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    Wireless clients lose ipv6 gateway

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved IPv6
    gatewayipv6radvd
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    • M
      mfld LAYER 8 @sarkyscouser
      last edited by mfld

      @sarkyscouser said in Wireless clients lose ipv6 gateway:

      Beginning to think that this is a bug that needs raising. How best to debug via the logs first before I do that?

      I would have dropped it into redmine long ago if I had a way to prove the issue. I can guarantee you right now they would just close it because it cannot be reproduced. Thousands of installs out there do not have this issue. We'd have to dig very deep. Packet capture everything from the device in your hand back to pfSense.

      It may also depend on what apps one has installed. Apps can make the device listen for multicast.

      This may be related:

      Normally the Wifi stack filters out packets not explicitly addressed to this device. Acquring a MulticastLock will cause the stack to receive packets addressed to multicast addresses. Processing these extra packets can cause a noticeable battery drain and should be disabled when not needed.

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      • S
        sarkyscouser @mfld
        last edited by

        @mfld said in Wireless clients lose ipv6 gateway:

        @jknott

        Strange, isn't it. Maybe it's a combo of Unifi + Android + IPv6.

        Here at this site all devices do it. They all lose IPv6 address if you put them down with their screen off and walk away for a bit. They won't reaquire it until you bounce the WiFi.

        Moto G6 (Android 9), Oneplus 6T (Android 10), Samsung Note 20 Ultra 5G (Android 11), Samsung S20 (Android 11).

        All seem to work fine now that Router lifetime in RA settings has been cranked up from default. Turned GW monitoring back on and it still works just fine. This is why this hasn't made it into redmine. Neither of us have anything conclusive that would make a useful bug report. But it is certainly real.

        Yes I think the default RA settings are poor. Just done a quick bit of research:

        https://techhub.hpe.com/eginfolib/networking/docs/switches/WB/16-01/5200-0135_wb_2920_ipv6/content/ch08.html
        https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/167985/ipv6-router-lifetime-in-router-advertise.html

        and pumped up my default settings to:

        Default valid lifetime: 655350
        Default preferred lifetime: 604800
        Minimum RA interval: 200
        Maximum RA interval: 600
        Router lifetime: 1800

        and now my Android 11 device receives ipv6 DNS which is the first time that has happened.

        If DHCP6 + assisted persists for 24 - 48 hours I'll try with no DHCP6 and unmanaged again and see what happens.

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        • M
          mfld LAYER 8 @sarkyscouser
          last edited by

          @sarkyscouser said in Wireless clients lose ipv6 gateway:

          Yes I think the default RA settings are poor. Just done a quick bit of research:

          To me it seems the defaults are sane for most enviroments and the different RA modes in pfSense's implementation of radvd work exactly as advertised. The issue with mobile devices is that they need to be sleeping and selective about what they will do when the screen is off. For IOS devices we don't see an issue when DHCP6 is on because the lease time is long enough and they just handle things differently.

          For Android there is no DHCP6 support and devices with aggressive power management will see the default RA expiry of 60s, go to sleep, not refresh anything and then the timer expires. But I don't understand why the devices do not reaquire IPv6 when the user picks them up and unlocks the screen. radvd should broadcast in the next 5-20 seconds, the device should see that and process it. I don't get it. Above my paygrade.

          Router lifetime seems to do the trick here. Had a Samsung S10 screen locked and put away for 2 hours, picked it up and its fine.

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          • M
            mfld LAYER 8 @sarkyscouser
            last edited by

            @sarkyscouser said in Wireless clients lose ipv6 gateway:

            Default valid lifetime: 655350
            Default preferred lifetime: 604800
            Minimum RA interval: 200
            Maximum RA interval: 600

            I do not think you need to mess with these. The defaults are fine. Just the Router Lifetime default seems to be too low. Let me know how this works out for you.

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            • S
              sarkyscouser @mfld
              last edited by

              @mfld said in Wireless clients lose ipv6 gateway:

              @sarkyscouser said in Wireless clients lose ipv6 gateway:

              Default valid lifetime: 655350
              Default preferred lifetime: 604800
              Minimum RA interval: 200
              Maximum RA interval: 600

              I do not think you need to mess with these. The defaults are fine. Just the Router Lifetime default seems to be too low. Let me know how this works out for you.

              If I only increase the router lifetime my android 11 device doesn't pick up ipv6 dns addresses so going to see how these settings pan out.

              S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • S
                sarkyscouser @sarkyscouser
                last edited by

                @sarkyscouser said in Wireless clients lose ipv6 gateway:

                @mfld said in Wireless clients lose ipv6 gateway:

                @sarkyscouser said in Wireless clients lose ipv6 gateway:

                Default valid lifetime: 655350
                Default preferred lifetime: 604800
                Minimum RA interval: 200
                Maximum RA interval: 600

                I do not think you need to mess with these. The defaults are fine. Just the Router Lifetime default seems to be too low. Let me know how this works out for you.

                If I only increase the router lifetime my android 11 device doesn't pick up ipv6 dns addresses so going to see how these settings pan out.

                So it seems that iOS doesn't like those settings. Put them back to default and the router lifetime to 1800 and still no luck.

                Why is this soooo hard!!

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                • S
                  sarkyscouser @sarkyscouser
                  last edited by

                  So it's the "Maximum RA interval" that was preventing my android 11 device from receiving ipv6 dns servers. I've upped that to 60 sec and router lifetime to 1800. Android seems to be OK as does Windows 10 but my 2 ipads can no longer connect via ipv6.

                  I've removed all the dhcp6 leases in pfsense and reset both ipads but no joy. Guess something lease-related is cached on the ipads so I'll just have to wait for them to expire and hope that the situation resolves itself in time.

                  For my setup I need dhcp6 + assisted mode, unmanaged is still useless for android even with an increased router lifetime.

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                  • JKnottJ
                    JKnott @mfld
                    last edited by

                    @mfld said in Wireless clients lose ipv6 gateway:

                    Strange, isn't it. Maybe it's a combo of Unifi + Android + IPv6.

                    That's exactly what I have here.

                    Have you tried a notebook computer via WiFi and Ethernet to compare?

                    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...

                    S M 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • S
                      sarkyscouser @JKnott
                      last edited by

                      @jknott said in Wireless clients lose ipv6 gateway:

                      @mfld said in Wireless clients lose ipv6 gateway:

                      Strange, isn't it. Maybe it's a combo of Unifi + Android + IPv6.

                      That's exactly what I have here.

                      Have you tried a notebook computer via WiFi and Ethernet to compare?

                      My wired windows 10 pc seems fine my laptop is locked down from work with no ipv6

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                      • M
                        mfld LAYER 8 @JKnott
                        last edited by

                        @jknott said in Wireless clients lose ipv6 gateway:

                        @mfld said in Wireless clients lose ipv6 gateway:

                        Strange, isn't it. Maybe it's a combo of Unifi + Android + IPv6.

                        That's exactly what I have here.

                        Have you tried a notebook computer via WiFi and Ethernet to compare?

                        Yes, I have a plethora of devices. All rely on IPv6. All working, wired or wireless. Only Android effected. Now fixed with increased Router Lifetime.

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                        • S
                          sarkyscouser @mfld
                          last edited by

                          My ios devices back up and running so it must have a been a time/lease issue with me initially pushing some of the values too high.

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                          • S
                            sarkyscouser @sarkyscouser
                            last edited by

                            https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/11105

                            M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • M
                              mfld LAYER 8 @sarkyscouser
                              last edited by

                              @sarkyscouser said in Wireless clients lose ipv6 gateway:

                              https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/11105

                              That was for 2.4.5. We are on 2.5.1 where this has already been implemented.

                              S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • S
                                sarkyscouser @mfld
                                last edited by

                                @mfld said in Wireless clients lose ipv6 gateway:

                                @sarkyscouser said in Wireless clients lose ipv6 gateway:

                                https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/11105

                                That was for 2.4.5. We are on 2.5.1 where this has already been implemented.

                                Ah OK, I shouldn't speed read during meetings 😬

                                M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • M
                                  mfld LAYER 8 @sarkyscouser
                                  last edited by

                                  For my site the issue has been resolved now. Been running smoothly for more than a week after increasing Router Lifetime in services_router_advertisements.php?if=lan

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