10min to boot gui screen on J1900 - how can it be

4o4rh

I have a Qotom J1900 device with latest version.
Turn off pfBlocker & Snort makes no difference to the boot up time.

after reboot, the device responds to ping very quickly, but the gui sits there for approx 10min cycling through the 20sec +

stephenw10

Where exactly does it stop in the boot?

4o4rh

@stephenw10 it's headless in my basement, so i have no idea

stephenw10

Hmm, well it could be any number of things then. I've seen some systems where a slow serial console at 9600 cause the initial RAM count to take forever.

Steve

4o4rh

@stephenw10 so, i finally had to take a monitor downstairs after a power failure when it wouldn't boot again.

i had to re-install using UEFI boot as the screen shutdown with legacy - even though i had vt.sc, anyway. I can now see 3 things of interest.

OpenVPN starts first (i use two clients based on dns pools)
it sits for 10min on "setting static routes" - i had one, but it is disabled
dns resolver starts instantly once the static routes is done.

I am DNS Resolver via the WAN will all DNS redirected to it.

I suspect it is the related to DNS Resolver starting after OpenVPN instead of before.

Is there any way to ensure DNS Resolver starts first?

stephenw10

Like at:

Setting up static routes...

not:

Setting up static routes...done.

That should take a fraction of a second even with many static routes. OpenVPN always starts before the DNS resolver, that should not be an issue.

Steve

4o4rh

@stephenw10 correct. it takes 10min before the done comes up and then the rest goes quickly

4o4rh

@gwaitsi i read last night a post that said there was a bug and static routes weren't really being disabled with OpenVPN.

i can't find the post now, but the suggested work around was to simply delete the static route. I had a disabled static route and have deleted it. system came back up in 2 minutes.

so it seems it is a bug.

stephenw10

Like if OpenVPN is enabled static routes are not correctly disabled?

I'm not aware of that if so.

Steve

Edit: You mean this? https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/10706

4o4rh

@stephenw10 I found the post.

https://forum.netgate.com/topic/149330/disabled-static-route-deletes-openvpn-s-routes

i followed the advice of derelict at the 4th post, and it worked for me.

4o4rh

@stephenw10 yep, checked the bug report and totally agree with the last paragraph

"The help text claims "Set this option to disable this static route without removing it from the list.". Everyone would expect here, that you could temporarily disable a route without removing it and that it would not have any side effects like "extra clearing".

That is exactly what i thought, so never deleted it. have been living with this problem for over a year, but it only came to the for again, when my system died on the weekend and i needed to get back up in a hurry ;-)

stephenw10

Mmm, I see what you mean. If you disable a static route during run-time then you might expect problems since that route is then removed and would not be re-added until OpenVPN us re-started.
But if it's disabled at boot I would not expect it to do anything.

Re-opened it to discuss.

Steve