Solution for dhcp6c problems after hardware change

[jhg]

Posting this in case it helps somebody having the same problem

Context:

• ISP is Comcast Portland OR, which fully supports IPv6
• Upgraded pfSense hardware from an old Zotac CI323 box to a Beelink EQ12 (for the 2.5Gbe Intel adapters)
• Installed pfSense CE 2.7.2 (same version as on the Zotac box)
• Restored configuration

Results:

• IPv6 connectivity started behaving erratically.
• The dhcp6c transaction looked normal, including an address for the WAN adapter plus a delegated prefix.
• pfSense DHCP6 server gave out addresses with the delegated prefix, and hosts on the LAN could communicate with each other and the firewall over IPv6
• I could send/receive IPv6 traffic from the firewall console but packets originating on the LAN (i.e. with address in the delegated prefix) exited the WAN adapter but disappeared into the ether.

Solution:

The leftover /var/db/dhcp6c_duid, was the culprit, but I don't know enough about pfSense's dhcp6c client to understand why. I was alerted to its existence from a debug log message from the dhcp6c client. In any event, I deleted the file, rebooted the modem and then pfSense, and everything started working.

As always, YMMV.

[JKnott]

@jhg

Curious. I replaced the computer I originally ran pfSense on a few years ago. Other than changing the interface assignments, it just worked. I'm still using that new computer today. I'm on Rogers and they use a lot of the same hardware as Comcast. The first computer I ran pfSense on was a refurb HP compact computer and when it died I replaced it with the mini PC described in my sig.