Strange LAN issue
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So the specific issue I am having, I really don't know where to look or how to look this issue up because it is so incredibly strange.
I will provide as much possible information as I can.
PFsense is run on an I7-7700K with 16GB of ram.
It is installed onto a 3.0 USB in a 3.0 Slot.
I have 1 onboard nic which is my WAN port
I then have a USB nic 3.0 which is my LAN port.The LAN side then goes into a GB switch which then branches off into my network.
However the issue that I am having is it will work for let's say 20 minutes, and then it just totally stop working. If I then plug my computer directly into my firewall usb ethernet(LAN), it works fine. If I then switch back and plug my pc back into my switch and pfsense into the switch, everything works for 10-30 minutes or so.
It's the same within the whole LAN port. for everything plugged into the switch which is plugged into the USB ethernet LAN. I literally unplug the cable, and re-plug and it's fine for another maybe 20-30 miuntesI honestly don't think this has anything to do with my switch, but not sure why PFsense does this.
Because I ran IPfire on a much crappier older hardware with the exact same setup, and had 0 issues(I also did it with pfsense and had no issues again). Now with pfsense installed onto much better hardware, I'm constantly having this issue.
Should I just plug my firewall into my router If I dont have to, I'd love to not have to.
Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated.
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@bladedshard are you sure that the USB NIC is even compatible with BSD, which is what pfSense is based on. IPFire is Linux based, so what may have worked there may not work with pfSense, and vice versa. Your best bet is to get a PCI NIC that is supported and stick that in for pfSense to use. You can check the FreeBSD compatibility list to make sure the hardware is supported. Doesn't have to be anything fancy or expensive, just supported.
For what it's worth, I do run both the WAN an LAN trunked to a single NIC on one of my pfSense installs (on a laptop), and I don't have but 250Mbps download on the WAN, so even if both sides are saturated, it's not more than the hardware can handle. Something to consider. -
Yeah, this is almost certainly an issue with the USB NIC or it's driver.
Do you see anything logged after restoring access or at the console?
Try swapping the NIC assignments, use the USB NIC as WAN. Does the WAN now fail?
Use a real NIC there is a best solution. Use VLANs with just the on-board NIC would also be better that USB.
Steve
