75
                                        /etc/inc/gwlb.inc - line https://github.com/pfsense/pfsense/blob/30335336358db3bcdc0ede634a4f81b7f3273c7b/src/etc/inc/gwlb.inc#L120
                                        add

                                        		notify_all_remote("WAN went down (and when I receive this, it will be up again !)");
                                        

                                        This part of the file will now look like :

                                        ....
                                        	if (!$gateway['action_disable']) {
                                        		$params .= "-C \"{$alarm_cmd}\" ";	/* Command to run on alarm */
                                        		notify_all_remote("WAN went down !");
                                        	}
                                        ....
                                        
                                        Works for me ^^
                                        I ripped out the WAN cable - counted to 35, put it back in .... 
                                        The logs mentioned a mail being send - several, actually - my DynDNS's also kicked in.
                                        I received also :
                                        

                                        Notifications in this message: 1

                                        11:22:06 WAN went down (and when I receive this, it will be up again !)

                                        
                                        Btw : I'm not advising you to mess up your pfSense ;)
                                        
                                        
                                        @johnpoz said in [Gateway down \- no notification received via SMTP](/post/840825):
                                        > Would be a nice if there was some doc listing what exactly will trigger a smtp notification... Better yet would be a way to toggle different notifications on or off..
                                        
                                        +1 !

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

                                        P 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                        • P
                                          phaze75 @Gertjan
                                          last edited by

                                          @Gertjan said in Gateway down - no notification received via SMTP:

                                          Btw : I'm not advising you to mess up your pfSense ;)

                                          Fiddling around with the code/scripts will bring me exactly there. So I will refrain from leaving the standard. Thanks anyway!

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                                          • johnpozJ
                                            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                                            last edited by

                                            If you just want an easy way to get notified when your wan goes offline - other than your users screaming at you ;) There are many a FREE place that will do this for you..

                                            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

                                            GertjanG 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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