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    Traffic graph - constant sawtooth

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
    sawtooth
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    • H
      heper @denver
      last edited by

      @denver status->traffic graph should show which IP/Host is generating that trafic

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      • JKnottJ
        JKnott
        last edited by

        What you may be seeing is TCP flow control in action. The way it works is it starts up slow and gradually ramps up until packets are lost and assumes the loss is due to congestion. It then drops down and ramps up again. Repeat and rinse. I haven't observed that myself, so I'm not quite sure what it looks like.

        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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        • johnpozJ
          johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
          last edited by johnpoz

          run a speedtest or something - do you see same grass type traffic?

          example

          speedtest.png

          Are you looking to track down what is doing the low level traffic? For example here is my dmz vlan - I have a pihole doing dns, ntp server serving to the internet.. So while none of those generate a lot of traffic - it is not a constant sort of flow..

          dmz.png

          If your not actually doing anything - that seems to be some high amount of grass..

          You might want to take a sniff, diagnostic - packet capture on that interface and see what sort of traffic your seeing. Could be something generating a bunch of noise.. Unwanted multicast, broadcasts, etc. 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

          H 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • H
            heper @johnpoz
            last edited by

            @johnpoz said in Traffic graph - constant sawtooth:

            You might want to take a sniff, diagnostic - packet capture on that interface and see what sort of traffic your seeing. Could be something generating a bunch of noise.. Unwanted multicast, broadcasts, etc. etc..

            a megabit worth of broadcasts on a home iot network ? there must be some messed up shit being sold these days

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

              @heper said in Traffic graph - constant sawtooth:

              there must be some messed up shit being sold these days

              Yeah ;) That could be a bunch of devices all sending out ssdp every couple of seconds.. Or freaking clients banging away at dns every freaking second because something doesn't resolve..

              Their are alot of noisy shit out there, and while 1 or 2 devices might not matter.. What if you have 20 of them.. Say some shitty smart lightbulb or something, and he has his whole house with them.

              That is why I would suggest doing a simple sniff - to see what is causing the traffic..

              example... I have a few lightbulbs.. And they seem to only do it ever 5 seconds - but they send out this broadcast.

              broadcast.png

              What if I had 30 of them, and they did that every second vs ever 5.. That low level traffic starts to add up ;)

              I have a thermostat - for some stupid reason it likes to query for this like every minute (little less than).. It has no local cache - so every time it wants to do "something" it has to do a dns query.. Good thing that isn't every second, and good thing I only have 1 of those devices.. You start adding up a bunch of iot devices, that are all doing stupid shit that doesn't matter a few packets here a few packets there.. Well if you have 50 of them, and they are all doing stupid shit.. Next thing you know you have 1mbps of grass traffic always running..

              1min.png

              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 1
              • D
                denver
                last edited by

                Thank you all for your advice, Ive traced it to a ip camera on the 20 VLAN communicating with a NVR software(Motion Eye) on the LAN. Would it be wise to have both the camera and NVR software on a separate VLAN altogether or doesn't it make any difference.

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

                  Putting the devices that are talking to each other on the same network would take the load of having to "route" it.. Pfsense would never see that traffic.

                  It is a common practice yes to keep devices that do a lot of chatter/traffic between them on the same network so that traffic doesn't not hit your firewall/router.. Unless for some reason you want to filter that traffic in some way... Maybe you want to allow device A to talk to B only on port X - in that case you would want them on different networks so you could filter specific traffic.

                  I would think camera's would tend to send a lot of traffic to the NVR ;) - so yeah normally those are devices you would put on the same network. Since its unlikely as well that you would want/need to filter any traffic between your camera and your NVR..

                  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

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

                    @johnpoz

                    The DVRs I've worked with have separate interfaces for the cameras and main network.

                    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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                    • D
                      denver
                      last edited by

                      yeah good points, Ill work out how to create a separate network on pfsense for cameras (only 2) and NVR software and go from there.

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

                        @denver

                        The cameras shouldn't even connect to pfsense. They have their own network, connected to the camera side of the DVR. If you want to view a camera, you do that through the DVR, which can be connected to pfsense.

                        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...

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • D
                          denver
                          last edited by

                          I will need to connect one camera via PFSense I believe as I would like to use person detection software to integrate with Home Assistant for triggering when someones on the property.

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