Feature poll: Auto reboot after x time WAN loss Service?
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Hi All
Since many pfSense boxes are located remotely and situations can arise where a reboot is necessary because of WAN loss (fx. The ISP requires Link down/up), I think it would be great if pfSense had a builtin feature that could reboot the box after X minutes/hours of no WAN. This could be based on dpinger status or a custom ping target (fx. Google).
I know i can write a script and do this with at cron job, but those kinds of customisations are not really that cool when it comes to upgrade and such.
There should simply be a “Auto Reboot Timer” service under services that you can enable. The only settings should be to either follow dPinger status/custom ping target or both, and then a timer value in minutes/hours before a reboot will take place.
It’s simple and could be quite helpfull in certain circumstances.
What do you think?
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Hmm, I'm not sure I've seen a situation that actually requires a reboot to restore the WAN. Unless it's some other bug perhaps.
What are you seeing that requires that?
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@stephenw10 Granted - its not the most common situation.
But I have tried it quite a few times now. I can happen if you reassign VLANs on interfaces. Then somehow WAN (or any other VLAN) can get stuck and needs a reboot to actually apply. If you are remote you lost access and cannot initiate that reboot.
I have also tried it quite a few times with an ISP changing their DHCP requirements, and pfSense needs to have WAN down, or a complete expiration of the current DHCP lease to actually start DHCP all over again (broadcast discover) and come online with the ISP.
The more finicky situation is a GPON SFP module I have had act up on me. It "froze" and needed a reboot to start over. Replugging the SFP was enough but hard to do remotely. A reboot of pfsense also reboots the SFP module.
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@stephenw10 Only the first situation is actually pfSenses "fault", but none the less it would be nice if pfSense could assist you in getting the remote site online again when other circumstances ganged up on you.
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Mmm, interesting. You could do something scheduled easily enough but I guess you'd probably want it to revert sooner if possible.
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@stephenw10 Yeah, there will always be a tradeoff with the feature I’m suggesting. The shorter you set the timer the faster it will do the reboot, but chances of a unplanned reboot increases.
Notice - I’m not asking for a “revert” config feature - just a last resort reboot.In my setups the timer would likely be set in hours rather than minutes.
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I could imagine something manual like a widget with timers you could start to automatically reboot or restart the WAN, or roll back changes even, after X minutes.
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@stephenw10 Yeah, a combined widget with a automatic reboot timer, a rollback timer and such could be REALLY cool.
