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    pfSense WAN connection hangs after about a minute

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • stephenw10S
      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
      last edited by

      Some aliases with fqdns being resolved?

      Though those all look like typical stuff you might have behind pfSense.

      You have Unbound configured in resolving mode? I could just about imagine something at your ISP is blocking you based on those DNS requests. The ISPs router will just be using the DNS servers supplied by the ISP, that would be a difference when using pfSense.
      You could try switching Unbound to forwarding mode and checking 'Allow DNS server list to be overridden by DHCP/PPP on WAN' in System > General Setup.

      Steve

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      • johnpozJ
        johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
        last edited by

        @stephenw10 said in pfSense WAN connection hangs after about a minute:

        I could just about imagine something at your ISP is blocking you based on those DNS requests.

        Yeah I agree something is blocking dns, tries udp - not working so tries tcp..

        I didn't notice anything bad in the queries - just a freaking shit ton of them.. 870 queries in 1 ms?? How many clients do you have behind pfsense?

        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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        • F
          fulkren
          last edited by

          I'll follow your suggestions on getting a new PCAP. I'm getting a small switch in place with just my client laptop and pfSense connected to it to minimize extraneous traffic for the PCAP.

          As for clients, this is just a home network so 6-8 PCs, a couple of appliances, and a few mobile devices.

          I was running DNS to Cloudflare (1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1), have the DNS Forwarder disabled, and the DNS Resolver enabled. Apparently I unchecked 'enable forwarding mode' by mistake somewhere in my testing yesterday. I'll fix that and change to using the default IP specified DNS servers for my next test (I've tested it before and it didn't help, but at this point I'm eliminating as many variables as I can). DNS Resolver will have Network Interfaces set to LAN and Localhost, with Outgoing Network Interface set to WAN.

          I'll get a new PCAP completed and uploaded as soon as I can.

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          • F
            fulkren
            last edited by

            Success! My one laptop test worked. pfSense is up and running. After testing for 10-15 minutes with just one laptop I put it back on the main switch and so far so good.

            The only thing I couldn't do was get a good pcap of the WAN link coming up. As suggested, I rebooted pfSense, cleared the States, re-logged into the GUI and then started a promiscuous pcap with full details up to 10,000 packets on the WAN interface with the WAN cable unplugged. I then plugged the cable in and worked with it until it stopped (or in this case, didn't stop).

            When I stopped the pcap after a few minutes, I only had three packets listed. I've pasted the three packets in below, but why only three IPv6 packets? I should be seeing a lot more than this shouldn't I? Or does plugging the cable in somehow disrupt the capture?

            No. Time Source Destination Protocol Length Info
            1 0.000000 :: ff02::16 ICMPv6 100 Multicast Listener Report Message v2

            Frame 1: 100 bytes on wire (800 bits), 100 bytes captured (800 bits)
            Null/Loopback
            Internet Protocol Version 6, Src: ::, Dst: ff02::16
            Internet Control Message Protocol v6

            No. Time Source Destination Protocol Length Info
            2 0.152920 :: ff02::1:ff1e:22f0 ICMPv6 76 Neighbor Solicitation for fe80::2e0:67ff:fe1e:22f0

            Frame 2: 76 bytes on wire (608 bits), 76 bytes captured (608 bits)
            Null/Loopback
            Internet Protocol Version 6, Src: ::, Dst: ff02::1:ff1e:22f0
            Internet Control Message Protocol v6

            No. Time Source Destination Protocol Length Info
            3 0.636174 :: ff02::16 ICMPv6 80 Multicast Listener Report Message v2

            Frame 3: 80 bytes on wire (640 bits), 80 bytes captured (640 bits)
            Null/Loopback
            Internet Protocol Version 6, Src: ::, Dst: ff02::16
            Internet Control Message Protocol v6

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            • stephenw10S
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              So after switching back to DNS forwarding mode and using Clouflare for upstream you are no longer being blocked after a few minutes?
              Are you using DNS over TLS for that?

              Steve

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              • F
                fulkren
                last edited by

                That's correct except for the Cloudflare part. Right now it's just using the ISP DNS provided by the PPPoE connection. I'll try Cloudflare and DNS over TLS again this evening and see if that affects anything.

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                • johnpozJ
                  johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                  last edited by

                  So it was never that your connection was down, its your resolution of dns was not work.. Which is why somestuff worked and other stuff didn't

                  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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                  • F
                    fulkren
                    last edited by

                    Not entirely. While DNS was definitely part of the issue, the WAN connection did appear to stop returning packets. For example, pings from a box on the LAN to a public IP like 8.8.8.8 would start timing out; as would pings to any other public IPs. I would initially get DNS resolution and traffic, but after a short period (15-60 seconds) both DNS resolution and ICMP responses would stop.

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                    • F
                      fulkren
                      last edited by

                      I re-enabled Cloudflare DNS+TLS and it's still stable. I'm beginning to think it was that Enable Forwarding Mode checkbox that caused the issue (will test this later when the rest of the household isn't online). I wonder if all the root traffic was convincing my ISP that I was hosting a DNS server and they blocked my connection. I'll report back if I find out anything further, but I'm happy that the Vault is up and working like it should be.

                      Thank you both for taking the time to look at my issue and for providing both solid suggestions and feedback. It really helped to have some experienced eyes on the problem.

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                      • johnpozJ
                        johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                        last edited by

                        @fulkren said in pfSense WAN connection hangs after about a minute:

                        I'm beginning to think it was that Enable Forwarding Mode checkbox that caused the issue

                        Huh?? When you forward you do not talk to roots..

                        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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                        • F
                          fulkren
                          last edited by

                          Sorry, I should have been more specific. I was postulating that accidentally having Enable Forwarding Mode disabled (unchecked) was causing the issue.

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                          • johnpozJ
                            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                            last edited by

                            I would check with your ISP - I personally would be livid and looking for another ISP if my isp was interfering in my dns traffic like that.

                            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

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

                              Yeah, that should not happen. But that is what I was postulating above.

                              Steve

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                              • AKEGECA
                                AKEGEC @johnpoz
                                last edited by

                                @johnpoz said in pfSense WAN connection hangs after about a minute:

                                I would check with your ISP - I personally would be livid and looking for another ISP if my isp was interfering in my dns traffic like that.

                                I love when you speak from your heart. Usually that's the truth.
                                In fact ISP use your DNS queries to make a profile of you, it can be use for you (adds) or against you (if you sue ISP). On top of that they reduced costs by participate on Google Global Cache or GGC program for Youtube, Netflix, and so on.
                                Just block their GGC cache and you will get a faster speed.

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