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    How to prioritize traffic on a single interface over others?

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

      Run a packet capture for SIP traffic against a phone IP unless it fails. It might be large so filter for just the SIP traffic.

      Is it dropping the call due to some timeout or is one side intentionally closing it.

      Steve

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        pfguy2018 @stephenw10
        last edited by pfguy2018

        @stephenw10 Will do, and hope to be lucky enough to catch one of the call drops. Like I said, the call drops inevitably are accompanied by loss of connection for everything on the network, and gateway time outs/packet loss. So I am not sure how productive this will be, although I am certainly willing to give it a shot at this point.

        JKnottJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • JKnottJ
          JKnott @pfguy2018
          last edited by

          @pfguy2018 said in How to prioritize traffic on a single interface over others?:

          Like I said, the call drops inevitably are accompanied by loss of connection for everything

          Well, that's your problem. Dropped calls is just the symptom. When I had that problem the way I often first noticed it was the Internet radio station I was listening to would stop. I'd then pick up my phone to verify I had lost dial tone. You have a problem somewhere between you and the ISP. It could be a bad cable as I had. It took the cable company a while to locate the problem, but they eventually did.

          PfSense running on Qotom mini PC
          i5 CPU, 4 GB memory, 32 GB SSD & 4 Intel Gb Ethernet ports.
          UniFi AC-Lite access point

          I haven't lost my mind. It's around here...somewhere...

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          • stephenw10S
            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
            last edited by stephenw10

            Ah yes I missed that nugget of information!

            Then, yes, forget traffic shaping. If everything loses connectivity then check the system, gateway, resolver, firewall logs at that point and see what's happening.

            Reviewing the thread I don't see if we've confirmed you're running 2.4.5p1?
            Because 2.4.5 has a known bug that presents like this.

            Steve

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              pfguy2018
              last edited by

              Yes, running 2.4.5 p1.
              Looks like another call to the ISP is in order

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              • P
                pfguy2018
                last edited by

                One more curious thing, that I was hoping one of you could explain for me:

                The pfSense gateway monitor is showing frequent packet loss (see pics that I posted earlier in this thread). However, I have noticed that in the last few days, at the same moment where pfSense gateway monitor is displaying packet loss, PingPlotter (being run on my computer) is often NOT displaying packet loss at the same time and pings are occurring as expected. (but sometimes there is packet loss on PingPlotter at the same moment as on the pfSense gateway monitor). How to account for this discrepancy?

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                • stephenw10S
                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                  last edited by

                  Are ping plotter and the pfSense gateway monitoring using the same target?

                  pfSense uses the gateway IP be default but it looks like you may not be since it's logging ~10ms which would be high for that.

                  Steve

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                    pfguy2018 @stephenw10
                    last edited by

                    @stephenw10 pfSense is using the the gateway IP. PingPlotter is pinging Google and one of my VOIP provider's servers.

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                    • stephenw10S
                      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                      last edited by

                      Ah well they could respond differently then. ISP gateways in particular can be poor at responding to ping under load. They are not obliged to respond at all.

                      Steve

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                        pfguy2018
                        last edited by

                        Interesting. Does that mean that the PingPlotter results are a better indicator of the status of my gateway? Perhaps I should be pinging a Google address instead from the gateway?

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                        • stephenw10S
                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                          last edited by

                          Yes they probably are and, yes, settings the gateway monitoring target to something external will give you a better record of actual connectivity.

                          Steve

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                            pfguy2018 @stephenw10
                            last edited by

                            @stephenw10 Any idea why the ping times to the ISP gateway are higher than what you would expect? (By the way, what would be more typical ping times for that?)

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                            • stephenw10S
                              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                              last edited by

                              It's very variable, depends entirely who your ISP is and how they are connected. 10ms is high for most cable/fibre/vdsl connections but not for, say, older adsl and would be low for a wireless provider.

                              Steve

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                                pfguy2018
                                last edited by

                                Hmm. My ISP is cable. Makes me wonder if there is something there that could be a clue to the packet loss I am experiencing? At any rate, I have changed the gateway monitor address to an OPEN DNS address 208.67.222.222. And have done the same with PingPlotter to see how they will compare.

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                                • stephenw10S
                                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                  last edited by

                                  There are a lot of variables, it's not necessarily a sign that there's an issue.
                                  A better thing to look for is a significant change the ping time that has no good explanation.

                                  Steve

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                                    pfguy2018
                                    last edited by

                                    OK, so now I am using an OpenDNS address for the gateway monitor IP and for PingPlotter (from my computer). The gateway monitor continues to show intermittent packet loss (like my pictures earlier in the thread), but there is not corresponding packet loss being shown in PingPlotter at the same time, even though they are going to the same IP address. Does that make any sense? Not sure which graph to believe.

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                                    • stephenw10S
                                      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                      last edited by

                                      With the shaping still in place or have you removed that?

                                      If might be in a different queue if it's still there.

                                      Steve

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                                        pfguy2018
                                        last edited by

                                        Shaping not active - I removed it yesterday.

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                                          pfguy2018 @pfguy2018
                                          last edited by

                                          I just checked the graphs again, and now seeing packet loss on both graphs that matches exactly as expected.
                                          Next stop - arguing with my ISP I guess.

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                                          • stephenw10S
                                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                            last edited by

                                            Yes, unless you are saturating the connection you should not be seeing packet loss.

                                            Steve

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