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    NTP set to time.google.com not working after reboot

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • johnpozJ
      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @rpsmith
      last edited by johnpoz

      @rpsmith so looks like its trying to talk to time at google via IPv6.. Maybe its taking a while for your ipv6 to come up on a reboot? Change your ntp server to prefer IPv4 Your currently talking to IPv4 for ntp from that.

      Or ipv6 just isn't working and it finally fails over to IPv4..

      Or use IPv4 address for time google and not the fqdn.

      I don't see AAAA for us.pool.ntp.org - so if your having issue with IPv6 - that could be why it jumps to using IPv4 for that. And gets an answer.

      ;; QUESTION SECTION:
;us.pool.ntp.org.               IN      AAAA

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
pool.ntp.org.           1300    IN      SOA     c.ntpns.org. hostmaster.pool.ntp.org. 1748189843 5400 5400 1209600 3600

      You say it starts working after a while? Check if talking IPv4 or IPv6 to time google when it shows talking to timeX.google.com

      Now coming back to me - believe the only ntp.org that comes back with IPv6 is 2.us.pool.ntp.org or 2.pool.ntp.org etc..

      ;; QUESTION SECTION:
;2.us.pool.ntp.org.             IN      AAAA

;; ANSWER SECTION:
2.us.pool.ntp.org.      130     IN      AAAA    2600:3c00:e000:318::1
2.us.pool.ntp.org.      130     IN      AAAA    2600:1702:7400:9ac0::314:5c
2.us.pool.ntp.org.      130     IN      AAAA    2600:3c00::f03c:91ff:fe96:a6
2.us.pool.ntp.org.      130     IN      AAAA    2603:c020:0:8369:0:ba11:ba11:ba1

      An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
      If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
      Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
      SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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      • R
        rpsmith
        last edited by

        If I only use "time.google.com" set as Pool and no other entry I get "No active peers available" after a reboot bet restarting the NTP service it works.

        Roy...

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        • R
          rpsmith
          last edited by

          Changing DNS to IPv4 made no difference.

          Roy...

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          • R
            rpsmith
            last edited by

            setting it to 216.239.35.12 as a Pool works.

            Roy...

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            • R
              rpsmith
              last edited by

              Under: | System | Advanced | Networking |
              I have "Allow IPv6" unchecked.

              Roy...

              johnpozJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • R
                rpsmith
                last edited by

                Enabling IPv6 in | System | Advanced | Networking | made no difference.

                I forward all my DNS request to my two Pi-Hole servers. I wounder if that could be causing the problem. I'll try 1.1.1.1 and see if that helps.

                Roy...

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                • R
                  rpsmith
                  last edited by

                  That didn't help!

                  Roy...

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                  • R
                    rpsmith
                    last edited by

                    The only configuration I can get to work immediately after a reboot is:

                    216.239.35.12 set to Pool.

                    Roy...

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                    • R
                      rpsmith
                      last edited by

                      I guess for now I'm going with this:

                      216.239.35.0 - Server
                      216.239.35.4 - Server
                      216.239.35.8 - Server
                      216.239.35.12 - Server

                      I should be OK as long as Google sticks with those addresses.

                      Roy...

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                      • johnpozJ
                        johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @rpsmith
                        last edited by

                        @rpsmith said in NTP set to time.google.com not working after reboot:

                        I have "Allow IPv6" unchecked.

                        well that would actively block all IPv6 - even if pfsense had a ipv6 address your not going anywhere..

                        An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                        If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                        Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                        SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                        • R
                          rpsmith
                          last edited by

                          It didn't matter whether is was allowed or not it still didn't work. Why does pfSense prefer IPv6 by default or does it?

                          Roy...

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                          • R
                            rpsmith
                            last edited by rpsmith

                            Got this from Grok3:

                            "Google supports IPv6, and time.google.com may return an AAAA record like the one above. Google only serves AAAA records to clients with good IPv6 connectivity to optimize performance."

                            So is there anything pfSense can do to stop google's DNS servers from giving out IPv6 addresses instead of IPv4? My firewall only have IPv4 addresses on the WAN.

                            Also, why does it resolve properly when I restart the NTP service?

                            Roy...

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                            • johnpozJ
                              johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @rpsmith
                              last edited by johnpoz

                              @rpsmith said in NTP set to time.google.com not working after reboot:

                              Google only serves AAAA records to clients with good IPv6 connectivity to optimize performance.

                              that is highly unlikely.. AAAA is returned even over IPv4 - I get answers and I sure am not talking to them via IPv6 when I do my query to 8.8.8.8 for dns, etc..

                              The services prob drops over to IPv4 then.. I would suggest you prefer IPv4 down near the bottom of the ntp settings page.

                              All things that have IPv6 try and prefer IPv6 over IPv4 if they have a valid address. I would be really curious do you actually have IPv6? when you allow it via that checkbox.. Try and ping say at

                              time1.google.com. 3600 IN AAAA 2001:4860:4806::

                              [24.11-RELEASE][admin@sg4860.home.arpa]/: ping 2001:4860:4806::
PING(56=40+8+8 bytes) 2001:470:1f10:2f6::2 --> 2001:4860:4806::
16 bytes from 2001:4860:4806::, icmp_seq=0 hlim=119 time=8.586 ms
16 bytes from 2001:4860:4806::, icmp_seq=1 hlim=119 time=8.419 ms
16 bytes from 2001:4860:4806::, icmp_seq=2 hlim=119 time=8.737 ms
16 bytes from 2001:4860:4806::, icmp_seq=3 hlim=119 time=9.745 ms

                              If you have no IPv6 address, and don't want anything to get a AAAA response almost anything will ask for both A and AAAA when you lookup something, even if it doesn't have an IPv6 address - yeah its stupid if you ask me, but that is not a pfsense/freebsd thing - that is just a stupid shortcut OSes and applications take..

                              You can set unbound not to use IPv6 and not to return IPv6 addresses..

                              settings.jpg

                              firefox is horrible with doing that. but you can disable it in firefox for example with

                              firefox.jpg

                              An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                              If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                              Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                              SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                              • R
                                rpsmith
                                last edited by

                                I tried setting the NTP service to IPv4 but that made no difference. Also my WAN interface is set to IP configuration type set to None.

                                This smells like a BSD or pfSense bug to me but I'm not a programmer.

                                Roy...

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                                • P
                                  Patch @johnpoz
                                  last edited by Patch

                                  I thought KEA didn’t like domain names in NTP

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                                  • R
                                    rpsmith
                                    last edited by rpsmith

                                    I'm not using KEA and it works flawlessly when I restart the NTP service.

                                    Last time I tried switching to KEA it stop renewing leases and I had to scramble to reset a bunch of firewalls to stop using it. I'm not impressed.

                                    Roy...

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                                    • johnpozJ
                                      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @rpsmith
                                      last edited by johnpoz

                                      @rpsmith kea would have zero to do with dns or ntp - ZERO!!!

                                      See my edit above about setting ntp to prefer IPv4 dns, and also how to stop unbound using IPv6 or trying and or answering a client that asks for a AAAA

                                      Kea doesn't like fqdn for ntp that you would hand to your clients.. Because per RFC setting a ntp server in dhcp is an IP only thing.. ISC and pfsense just resolves it before handing it out via a dhcp lease to some client. maybe kea in the furture or current iteration on pfsense does that now - but its bad to let clients people think you can put in fqdn for ntp server to hand to clients - because the dhcp that is not borked isn't going to do that.. The rfc clearly states IP for ntp servers. That pfsense ever allowed the option in the first place was a mistake if you ask me.

                                      An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                                      If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                                      Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                                      SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                                      • R
                                        rpsmith
                                        last edited by

                                        I'm not using unbound. I'm using forwarder to forward DNS lockups to my two pi-holes.

                                        Roy...

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                                        • johnpozJ
                                          johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @rpsmith
                                          last edited by

                                          @rpsmith unbound can forward.. Do you have pfsense asking loopback 127.0.0.1 or ::1 which would be service running on pfsense.

                                          You can for sure do the same setting in pihole, because unbound can be used on pihole. You can prob look in pihole on how else to not return AAAA for clients that ask, but almost all clients will ask for both AAAA and A when looking up something.

                                          But if you have no IPv6 and ntp/pfsense thinks it should talk to something via IPv6 since it got back an AAAA back - then yeah your prob not going to have a good day.

                                          An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                                          If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                                          Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                                          SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                                          • P
                                            Patch @johnpoz
                                            last edited by

                                            @johnpoz said in NTP set to time.google.com not working after reboot:

                                            kea would have zero to do with dns or ntp - ZERO!!!

                                            Release note suggest there is an interaction
                                            https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/releases/2-8-0.html

                                            DHCP (IPv4)
                                            Fixed: Kea does not allow FQDNs for NTP servers but input validation does not prevent them from being added #14991

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