Netgate Discussion Forum
    • Categories
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Search
    • Register
    • Login

    Hard drive activity light on solid after upgrade to 2.4.0

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Hardware
    16 Posts 3 Posters 1.5k Views
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • B
      Bent82
      last edited by

      I have been running a custom built PC as a pfSense firewall for several years.  Yesterday I did a full reinstall, using ZFS, of 2.4.0, and restored my config after everything was back.  Since I did that, my hard drive activity light has been solid on.  It sometimes changes in intensity, almost a flicker, but never goes off.  Everything was working before the upgrade, the light would blink properly only on activity.  How would I find out if it's on solid because of constant activity or if its only on because something works different with ZFS and can safely be ignored?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • jimpJ
        jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
        last edited by

        You can look at the output of these commands to see disk activity:

        top -m io
        
        iostat
        
        vmstat
        
        systat -iostat
        
        systat -vmstat
        

        Remember: Upvote with the 👍 button for any user/post you find to be helpful, informative, or deserving of recognition!

        Need help fast? Netgate Global Support!

        Do not Chat/PM for help!

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • B
          Bent82
          last edited by

          When I run top -m io, I get this:

          last pid: 82822;  load averages:  0.67,  0.58,  0.37    up 0+00:19:04  15:22:02
          48 processes:  1 running, 47 sleeping
          CPU:  2.7% user,  0.6% nice,  9.8% system,  0.2% interrupt, 86.7% idle
          Mem: 113M Active, 8604K Inact, 370M Wired, 152K Buf, 7314M Free
          ARC: 122M Total, 119K MFU, 117M MRU, 2868K Anon, 341K Header, 1445K Other
               33M Compressed, 89M Uncompressed, 2.72:1 Ratio
          Swap: 2048M Total, 2048M Free
          
            PID USERNAME     VCSW  IVCSW   READ  WRITE  FAULT  TOTAL PERCENT COMMAND
          33974 root         2603     36      0      0      0      0   0.00% bsnmpd
            340 root          371      0      0      0      0      0   0.00% devd
          37009 root           94      0      0      0      0      0   0.00% sh
          52341 root           14      1      0    240      0    240 100.00% syslogd
          10195 root           62      3      0      0      0      0   0.00% openvpn
          38590 root            2      0      0      0      0      0   0.00% top
          13657 root            4      1      0      0      0      0   0.00% filterlog
          12214 root            6      2      0      0      0      0   0.00% openvpn
          22510 root           18      0      0      0      0      0   0.00% dpinger
          24144 root            2      0      0      0      0      0   0.00% sshd
          25013 root            2      0      0      0      0      0   0.00% ntpd
            307 root            2      0      0      0      0      0   0.00% php-fpm
          32738 root            0      0      0      0      0      0   0.00% php-fpm
          30380 root            0      0      0      0      0      0   0.00% radvd
          18729 nobody          0      0      0      0      0      0   0.00% dnsmasq
          
          

          This is a snapshot of what I'm seeing most of the time.  I always see syslogd with usually anywhere between 100-250 writes, though sometimes more or less.  Is this normal?  iostat is saying my disk is always around .17 MB/s of activity.  And here's a snapshot of  systat -vmstat:

              2 users    Load  0.46  0.51  0.42                  Oct 13 15:29
             Mem usage:   6%Phy  2%Kmem
          Mem: KB    REAL            VIRTUAL                      VN PAGER   SWAP PAGER
                  Tot   Share      Tot    Share    Free           in   out     in   out
          Act  129064    8076  1131596    11048 7487448  count
          All  134080   13088  1152916    32356          pages
          Proc:                                                            Interrupts
            r   p   d   s   w   Csw  Trp  Sys  Int  Sof  Flt        ioflt  5368 total
                       51      9076  789  83k 2163   27             cow       1 ehci0 16
                                                                    zfod      2 ehci1 23
           9.0%Sys   0.3%Intr  2.6%User  0.0%Nice 88.1%Idle         ozfod   828 cpu0:timer
          |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |           %ozfod  1056 cpu1:timer
          =====>                                                    daefr   453 cpu2:timer
                                                   1 dtbuf          prcfr   868 cpu3:timer
          Namei     Name-cache   Dir-cache    212027 desvn          totfr   684 em0 264
             Calls    hits   %    hits   %       881 numvn          react   724 em1 265
              1883    1883 100                   268 frevn          pdwak       hdac0 266
                                                                 48 pdpgs       xhci0 267
          Disks   md0  ada0   cd0 pass0 pass1 pass2                 intrn       hdac1 269
          KB/t   0.00 15.15  0.00  0.00  0.00  0.00          379596 wire    752 ahci0 272
          tps       0     7   559     0     0     0          117092 act
          MB/s   0.00  0.10  0.00  0.00  0.00  0.00            8672 inact
          %busy     0     3    55     0     0     0                 laund
                                                            7487448 free
          
          

          I assume ada0 is my disk.  Any advice would be appreciated.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • jimpJ
            jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
            last edited by

            The 100% is misleading in top because that doesn't mean it's using 100% of write capacity, just that of the things writing at that moment, syslogd is performing 100% of the writes happening right then.

            Something is logging all of that, though, you'll need to check all of your log files and see which one is getting all of the messages

            Remember: Upvote with the 👍 button for any user/post you find to be helpful, informative, or deserving of recognition!

            Need help fast? Netgate Global Support!

            Do not Chat/PM for help!

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • B
              Bent82
              last edited by

              Yeah I sort of figured that, I was assuming my write speed would be more than .17 MB/s  :)

              After I posted all that, I had started looking into the logs.  I see a lot of things being logged into the firewall log that look like this?:

                Oct 13 15:54:21  LAN      [fe80::9af1:70ff:fe46:d201]:5353	     [ff02::fb]:5353	 UDP  
              

              All of them are using IPv6, which I thought I had disabled, but I couldn't find where I initially configured that years ago just yet.  All of them are on UDP and to either port 5353 or 5355.  They show up on both the LAN interface or bridge0, which is a bridge I created for a OpenVPN TAP connection, though nobody is currently connected to the VPN.  I have never seen this before and I'm not sure what I have going on.

              At this point I don't seem to have a hardware issue, so maybe this post should be moved?

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

                5353 is mdns.. Most likely just utter noise if your not running ipv6.. So either disable ipv6 at the clients sending it.. Or set it not to log that nonsense.

                5355 would be LLMNR.. Yet again a noisy nonsense multicast name resolution protocol that could just be turned off at the client if your not actively using it.

                You have windows machines I take it - they are some noisy POS if you ask me ;)

                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 0
                • B
                  Bent82
                  last edited by

                  Yeah pretty much exclusively Windows.  Nothing else has changed in my network in the past day, the new pfSense version is the only thing.  I wonder why the sudden increase in logging, and with it disk activity?  My desk is right next to the box so I know the old version didn't light the disk like this.  I'll look into ignoring the logging for those items on Monday, thanks.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • B
                    Bent82
                    last edited by

                    I think I need a little more help in figuring this all out.  When I click on the X next to the log entry to find out why it is being blocked, I see this message:

                    The rule that triggered this action is:
                    @7(1000105585) block drop in log inet6 all label "Default deny rule IPv6"
                    

                    But when I go to my firewall rules, under LAN rules I see:

                     0 /0 B IPv6 *  LAN net  *  *  *  *  none     Default allow LAN IPv6 to any rule 
                    

                    That was the only related rule I see and to me it appears to be allowing IPv6 traffic on the LAN interface, not blocking.  Am I understanding how this works wrong, or is there an issue?

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • jimpJ
                      jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                      last edited by

                      Check the main IPv6 switch at System > Advanced, Networking tab.

                      If "Allow IPv6" is unchecked it doesn't matter what IPv6 rules you add, it will be blocked by default.

                      Remember: Upvote with the 👍 button for any user/post you find to be helpful, informative, or deserving of recognition!

                      Need help fast? Netgate Global Support!

                      Do not Chat/PM for help!

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • B
                        Bent82
                        last edited by

                        Hmm.  Allow IPv6 is checked.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • B
                          Bent82
                          last edited by

                          So it seems I stumped everyone!  I didn't have any more time to look at this today but need to see if I can figure this out again tomorrow.  Any other ideas where I should look for issues?

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • B
                            Bent82
                            last edited by

                            I found the issue, seems I was on the wrong track.  Unplugging my CD-ROM drive made the light go off and now I see normal activity.  Seems for some reason the system was constantly checking the status of the drive, and this made the hard drive activity light light up for some reason.  I am open to suggestions on how to stop this, but I obviously don't have a major issue and I can either ignore it or unplug the seldom-used optical drive.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • jimpJ
                              jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                              last edited by

                              @Bent82:

                              I found the issue, seems I was on the wrong track.  Unplugging my CD-ROM drive made the light go off and now I see normal activity.  Seems for some reason the system was constantly checking the status of the drive, and this made the hard drive activity light light up for some reason.  I am open to suggestions on how to stop this, but I obviously don't have a major issue and I can either ignore it or unplug the seldom-used optical drive.

                              Probably SNMP. See https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/6882

                              Remember: Upvote with the 👍 button for any user/post you find to be helpful, informative, or deserving of recognition!

                              Need help fast? Netgate Global Support!

                              Do not Chat/PM for help!

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • B
                                Bent82
                                last edited by

                                Yep, that looks like it.  I plugged the optical drive back in and bsnmp starting using a lot of cpu.  I hadn't checked that before, guess I should have.  Reading the bug report, it seems I can just leave a disc in the drive to work around this for now, and I can confirm it does.  For an actual fix, it seems my best bet may be to wait for 2.4.1, correct?

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • jimpJ
                                  jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                                  last edited by

                                  Unplug the drive, put media in the drive, disable the hostres module in SNMP. Any of those will mitigate the issue. It's solved in 2.4.1 so it should be better after the upgrade.

                                  Remember: Upvote with the 👍 button for any user/post you find to be helpful, informative, or deserving of recognition!

                                  Need help fast? Netgate Global Support!

                                  Do not Chat/PM for help!

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • B
                                    Bent82
                                    last edited by

                                    Good deal.  I appreciate all the help with the issue jimp!

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • First post
                                      Last post
                                    Copyright 2025 Rubicon Communications LLC (Netgate). All rights reserved.