Netgate 8300 Appliance and pure sine wave UPS
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Re: Newly purchased Netgate 8300 Appliance.
Hello. I am having the same or a similar issue with my 8300s. The Netgate power supplies are plugged into two different UPS units, both of the same model, which provide a pure sine wave output. However, whenever there is a power outage, both firewalls go into a fault state.
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@philippe-richard What model UPS's?
It is common that devices that claim to be pure sine-wave are not.
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@chpalmer "Hello, this is a Tripp Lite SMART3000RMXL2U UPS unit.
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There is a difference between the output type (simulated sine wave, pure sine wave, etc.) and the amount of time that it takes to transfer to battery power.
Different manufacturers use slightly different terms, but in general there are three types:
- Offline / Standby
- Interactive / Line Interactive
- Online / Double Conversion
Each of these types may offer a "pure sine wave" output, but they can have significantly different transfer times in the event of mains failure. It is the transfer time that is likely triggering the fault.
Here are a couple of links for that offer further explanation:
Wikipedia - Uninterruptible power supply
Eaton - Choosing the optimal UPS topology
FS - Comparison of UPS Topologies -
@philippe-richard said in Netgate 8300 Appliance and pure sine wave UPS:
Tripp Lite SMART3000RMXL2U
That's a Line Interactive model. The spec sheets says that the unit is pure sine wave, with a transfer time of "1-4ms for normal mode, >5ms for sensitive mode."
Is it in normal mode?
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For a typical router appliance as this, anything below 20 ms wouldn't be a problem.
Can you elaborate on fault state?
It hangs? It reboots?.Are these two on the same place ?
Interconnected?
Looks like a grounding issue. -
@netblues said in Netgate 8300 Appliance and pure sine wave UPS:
Looks like a grounding issue.
Could be. Or a floating neutral, swapped hot/neutral, etc. But you would expect the UPS itself to report a fault on these types of issues if it's the mains wiring.
Although, one interesting way that various issues materialize is people testing the UPS by pulling the plug out of the wall --which of course breaks the ground connection.
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@philippe-richard said in Netgate 8300 Appliance and pure sine wave UPS:
whenever there is a power outage, both firewalls go into a fault state.
Does the power supply have a data connection as well as a power connection to the Netgate 8300?
If so to separate a Data processing fault from a power connection fault you could
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connect the 8300 to the mains power then simulate a loss of power to the UPS with ongoing data connection
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leave the 8300 connected to the UPS but disconnect the data connection and again simulate power loss to the UPS
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It really doesn't matter what kind of ups it is.
A netgate router appliance (and almost all such devices) nowdays operate on a universal switching psu that usually can work from 90volts up to 250 without issues.
Sine, simulated sine or even square, it doesn't matter.
As for transfer time, since this isnt a high power device, there is enough capacitance inside the psu to tackle even 100ms of outage/brown out.
In any case tripp lite is a known maker and unless it is faulty (which is strange for TWO units) it should be fine.If the two routers are connected to different ups (for redundancy) at the same location, and end up interconnected via ethernet cables, (expected) then the possibility of ground loops creation, leading into residual current flowing through ethernet ports, becomes a reality.
When this happens, lockups occur (or even burned lan ports).
Best practices recommend to run a thick (yellow) cable bound to the screws on the chassis of all devices in the rack, which ends up to a dedicated ground. In bigger installations there is a separate "telecoms" ground wiring harness.
The rack must also be grounded as per regulations.However its often too common to see networking equipment without ANY grounding
When different power sources are used, this becomes critical. -
@dennypage
Thank you very much for taking the time to reply. I don't know much about UPS units, but in the web interface configuration, here is what I found: it is set to 'normal' mode.
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@netblues hello,
During a power outage, the firewall stops performing its function, as if the entire system were locked up. Access to the 8300s is unresponsive—whether via the web interface or SSH—and the entire network is blocked. The two Netgate units in HA are in the same network rack, and each power supply is fed by two Tripp Lite PDUs (PDUMV20NETLX). Each power supply is connected to a separate PDU, both of which are protected by two Tripp Lite SMART3000RMXL2U UPS units. No other equipment connected to these PDUs has experienced any issues. Both 8300s are properly grounded. The IPMI logs on both Netgate units report no hardware alerts or power supply errors. I had also connected both console ports via screen to log all activity should another failure occur. However, at the time of the latest failure, the console output showed absolutely nothing unusual before the units locked up. The status outputs reveal no anomalies." -
@Patch Hello, no, it does not have those connections.
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@netblues
Hello, regarding the HA link, the two Netgate units are not interconnected directly via an Ethernet cable but are connected through a switch. Both 8300s are properly grounded. -
Here is a photo of the two Netgate units during their failure.
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@philippe-richard said in Netgate 8300 Appliance and pure sine wave UPS:
not interconnected directly via an Ethernet cable but are connected through a switch
Is this switch on a UPS? Your network is not going to be up if the switches that make up your network are not up.
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@johnpoz
Hello, yes, the switch is connected to a UPS. The entire architecture is on UPS power (firewall, switch, routers, and servers), and in the event of a power outage, only the 8300s end up frozen in a state where nothing works anymore. -
Anything shown at the console when this happens? Does the IPMI still respond?
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said in Netgate 8300 Appliance and pure sine wave UPS:
Does the power supply have a data connection as well as a power connection to the Netgate 8300?
@philippe-richard said in Netgate 8300 Appliance and pure sine wave UPS:
no, it does not have those connections.
So during a prolonged power outage how is the 8300 powered down prior to the battery going flat?
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@stephenw10 Hello, there is nothing displayed on the console. Furthermore, the consoles of both 8300s are physically connected to a PC using the command screen -L -Logfile logfile.txt /dev/ttyUSB0 115200, and there is nothing unusual in the log file, even though both firewalls are running in kernel debug mode. As for IPMI access, I was not on-site during the incident, and since I lost VPN access because of it, I wasn't able to check from that side.
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@Patch
Hello, that is also one of the many tasks I need to work on, so that the 8300s shut down gracefully instead of experiencing a hard crash when the battery runs out.
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