Changing Hostname and Domain makes pfsense unreachable

[A Former User]

I changed my hostname and domain on remote pfsense lab along with updating dynamic dns and exported the new openvpn config files and after the changes testing pfsense by switching to the new openvpn config everything worked fine. But after reboot the VPN is unreachable and PFSense is inaccessible from local network.

This lab is very far from me and I am asking someone else to do some diagnostic steps, the first one was obvious rebooting which did nothing, the next thing we noticed was pfsense was not handing out dhcp addresses so we set a static ip on the test laptop and pfsense is still unreachable.

The only changes were to the hostname and domain in the General tab and in dynamic dns followed by exporting the vpn config.

Any ideas on what can cause this issue? If I was local to the machine I would instantly jump to the console to check the issue but since someone else is doing the diagnostics for me this options is my last resort.

[johnpoz]

@Agent_Crimson said in Changing Hostname and Domain makes pfsense unreachable:

But after reboot

So it didn't come back up - just because you had before changed its host name and domain doesn't mean that had anything to do with..

Your going to have console in, if you can not get to it via IP..

Pfsense host name and domain has pretty much zero to do with its lan interface coming up and having an IP, or its dhcp server running, etc..

[A Former User]

@johnpoz I am aware it should have nothing to do with hostname and domain but I just wanted to get ideas on what can cause this. I have 2 firewalls in this remote lab and both of them faced the same issue (Both of these are pfsense CE) I did the same with my local lab and that didnt have any such issues (This one is pfsense plus). My guess was that somehow the interfaces got unassigned

[SteveITS]

@Agent_Crimson hard to say. If it sees an interface appear/disappear it will stop on boot and prompt to reassign them.

[johnpoz]

@Agent_Crimson well I just changed hostname and domain on my 2.7 VM, and it rebooted just fine..

You using ZFS or UFS? Was clean install, upgrade from 2.6?

You add another interface, do something with interfaces at all? Did an interface not come up and and reordered them?

Your going to have to console in, if its not coming up - there really is no other way to fix it or even see what might be going on.

[A Former User]

@johnpoz Using ZFS these are on 2.6, was going to update these next week. I did not mess with these at all in terms or hardware and the only. software change was the hostname and domain. For now I have no insight if the issue is with interface as I have not asked the person helping me to get a monitor and go into console I just assumed it might be that since a similar thing happened a year and a half ago on a different machine and the interfaces just got unassigned.

[stephenw10]

Yeah, hard to see how those changes could result in that. You're going to need to console in to see what's happening there.

[A Former User]

@stephenw10 Just an update only one of the firewalls went down still trying to get into the console for that but the other firewall just had an issue with OpenVPN configuration.