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    PfSense firewall completely frozen

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • M
      mikenchi
      last edited by

      Upon trying to connect remotely to my newly install pfSense router today, I found it was not accepting remote connections. When I arrived on site, no connection methods would work, no ping, no ssh, no webgui, no internet access to client machines, nothing at all. Also serial console was non responsive, when I press enter it only shows check marks instead of showing the menu. (see attachment 1)

      I powered it off, and reattached the power and it's working fine (for the moment!).

      I am running version 1.2.2 embedded on Alix hardware, which is less than a month old. This network is relatively small, 13 computers and 2 servers. I don't have any unusual settings on the box, it's a brand new install. I only added RDP ports access, everything else is default configs. Network is pretty basic, pfsense lan side is connected to a switch, which has one other switch attached to it. The wan side is connected to a public IP address. Early this week, I configured OpenVPN and have been using it all week without a problem.

      What could cause the device to completely freeze up? Maybe bad hardware or did I configure something wrong? Any help appreciated….. Thanks
      Attachment1.jpg
      Attachment1.jpg_thumb
      config-pfsense.20090707000432.xml.txt
      BootLog.txt

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      • G
        Grim0x
        last edited by

        Bad hardware can most definitely cause this.

        An overheating CPU / Bad ram will for example.
        I had similar problem once (nothing loaded, but the PC had booted). And it was caused by PARTIALLY faulty ram.
        The ram would get the system booted and all - but I couldn't access the PC remotely.

        If this has only happened once - I wouldn't sweat it.( has it more than?)

        To be sure - you should run passed on memtest.

        Now - here's something I WANT to know.

        How do you access pfsense via hyper terminal? : D

        A Pentium III, 256MB RAM and 10GB HDD are needed to run Windows XP.
        The power of 3 C64 was needed to PRETEND to fly to the moon.
        Something is wrong with our world…

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        • chpalmerC
          chpalmer
          last edited by

          Serial Port Connection…

          Triggering snowflakes one by one..
          Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4590T CPU @ 2.00GHz on an M400 WG box.

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          • M
            mikenchi
            last edited by

            Yep this is the embedded version running on an Alix, which is a tiny little mobo with memory integrated on the board, specifically designed to be SMB firewall. The filesystem is read-only on a CF card. There's no video, so you have to use Hyperterm to see it booting etc. And, no CD drive so no way to boot to memtest that I know of. I checked the box and it seemed cool to the touch, I don't think its overheating.

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            • jimpJ
              jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
              last edited by

              You might try one of the newer 1.2.3-RC nanobsd snapshots.
              http://snapshots.pfsense.org/FreeBSD_RELENG_7_2/pfSense_RELENG_1_2/nanobsd/

              There have been quite a few improvements to the handling of embedded since 1.2.2 was released.

              Don't feel too gun shy about running 1.2.3-RC2, as it's really been quite stable and is rapidly nearing release.

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

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              • M
                mikenchi
                last edited by

                I think this was actually caused by some power issue, maybe a brown out. A server at the site with no UPS was also down, I found out this morning.

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