How to access web GUI when internet goes down?
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I'm a real beginner using pfSense as my home router. I haven't set up anything other than basic DHCP service yet. I have a TP-Link wifi router set up in access point mode
Whenever my internet goes down I'm no longer able to access the LAN address (https://192.168.1.1/) of the pfSense web gui. I don't understand why I can't access the GUI when I'm pointing to a local address in my network. Since it's https does it need to check the security certificate on the web before granting access? What concepts am I missing here?
Thanks in advance for helping. I'm trying to get the benefits of what pfSense can offer but the learning curve is steep
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@pfew No access via LAN or just sloooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww access?
Does 192.168.1.1 ping?
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@rcoleman-netgate no ping response from 192.168.1.1 last time it happened
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rcoleman-netgate Netgatelast edited by rcoleman-netgate Sep 13, 2022, 4:58 PM Sep 13, 2022, 4:51 PM
@pfew Sounds like your firewall reboots not the internet goes down.
Can you connect a monitor to the firewall or a RS232 console connection?
Also remove the TP-LINK from the equation -- your wireless connection could be going down or it could be failing.
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@rcoleman-netgate yes I can and it is connected right now.
I was not able to get anything to display during my last outage. Upon turning off the hardware with the power button and powering on again the display was working.
This could be the behavior of my hardware (Dell Wyse 5070 extended). I'm guessing a monitor must be connected at bootup.
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@rcoleman-netgate I did unplug the wifi access point and plugged directly into the LAN port of my pfSense hardware to my computer, still no access to the web GUI. Not sure if I tried pinging 1.1.1.1 at the time.
Is there a way I can try to test things, like disable the WAN port and see what happens?
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@pfew You can test the WAN by unplugging it.
What device are you running pfSense on?
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@rcoleman-netgate I have a Dell Wyse 5070 Extended and a QNAP Dual port 2.5gbe card with Intel i225 NICs
https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-QXG-2G2T-I225-2-5GbE-4-Speed-Network/dp/B0923FL2K3/ref=psdc_13983711_t3_B08FB83C1H
The WAN port is configured for the QNAP card. Achieving 2500Base-T <full-duplex> speed
The LAN port is the internal NIC of the Dell Wyse because I was having trouble with the LAN port when set up on the QNAP card. Not sure if that's related to this issue. -
If the console doesn't respond that's a crash of some sort. You might ctl+t at the console next time it fails, that can respond when nothing else does.
Do you see a crash report when it boots back up? Any errors in the system log?
Steve
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Could it be the CMOS battery in the Wyse 5070? My five year old Zotac box started acting up with a similar symptom (crash). Found the BIOS didn't keep the date or time. Discovered the CMOS battery has 1.4 volts instead of 3.
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Unlikely. Even with no battery it should only lose time when the machine is powered off.
If it crashes in software there should be a crash report generated. If the hardware simply stops responding with nothing logged that's usually a hardware issue.
Steve
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@pfew said in How to access web GUI when internet goes down?:
The LAN port is the internal NIC of the Dell Wyse because I was having trouble with the LAN port when set up on the QNAP card. Not sure if that's related to this issue.
I suspect if you had issues with the card as a LAN interface it is having the same issues as your WAN interface.
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@stephenw10 this is the last error message I got before it crashed again this morning
Sep 14 07:52:57 php-fpm 373 /rc.newwanipv6: The command '/usr/local/sbin/unbound -c /var/unbound/unbound.conf' returned exit code '1', the output was '[1663163577] unbound[27214:0] error: bind: address already in use [1663163577] unbound[27214:0] fatal error: could not open ports'
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@stephenw10 "Ctrl + t" does work on the console. I was also able to reboot using the console this time.
I unplugged the wifi router and plugged my computer directly into the LAN port during outage. I was unable to ping 192.168.1.1 and the web gui was not working
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@pfew Do you have a switch that can do VLANing? I would remove the QNAP NIC and see if VLANing the WAN to the LAN interface and setting a shared port config resolves your reboots.
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@rcoleman-netgate I do not own a switch that can do VLAN.
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Ok, if you were able to reboot from the console can I assume the console was fully functioning?
If so were you able to see what IP addresses were shown for the interfaces?
Or try any other tests like pinging out to 8.8.8.8 from the firewall itself?
You need to try to pin down what's actually failing here. That Unbound error usually only means it tried to start twice and shouldn't cause a problem. Certainly it wouldn't prevent you connecting to the firewall LAN by IP address.
Steve
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@stephenw10 another incident happened today. The console was fully functional, and I was able to ping out to 8.8.8.8
My thought is that the built in NIC I was using for LAN was a RealTek NIC, and I've heard that RealTek NICs cause problems. I decided to reset to factory settings and use the ports of the QNAP card for both WAN and LAN. This time it set up correctly.
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Mmm, Realtek NICs certainly can stop passing traffic like that. You would normally see a watchdog error from the driver in the logs though.
Steve
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@pfew said in How to access web GUI when internet goes down?:
https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-QXG-2G2T-I225-2-5GbE-4-Speed-Network/dp/B0923FL2K3/ref=psdc_13983711_t3_B08FB83C1H
This card (NIC - QNAP-QXG-2G2T-I225-2-5GbE-4-Speed-Network) is based on an Intel i255-LM Chipset. that offers some different speed options | 10/100/1000/2500 MBit/s
It can be that the negotiation is not working well or proper out of the box!I'm guessing a monitor must be connected at bootup.
Would be the best to copy and paste us here the output
using the code (</>) option shown above if you are text writing and answering.