Ecobee thermostat can’t connect to servers
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@patient0 Worth exploring tunneling idt.ecobee.com (or all *.ecobee.com) traffic via a vpn. OP says he has no vpn. Cloudflare warp is free and will suit this purpose. I offered some guidance on the previous page how to set it up.
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@ezhawk said in Ecobee thermostat can’t connect to servers:
No, nothing is specifically configured.
Ok, was just curious if you have configured anything "special" under any of the 4 tabs found under Firewall -> NAT
seems that is not the case..
however also sounds like maybe the overload setting function on the cisco ?
There are numerous posts like this. Maybe in this case you just have to "help" pfsense build the right packet the looks correct for the ecobee server and have it stop telling you to go away ?
https://forum.netgate.com/topic/189729/nat-external-ip-vs-internal-ip-cisco-vs-pfsense
I don't have a ecobee so ... can't really see first hand what is going on out of the box so to speak ...
- the other option presented of using Cloudflare wrap would likely also work.
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@jrey I don't think this is a nat issue. It would either work or not work, but not likely be intermittent. Indeed there's some traffic ecobee server is receiving which causes it to end the connection.
I have the premium (and the ecobee3 lite before) with no such issues behind pfsense.
@ezhawk how is the ecobee wifi configured? Different vlans for different interfaces? Anything else sharing ecobee's?
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Does the cisco randomise the source port in NAT?
Perhaps Ecobee periodically does something that assumes a source port and when that fails it marks it as bad. Unlikely but easy enough to test with a static port rule.
Can you spoof the WAN MAC on the Cisco so it has the IP pfSense is currently using where Ecobee is failing. See if it then starts working behind the Cisco. That would prove it's not the Ecobee server blocking the IP.
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@patient0 said in Ecobee thermostat can’t connect to servers:
Your package capture show (as I mentioned in my post before) that it seems that the Ecobee can connect to fw-home.ecobee.com but idt.ecobee.com closes the connection.
Maybe another question: how would you like pfSense to solve it? It won't work without someone who got that issue.
How would I like pfSense to solve this? Pretty simple, I'd like pfSense to figure out why this works perfectly fine with a Cisco Router and fails with pfSense. But that request seems to be way too much for this board.
But let's look at the facts:
- Regardless of what Public IP I get, the connection fails when going through pfSense
- Regardless of what Public IP I get, the connection works 100% of the time going through Cisco.
- The destination is the same as the Ecobee reaches out to the same servers.
- Initially, when pfSense gets a new IP the connection works for 1-14 days. The connection will then fail.
- The connection never fails going through a Cisco router.
- None of my 80+ other devices on my network have issues with connectivity to anything.
- If there was an issue on the Ecobee side, it wouldn't matter what router I'm using. I would see the same thing on both routers which is not the case.
- If the issue is with idt.ecoebee.com closing the connection, why isn't this an issue on a Cisco router?
- For those who want to blame it on Ecobee, then they also ignored, the point I made that I had the same problem with Google Nest. It worked like a charm until I put in my pfSense, then I began to have the losing connectivity every couple of weeks and a spoof the MAC to get a new public IP would get connectivity for 1-14 days before it stopped working. I thought it was Google having issues, so I went out and spent the $ to switch from Google to Ecobee and I ended up with the exact same problem.
The only impactful variable between the working and non-working is the pfSense vs Cisco. I get this is a Netgate pfSense board in which no one wants to admit that there could actually be something faulty with a Netgate pfSense device.
@GPz1100 said in Ecobee thermostat can’t connect to servers:
@patient0 Worth exploring tunneling idt.ecobee.com (or all *.ecobee.com) traffic via a vpn. OP says he has no vpn. Cloudflare warp is free and will suit this purpose. I offered some guidance on the previous page how to set it up.
Been looking to see if I can set up a workaround. But realistically it is ridiculous to have to set up a VPN and PBR because of a pfSense failure. The way everyone talks, the connection should just work. The other thing that would be stupid in this set up is not only do I have to have Internet and Ecobee servers be up for remote connection for my Ecobee, this now adds a 3rd party into it.
Actually, I've had it. This board wants to blame everything other than the pfSense and I'm done. For everyone that just want to blame my network, or the Ecobee Servers, or the digits of an IP being different...congrats you win! I'll just run a second router until I can find an suitable replacement for the pfSense and then I can get the faulty device out of my network.
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There might be two other differences between pfSense and Cisco configurations.
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DNS Resolver. Are pfSense and Cisco configured to use the same DNS resolver? pfSense has its own DNS Resolver. Unless it is disabled (forwarding mode) it is different than what Cisco uses. I know it is not likely but there is a chance that pfSense and Cisco resolves Ecobee Server name into different IP addresses. I am sure there is more than one Ecobee server worldwide.
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Home Assistant and Apple Home Kit. Is Ecobee thermostat connected to and communicate with them in both pfSense and Cisco cases? Although Ecobee says it is possible to use Home Kit (Home Assistant) integration and Server integration at the same time I remember reading that some people on Internet ran into a problems doing that.
Maybe you have already done that but I will suggest anyway (You can ignore it if you wish) to take another Netgate device (you mentioned you have Netgate 2100 and Netgate 1100) configure it plain vanilla (mostly just factory default) isolate from rest of your network and connect the thermostats to it. Who knows it could give us additional information.
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@akochetkov said in Ecobee thermostat can’t connect to servers:
(you mentioned you have Netgate 2100 and Netgate 1100)
He's not the OP, he got a Netgate 4100.
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@ezhawk said in Ecobee thermostat can’t connect to servers:
Actually, I've had it. This board wants to blame everything other than the pfSense and I'm done
Fair enough, although I never tried to blame Ecobee and I was a bit frustrated that you don't read it as I wrote it: get Ecobee involved to find out what pfSense makes behave different when connecting to idt.ecobee.com. Well, that's life guess.
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@ezhawk said in Ecobee thermostat can’t connect to servers:
If the issue is with idt.ecoebee.com closing the connection, why isn't this an issue on a Cisco router?
because the packet from the cisco NAT looks okay at the ecobee end
because the packet from the pfsense NAT in "automatic mode" might not look okay and they reject it
Several other posts and in fact other forums talk about this subject and most suggest that you may have to help the pfSense by providing either hybrid or manual configuration for this particular NAT.
kind of like you do with the cisco overload line you have in the config.idt.ecobee.com. - the address actually doing the client hello is telling you to go away likely because something isn't quite right in the packet.
if you scan idt.ecobee.com you will find that it allow pings, port 80 http traffic, and port 443 but there is no https response - they are running (as you would expect some other service) -- further if you attempt to do a TLS/SSL scan on the port you will be flat out told to go away. (FIN, ACK) ie your packet doesn't match what we want to see.
Not seeing anyone specifically blaming ecobee. yes ecobee might have a very particular set of connection rules (they should) and clearly they do.Yes DNS does play a role here, so the other suggestions on the thread are valid.
as are the questions regarding your firewall rules, any internal VPN etc.Auto NAT might not always get it right (in some cases) your particular combination of gear - the order you flow the traffic might be causing one of those "special" cases. That's not a blame game, that's fact, that's why you have options ..
(ah google nest) I've never had a problem) but I have a different modem I'm sure (fibre) static IP, different access point, different managed switch and no cisco - my access point also goes directly to the one of the pfSense ports on the 2100 - My 2100 has the managed switch on 1, the main AP on 2, and a small hub with a bunch of goodies plugged in (include two additional access points in another build) on port 3 -- zero issues -- and I just realized I have an empty port I better go find something to plug in - LOL
Clearly if you had problems with the nest as well, says something is wrong with that path out and back, (assuming the nest also went through the same AP, cisco switch - pfsense ) as in the diagram ...
Have you tried plugging the AP directly into the pfsense and letting that run for a while ? just curious.
you might have to help pfSense build the NAT for this service. Not because pfsense or ecobee or the AP or anything else is wrong or specifically broken, just because you have something special happening (the edge case the is one off)
It's really kind of hard for anyone without that exact combination of gear you have to sort it out for you, when all they hear is "it is broken can you make it go". If the Cisco works and does everything you need for the 80+ devices why change anything ?
Carry on
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I think you may be over reacting to users questions.
There are plenty of things pfSense could be better at!
Most commonly when we see reports of some service that worked fine behind some other router but not pfSense it's either a NAT issue or some ALG/Proxy that was present on the other device but not in pfSense.
Try setting a static source port.
The difficulty here is that it doesn't fail immediately. It looks as though the ecobee server marks the IP address bad in some way after some time and presumably after some conection event that pfSense fails to pass. But we have yet to see exactly what that is which makes it difficult to diagnose.
