Watchdog Timeout when using Cross Cable between 2 pfSense boxes
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I have this setup:
(dsl1,2,3)=== [pfsense load balancer] –-cross cable--- [pfsense w/ squid] –------- (LAN)
DHCP 192.168.1.1 192.168.1.2 192.168.2.1 DHCPI can access the Web GUI of both pfSense machines from a LAN client, through 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.2.1
When I try to intensively access 192.168.1.1, say, when I try to upload a Firmware file, 192.168.1.2 interface craps out returning this error:
rl0: Watchdog Timeout
When I'm just surfing the internet it works fine. Though I have not tested it yet with lots of active connections (e.g. lots of LAN clients).
I'm using Realtek 10/100 PCI LAN Cards on both machines. pfSense 2.0 BETA4.
Why is this happening and how do you think I can prevent this?
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There seems to be a widely held view that at least the early Realtek NICs were pretty terrible. Perhaps you have some of that vintage.
I have a couple of Realtek 10/100 PCI NICs and they seem to work OK for me.
A while ago even dual port 10/100 Intel NICs were available quite cheaply on Ebay. I don't know the current situation. I forget the details now but a fairly recent FreeBSD driver for Intel 10/100 NICs had a bug in that it erroneously determined that some Intel 10/100 NICs had capabilities they really didn't have. I suspect some of the older NICs might not get a lot of test cycles from the FreeBSD developers. You might be better off spending a bit more money and getting a more current NIC.