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    PFSense crashes with page fault/kernel panic on VMWare

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • F Offline
      Frogg
      last edited by

      I had something similar on VMWare 6.5, VM was crashing randomly between some mins and some hours.

      It was a bug on the virtual network drivers:

      Try to change the driver VMXNET3 by your network card in your VM network configuration

      I hope it will solve your trouble.

      G 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • jimpJ Offline
        jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
        last edited by

        Usually random instability on VMWare is from:

        • Running an outdated version of ESX incompatible with the base OS
          -OR, more likely:
        • The VM is using an outdated VM Hardware version. Shut down the VM and upgrade the compatibility level to match the latest available, then start it again.

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        G 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • G Offline
          geovaneg @stephenw10
          last edited by

          @stephenw10

          Hi Steve,

          Thanks for the post.
          This was the first crash with this machine (let's call it VPN3-server) after updating PfSense to version 2.4.5-RELEASE-p1. I updated a machine just in the hope of solving an unexpected crash and reboot problem that occurred with that machine and another identical machine, also a VPN server (VPN4-server).
          If you think it's relevant, I can try to recover information from the previous crash of the other machine (VPN4-Server). Information from the VPN3-server machine, unfortunately I didn't save it. Do you think it's important? Do you have anything specific that you would like me to recover from the previous crash?

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          • G Offline
            geovaneg @Frogg
            last edited by geovaneg

            @Frogg said in PFSense crashes with page fault/kernel panic on VMWare:

            I had something similar on VMWare 6.5, VM was crashing randomly between some mins and some hours.
            It was a bug on the virtual network drivers:
            Try to change the driver VMXNET3 by your network card in your VM network configuration
            I hope it will solve your trouble.

            Hi Frogg,

            Thanks for the tip, I'll keep this trick up my sleeve ;-)
            But initially, I intended to keep the paravirtualized driver for performance reasons.

            Thank you.

            Geovane

            F 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • G Offline
              geovaneg @stephenw10
              last edited by

              This post is deleted!
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              • G Offline
                geovaneg @jimp
                last edited by

                @jimp

                Hi Jimp,

                Thanks for the post.

                Your hypotheses are interesting, let's explore them.
                I talked to the virtualization infrastructure team and I have some answers:

                Our version of VMWare is ESXi, 6.0.0, 5050593, it's not really up to date, but I didn't think that was a problem.
                The hardware version of the virtual machine is 11, the last available for that version of VMWare. The configuration template used by VMWare was ā€œGeneric FreeBSD-64-Bitsā€
                The NIC is paravirtualized (VMXNET 3)
                The current disk controller is the scsi ā€œLSI Logic Parallelā€. Do you think VMWare's paravirtualized alternative would be compatible and more appropriate?

                Jimp, the hypothesis of configuration problems in the virtualization environment is interesting, but there is a situation that contradicts this possibility:

                I have another virtual PFSense with identical virtualization settings and version of PfSense that does not have this problem. Its function is only FW / GW of the wireless network and does not run VPN services. This machine has recorded almost a year of uptime in the same virtualization environment as the VPN servers that had an unexpected crash and reboot.

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                • jimpJ Offline
                  jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                  last edited by

                  FreeBSD 11.x is not supported by ESX 6.0, see https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=software&details=1&operatingSystems=232&productNames=15&page=1&display_interval=10&sortColumn=Partner&sortOrder=Asc&testConfig=16

                  And ESX 6.0 is not "not really up to date", it's ancient in terms of ESX versions. It was released over 5 years ago and went EOL over 6 months ago.

                  Update your ESX version.

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                  • G Offline
                    geovaneg @jimp
                    last edited by

                    @jimp

                    Hi Jimp,

                    I will request this for the virtualization team.

                    Thank you.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • F Offline
                      Frogg @geovaneg
                      last edited by Frogg

                      @geovaneg

                      I know this post is about 6.5 and not 6.0 but maybe you can find this intersting:
                      https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/linux-virtual-machine-crash-vmxnet3-nic-vmware-esxi-65-han-yong-lim

                      If I was you, I would get a try about changing the NIC just to test if the trouble come from there.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • G Offline
                        geovaneg @stephenw10
                        last edited by

                        @stephenw10

                        Hi Steve,

                        I didn't understand exactly what you asked for ... sorry.
                        Rush and language problems ...☺

                        I copied the lines below: "Everything between db:0:kdb.enter.default> bt and db:0:kdb.enter.default> ps"

                        Thanks

                        db:0:kdb.enter.default> bt
                        Tracing pid 12 tid 100065 td 0xfffff8000618e620
                        kdb_enter() at kdb_enter+0x3b/frame 0xfffffe0171994400
                        vpanic() at vpanic+0x19b/frame 0xfffffe0171994460
                        panic() at panic+0x43/frame 0xfffffe01719944c0
                        trap_pfault() at trap_pfault/frame 0xfffffe0171994510
                        trap_pfault() at trap_pfault+0x49/frame 0xfffffe0171994570
                        trap() at trap+0x29d/frame 0xfffffe0171994680
                        calltrap() at calltrap+0x8/frame 0xfffffe0171994680
                        --- trap 0xc, rip = 0xffffffff80e91aca, rsp = 0xfffffe0171994750, rbp = 0xfffffe01719947d0 ---
                        ip_input() at ip_input+0x5da/frame 0xfffffe01719947d0
                        netisr_dispatch_src() at netisr_dispatch_src+0xa2/frame 0xfffffe0171994820
                        ether_demux() at ether_demux+0x15b/frame 0xfffffe0171994850
                        ether_nh_input() at ether_nh_input+0x32c/frame 0xfffffe01719948b0
                        netisr_dispatch_src() at netisr_dispatch_src+0xa2/frame 0xfffffe0171994900
                        ether_input() at ether_input+0x26/frame 0xfffffe0171994920
                        vmxnet3_rxq_eof() at vmxnet3_rxq_eof+0x752/frame 0xfffffe01719949b0
                        vmxnet3_legacy_intr() at vmxnet3_legacy_intr+0xe0/frame 0xfffffe01719949e0
                        intr_event_execute_handlers() at intr_event_execute_handlers+0xe9/frame 0xfffffe0171994a20
                        ithread_loop() at ithread_loop+0xe7/frame 0xfffffe0171994a70
                        fork_exit() at fork_exit+0x83/frame 0xfffffe0171994ab0
                        fork_trampoline() at fork_trampoline+0xe/frame 0xfffffe0171994ab0
                        --- trap 0, rip = 0, rsp = 0, rbp = 0 ---
                        db:0:kdb.enter.default> ps

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                        • stephenw10S Online
                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                          last edited by

                          Ok, that's pretty generic. No way to pin down stuff in netisr_dispatch really.

                          The thing to check is if other crashes have the same or very similar backtraces and panic strings.

                          However, and JimP said, ESXi 6.0 does't support FreeBSD 11 and hence pfSense 2.4. You really need to get that upgraded before doing anything else.

                          Steve

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