pfSense Computers Rebooting
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Hello. The computer that I've had pfSense installed on for years began restarting and then hanging on boot. This computer had been rock solid. On the 3rd restart, which the restarts were within a few hours of each other, the computer decided to give up the ghost. The computer will not even power on now. At the time of this post, I had the latest version of pfSense Plus installed. I can't tell you the version of pfSense Plus now; I want to say 27.0.1 but that's likely wrong. As I recall, I did not receive an email that pfSense restarted.
I replaced that computer with another computer I had. I ended up installing pfSense CE 2.8.1 as it looks like pfSense Plus is no longer free. This morning, I saw an email that this pfSense CE computer restarted at 9:36pm last night but did not hang on restart; it seems to have booted with no issues. Hmmm, scratching my head. Now why would a different computer begin exhibiting the same restart issue? 2 computers restarting??? What are the odds???
I'm sure there are several hardware reasons why a computer would begin doing this - power supply, CPU, RAM... Could there be something a little more nefarious going on? Could my pfSense computer be compromised? Just a thought.
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@newUser2pfSense said in pfSense Computers Rebooting:
Could there be something a little more nefarious going on?
Hi,
this is hard to say! I'm using pfsense (mostly CE) since 2018 and I had a few unpredictable, sudden hardware halts but no trace in the logs (and no dump). Despite long and intensive analytics I couldn't find a correlation between hard- and software that is responsable for that ... maybe someone with more experience can say more ...
In my humble opinion that has to be a very individual case where specific factors get accumulated and lead to such behavior! (on 1000 machines everything works flawless ... but there is one ...)Have a nice Weekend,
firodo -
Check the logs when it happened. Does it show a reboot triggered by something?
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@stephenw10 I can't read the logs as the computer won't even power on. I had to substitute another computer in its place until I can get the original computer fixed, if at all possible.
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Right but on the second machine that also rebooted unexpectedly you should be able to.
The first machine looks to be almost certainly a hardware failure.
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As you said the new machine is also rebooting randomly so checking the log before the reboot occur can give some indices what could be the cause. Also if your machine has a serial console monitoring that console can also help finding the cause.
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@fireodo The new machine has only restarted 1 time. It seems to be solid since then. Unfortunately, I don't have a serial connector on this new machine. I'm going to let this new machine continue to run until it exhibits another restart while I research a new computer I can put a 4 port NIC card in. Although this new machine is working at present, it's old and end of life - no longer supported. Any ideas for a new computer?
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@newUser2pfSense said in pfSense Computers Rebooting:
Any ideas for a new computer?
Depends what your pfsense have to do ...
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@fireodo I tell ya, trying to future proof, for a few years at least, a pfSense box and finding an Intel i226-V, 4 port, 2.5gb, NIC, is not as easy as I thought it would be. Reputable sourcing is not easy either. Not that many 5 star ratings out there it seems.
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@newUser2pfSense said in pfSense Computers Rebooting:
@fireodo I tell ya, trying to future proof, for a few years at least, a pfSense box and finding an Intel i226-V, 4 port, 2.5gb, NIC, is not as easy as I thought it would be. Reputable sourcing is not easy either. Not that many 5 star ratings out there it seems.
If it covers your needs and has some room for future improvements, its OK!
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@newUser2pfSense said in pfSense Computers Rebooting:
I don't have a serial connector on this new machine.
It's a "PC" type device right ?
So it has a VGA build in, and USB for a keyboard ? Then good news, you don't need the serial console port at all. You already found it.
The 'VGA or DHMI' screen + usb key board were the equipment you used to install it in the first place, is your 'console' access. This 'console' access works even when NICs are not initialized and not known yet .... this is the access you need.Btw : your old PC with pfSense : get out the disk, hook, it up to another PC (now : remember : this drive won't have any 'Microsoft ' partitions ... ^^), mount the drive in the OS, and you can 'inspect' it.
