Is abc.netgate.com down?

stephenw10

It's probably because you are trying to backup at 1h scheduled intervals and exactly on the hour, when a lot of other people are. Recent versions of ACB have included a random element to the scheduling to prevent that. If yours was created some time ago edit the ACB settings and choose a minute value that isn't 0.

Steve

omid_1985

Hi @stephenw10 ,

I don't use an hourly schedule. Here is my backup setting:
alt text

stephenw10

Hmm, maybe just coincidence that the two failure logged were on the hour. I assume it did not fail in between those times?

Steve

omid_1985

@stephenw10

Not between them, but I got another one again just a few hours ago:

Screenshot 2021-08-02 224830.png

stephenw10

Hmm, well again it was in minute 0. I'll ask our admins to check the server again.

Steve

Steve_B

The system rate limiter has been adjusted to accommodate a greater backup frequency. Let's see if that helps.

omid_1985

@steve_b Thank you for the update. I'll monitor it and report back.

omid_1985

@steve_b @stephenw10

I just received another one:
Screenshot from 2021-08-03 11-10-31.png

I'm at work and haven't even logged in on my home pfSense to change any configuration since yesterday morning but still receiving random backup notifications.

Is there any way to reset the auto-backup feature and remove all old backups without resetting the whole pfSense to factory default?

Steve_B

Are you running pfBlockerNG?

omid_1985

@steve_b
Yes, I do.

Steve_B

OK good. pfBlocker makes a config change once per hour about on the hour. The system is supposed to filter those out from the backup system. I suspect it is doing so correctly but returning an incorrect HTTP status n some cases. I should be able to investigate more tomorrow.

lakIbCic0Swik

@steve_b Did you find anything? I'm getting several notifications every day randomly on the hour. Should I change to a daily (or some other scheduled) backup to resolve this?

Backup Failure

    AutoConfigBackup - An error occurred while uploading your pfSense configuration to https://acb.netgate.com/save (&amp;lt;html&amp;gt;
    &amp;lt;head&amp;gt;&amp;lt;title&amp;gt;500 Internal Server Error&amp;lt;/title&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/head&amp;gt;
    &amp;lt;body&amp;gt;
    &amp;lt;center&amp;gt;&amp;lt;h1&amp;gt;500 Internal Server Error&amp;lt;/h1&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/center&amp;gt;
    &amp;lt;hr&amp;gt;&amp;lt;center&amp;gt;nginx/1.16.0&amp;lt;/center&amp;gt;
    &amp;lt;/body&amp;gt;
    &amp;lt;/html&amp;gt;
    ) @ 2021-09-05 18:00:28

Steve_B

@lakibcic0swik What is the size of your config.xml file?

omid_1985

@lakibcic0swik
I had 2 to 3 failed backup notifications per day on Netgate SG-3100 Version 21.05.1 and changed the backup method to fix it. Scheduled backup once per day was what I ended up doing as I wanted to keep the pfBlockerNG-devel installed.

omid_1985

@steve_b Mine with the same issue is 174KB.

Steve_B

Thanks. I believe the issues you are seeing are largely due to pfBlocker which updates the pfSense configuration system (and hence triggers a backup) on a very frequent basis. I have increased the capacity of the server to the highest reasonable value which may help a little.

A couple of years ago a mechanism was introduced to allow pfBlocker to bypass the backup system, but so far it has not found much employment. I plan to contact the developer as well as a member of our own development team to see if we can can some movement there.

In addition, some filtering has been added to pfSense to help alleviate the situation. You should see that in the next release.