SG-3100 Power Off Status Lights
-
Just deployed a SG-3100. I noticed the status lights when the system is powered off (Diagnostics > Halt System) are the exact same as when the system is running normally (docs: "Boot Completed: The diamond slowly flashes blue.").
Is this intentional? Seem's like a bug. If i'm about to unplug the box after powering off, the only ways I can verify the system is off are:
- Ping and assume if no response, the system is off.
- After halt system, assume the system is off if web gui stops working (similar to above).
- Break out the console cables and try to verify (not practical)
In my case I updated a config on a backup box. I'd hate to find out when I deploy that box in emergency that it was shutdown improperly (unplugged when it was not finished powering off).
Is this a bug?
-
Seems you have not updated to the latest pfSense build, 2.4.4 should fix that.
-
@grimson said in SG-3100 Power Off Status Lights:
Seems you have not updated to the latest pfSense build, 2.4.4 should fix that.
This is a new box, shipped with 2.4.4. Also, if 2.4.4 is suppose to fix that, where in the docs do you see what the light status should be when the box is off?
This is a issue determining if the box was successfully halted. Which is different from having an issue after ARM hardware not completely halting when shut down.
There should be a way to know if the box was shutdown correctly without having to find out it wasn't when you get ready to deploy. Front Side LED Patterns are the same for "Boot Completed", running, and off. Which means someone could unplug the box after attempting to power off while it's still on.
-
https://forum.netgate.com/topic/122407/netgate-sg-3100-leds/17
-
@grimson said in SG-3100 Power Off Status Lights:
https://forum.netgate.com/topic/122407/netgate-sg-3100-leds/17
@jimp didn't address "but the LED continues to slow-blink. I was expecting it to shut off. Is this normal?" part of @tjsober post. The "OS is not completely halting on shutdown that may be related" does not address what the status lights should be on shutdown. Another user posted a hack to customize the LED based on WAN connection, but netgate has not addressed the question.
-
@generaluser88457
The hack used a different led so doesn’t change the blinking (except for brightness IIRC). -
For anyone else wondering about this, here is Netgate response:
Right now the lights on the system will continue to flash with whatever pattern it was flashing with previous to being shut down. Our engineer explained to me that any scripts with load on the system run before the OS fully stops, so if we were to write in a script that addresses the power lights it would trigger before the OS actually finishes shutting down, and may encourage premature unplugging. We're still investigating alternatives, but don't have a timeline for one at this time.
-
@generaluser88457 said in SG-3100 Power Off Status Lights:
For anyone else wondering about this, here is Netgate response:
Right now the lights on the system will continue to flash with whatever pattern it was flashing with previous to being shut down. Our engineer explained to me that any scripts with load on the system run before the OS fully stops, so if we were to write in a script that addresses the power lights it would trigger before the OS actually finishes shutting down, and may encourage premature unplugging. We're still investigating alternatives, but don't have a timeline for one at this time.
Did they offer a method for determining when the box has powered down?
Box: SG-4200
-
@wgstarks said in SG-3100 Power Off Status Lights:
Did they offer a method for determining when the box has powered down?
Watch it from the console, see when the console output says it has halted.
Ping the box, if you're on 2.4.4 it should stop responding to ping when the OS is halted (assuming you could ping it before you told it to halt, naturally...)
-
@wgstarks, they did not offer a method. For us it means hoping our backup was shutdown properly and not finding out if there is a problem until we go to deploy our backup box in an emergency. Looks like something pretty basic was overlooked in the development process.
I hope I didn't make a bad decision by switching to pfSense hardware. I won't know for sure until we get more time in production. We had over a year using pfSense in a virtualized environment and it worked great. The only big problem we had was any major changes or troubleshooting we needed to do on ESXi meant taking the whole network down instead of just the services on that server.
