Netgate Discussion Forum
    • Categories
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Search
    • Register
    • Login

    Perplexing Problem with PFSense

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
    23 Posts 6 Posters 2.6k Views
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • stephenw10S
      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator @stephenw10
      last edited by

      @stephenw10 said in Perplexing Problem with PFSense:

      @itworxnz said in Perplexing Problem with PFSense:

      It's always the same two blocks out of seven that seem to cause it, but everyone is affected.

      If the router/gateway went down everyone would be affected but the different hosts in the same subnet would still be able to connect to each other. Can we assume that isn't case?

      Still need that questions answering to determine what sort of problem you are dealing with. And I would still do this:

      When this happens if you run a pcap somewhere do you see anything incoming?

      This doesn't seem like a bad cable to me or a bad switch port. Those would only effect devices connected to them. For something to take down the entire subnet across multiple switches such that no traffic can move across the network at all it pretty much has to be a flood of some sort.

      But if things can still ping other local hosts just not the local gateway I'd be looking for a rogue dhcp server or something doing ARP poisoning perhaps.

      You should really be using VLANs to separate these user groups out. That would prevent something like a rogue dhcp server affecting everyone.

      Steve

      I 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • I
        ITWorxNZ @stephenw10
        last edited by

        @stephenw10
        Okay, I've set up a spare laptop with Wireshark and plugged the two problematic houses back in again, and of course, the problem did not happen. Have seen this before, it can sometimes take a week to manifest itself. When it happens I'll do some capturing and hope the problem source is revealed.

        I 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • I
          ITWorxNZ @ITWorxNZ
          last edited by

          Apologies for the thread necro, but I figured I should give a final update.

          Was all ready with Wireshark, and waiting for the problem to happen again - but it didn't. And four months later, it still hasn't happened. Everyone seems to be working fine. And I still had no idea what the problem was, or why it suddenly vanished.

          It could be sunspots for all I know. Thanks for all the advice and suggestions. 😃

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • First post
            Last post
          Copyright 2025 Rubicon Communications LLC (Netgate). All rights reserved.