Sorry for the delay, I finally fell asleep. I did, on one link only. I think it was indeed Squid though. IT started [everything] deteriorating fast just a tiny bit later. Downloads were and SSH connections to local hosts would return "broken pipes". I has seen this behavior before this time I almost went insane trying to fix it, even got an SNMP tool, in itself a major undertaking because downloads kept freezing the whole network and failing to complete--finally set it up and the big red indicator that I couldn't clear was something about a DHCP ram disk, which is supposed to be full--the conclusion I kept drawing, still, I stopped DHCP and deploy another box just for DHCP.
In the end, I gave up and decided to make the best out of a bad situation and decided to start over installing very carefully the whole network, I had already wiped a couple of times pfSense, BTW, but I was restoring from backup and that last time when I didn't I discovered the backups were snowballing the bad from before. Everything was super fast again, like unbelievably so. I kept the DHCP though, and, I added to that another 4 additional pfSense boxes, RADIUS, 2x DNS and proxied DNS (it dials VPN) these were thin clients with some weird architecture that's 64-bit "but not really", something called i586/i686, I think it's from the '90s. The 32-bit pfSense got them working again. This whole thing pushed me to get creative. :) I'm just happy to help, if I can.
I'll keep an eye on that, already wrote it down on the file I write the history of changes I make, my memory sucks. I assume the first one is the same that's downloadable as backup--I'll find out. Anyway, thanks; I doubt it happens again but in a weird way I'm kinda hoping it does out of sheer curiosity.
