Auto-renew DHCP after outage
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Whenever I reboot my networking gear or when there was an Internet outage, it remains down. I can only fix it by manually renewing the DHCP of my WAN (Release, Renew on Status / Interfaces page). I want this to happen automatically. How can I configure this?
When it's not working, already the start page in "Interfaces" shows in the last column "n/a" for WAN, while it shows the correct external IP when up.
In Status / Interfaces the value for Gateway IPv4 is always filled out (both when up and not working), but only when up, the IPv4 Address and external DNS are shown.
The Status and DHCP values both show as "up" even when it's not working.
I have screenshots if necessary. The checkbox "Relinquish Lease" is not checked (no idea what that is).I'm using the latest version on official hardware (2.4.2-RELEASE-p1 amd64 on Netgate SG-4860).
I assume the provider's modem assigns a different IP after its reboot or something and the pfsense firewall doesn't detect it or something like that. I want this to fix itself. How can I do this (preferably without writing complicated scripts or manual non-UI configuration).
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Are you getting a public IP on your WAN?
Usually as long as you are using DHCP, if it has a address it'll try to route traffic. If it doesn't it'll try to renew periodically.Are you sure something else like DNS isn't malfunctioning?
When the internet seems down, see if you can ping 8.8.8.8 and then google.com. If 8.8.8.8 pings but not google.com then DNS service is not answering and you have a different issue. If both fail then you would be right, you're not getting traffic. If you have a IP and still no traffic and only a release/renew gets you traffic, be sure to check to see if you get a new address or not. If you do get a different address then something else is going on.
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The LAN-side of the firewall is quite complicated (double NAT with additional router, local DNS, etc.), but that is not the problem. The pfSense is acting just as a firewall.
Yes, the WAN is connected to public Internet and would have an IPv4 Address when it's working. When it's not working, there is no IPv4 address on the WAN Interface. So this is not related to DNS or anything on the LAN-side. When it's not working, I still have the correct WAN Gateway IPv4 address though and that doesn't change after a Release+Renew.
You're saying that it'll try to renew periodically. Maybe this period is just too long? What's the default value? I would expect that this doesn't take several minutes. I think I even waited for half an hour or so, but maybe it does resolve after an hour or more. I think if there's no IPv4 address, there's no need to wait for many minutes; it could immediately request a new one. But maybe at that point my modem isn't up yet (after the power outage) and instead of trying again every few seconds, it just waits progressively longer, causing the issue.
Any further ideas?
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You're saying that it'll try to renew periodically. Maybe this period is just too long? What's the default value?
There is no default value. It depends on the lease time provided by the DHCP server. Typically, the client tries to renew the lease partway (1/2 -2/3) the lease time and will retry if it fails. Try capturing the DHCP traffic on the WAN port. You can use the pfSense Packet Capture to do that. You'll want to download the capture file and open it with Wireshark, so you can see all the relevant info.
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Ah, if that is what you meant, then that's not good. I get a new IP every 20 days I think, so if we're talking about that timeout, I certainly don't want to wait two weeks after a power outage just to automatically get a new IP.
But if the WAN IP is not set (= "n/a") I would assume that pfSense doesn't have to wait for such a timeout.
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But if the WAN IP is not set (= "n/a") I would assume that pfSense doesn't have to wait for such a timeout.
Check the advanced settings for the DHCP client on your WAN interface:
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Thanks, this seems helpful. I have never configured anything there. All the timing fields were empty and the Presets selection was on "Saved Cfg", probably meaning that nothing is configured. I can see that the defaults for FreeBSD and pfSense are quite different. The values are in seconds? The pfSense values are much smaller, but the values for Reboot and Backoff cutoff are not defined. I think I'll try the FreeBSD ones as you suggested. I'll report back after the next power outage in a few days then, as I don't want to try this now.
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Actually it still doesn't work. If I power down the Netgate SG-4860 pfSense (version 2.4.3-RELEASE) and also the cable modem by cutting off power and re-connecting the power, it still doesn't work. Please see attached screenshots. The DHCP advanced config is now set to standard FreeBSD values. On the status page for the interface, it shows Status and DHCP both as "up", but no packets get sent in or out and no DNS is accessible. Only on the dashboard the problem is visible: for WAN Interface, the IP is listed as "n/a". I can fix this on the Interface page by clicking the Release button and then the Renew button. I want that after a power outage pfSense reconnects automatically.
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This actually not only happens after a power outage, but also when I disconnect the antenna cable from the modem/router for a few minutes. This means the modem gets a new external IP afterwards, but pfSense doesn't know anything about it and it happily continues to try to send from the wrong old IP and that gets ignored by the modem. Maybe I need some external connection test and if failed automatically do a release/renew or something like that (if pfSense cannot handle this).
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^^^^
Normally, DHCP should run whenever the cable to the router is connected, but pfSense has no way to tell if a cable beyond it had disconnected/reconnected. If the modem is your DHCP server, I'd suspect a problem with it. As always, the way to find a problem is isolating where it happens. Can you try connecting a computer directly to the modem and see if it fails when you disconnect/reconnect the modem antenna? If the same problem happens, then the fault is with the modem. Also, as long as the modem gets the same subnet, it shouldn't be a problem, if it's address changes. -
Your gateway monitoring isn't working correctly.
From: System | Routing | Gateways configure a Monitor-IP so the system detects it's not online. -
Your gateway monitoring isn't working correctly.
From: System | Routing | Gateways configure a Monitor-IP so the system detects it's not online.On my system, gateway monitoring is disabled, but I don't have a problem with things failing. My cable modem is configured in bridge mode and pfSense has no problem restoring connection after a power failure, as happened last Friday. As discussed earlier, a device "owns" a DHCP address for the duration of the lease time. That means that even if the modem fails, for any reason, and then comes back up, the DHCP address should still be valid and work. Something else is going on with the OP, which is why I asked about the subnet after the failure. We need more info from the OP, including packet captures to really know what's happening.
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The modem is the DHCP server (I'd assume). That modem is provided by the Internet provider (UPC Cablecom Switzerland) and I cannot change it or use another model. It has tons of functionality, like IP telephony, WLAN, guest WLAN and many other things, but I've disabled all that and switched it to a modem/router-only mode, where nothing can be configured and WLAN is turned off.
I've tried with a standalone notebook connected only to that modem and the same problem occurs. But as I cannot change it and the problem is fixed after a release/renew, I'd like to configure that somehow.
It's worth mentioning that after a release/renew, when it works again, I often get the same IP address. But before the release/renew I couldn't ping 8.8.8.8 and afterwards I do get an answer, so there's definitely something broken that gets fixes with a release/renew.
And pfSense does recognize this problem somehow as the dashboard shows "n/a" in the IP on the WAN connection. So I'd like to automate that somehow; whenever there's a "n/a" on the dashboard for WAN, a release/renew should get issued.
Any idea how to achive this?
I might also complain to the Internet provider, but I suspect that won't get me anywhere.
Regarding the Monitoring, there's a default entry in System/Routing/Gateways, with Name=WAN_DHCP (default) with Monitor IP=external IP. When I click on Edit, I get Gateway=dynamic (Gateway IP address), the Default Gateway checkbox is checked. The monitor IP does respond to ping. -
I don't see anything that can be done to restore a connection when the failure is detected. One thing you could do is write a shell script that pings the gateway address and if it fails do something like restart the dhcp client.
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I've got the same issue as OP. My ISP is Ziggo (which basically is UPC..) and cable modem in bridge mode.
I guess I have to start looking for a shell script which renews the IP when a ping to an outside address fails..@OP, what kind of cable modem do you have? Perhaps it's related to one specific type..
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Another case of an ISP device that should know it has to do something like down/up the downstream link on an upstream address change.
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Another case of an ISP device that should know it has to do something like down/up the downstream link on an upstream address change.
Well, in the case of the antenna cable disconnect, after a DHCP release/renew, I get the same IP as before. So it's not only the address change.
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I've got the same issue as OP. My ISP is Ziggo (which basically is UPC..) and cable modem in bridge mode.
I guess I have to start looking for a shell script which renews the IP when a ping to an outside address fails..@OP, what kind of cable modem do you have? Perhaps it's related to one specific type..
UPC Cablecom Switzerland uses the so called "Connect Box". Googling for it shows that it seems to be used in other countries as well, including Ziggo.
This is the modem in question:
https://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2015/11/12/upc-cablecom-rolls-out-libertys-new-wi-fi-gateway/
I got the modem exchanged in the meantime, but of course it didn't fix the problem.
Please note that the box has many features like WLAN, routing, etc., but it's configured in modem-only mode (no settings at all in this mode).
If anyone wrote a script, please provide it here (including installation instructions if possible). -
I have a different modem, the Technicolor TC7200. Then it must be our ISP which has it's own view on implementing technology instead of using worldwide standards.
In a different forum post I found someone who has created a script which pings certain external IP addresses and if all of them fails it resets the wan interface, then it pings again and when that fails it initiates a reboot
https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=51786.0I will test with it asap..
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@e4ch I had to set pfSense to reject the DHCP info offered by my cable modem when it is not connected to the the Internet, that causes pfSense to wait to do a DHCP request until I'm on-line and getting DHCP information from my ISP instead of the internal modem server.
http://pfsense.home/interfaces.php?if=wan
Reject leases from
192.168.100.1
To have the DHCP client reject offers from specific DHCP servers, enter their IP addresses here (separate multiple entries with a comma). This is useful for rejecting leases from cable modems that offer private IP addresses when they lose upstream sync.
