PfSense 2.0.1 switches filesystems to RW

[miguelgoncalves]

Hi!

I am running pfSense 2.0.1 on an ALIX board with a LAN and two WAN interfaces (failover setup). It has been working great.

Strangely, both filesystems (/ and /cf) change from ro to rw automatically on the background. Until now I haven't determined what is causing the change.

I've wrote a script to test, every 5 secs, if both / or /cf are RW and I will receive an SMS message if they are.

Anyone experienced this?

Regards,
Miguel

[jimp]

When pfSense needs to write out a change, it switches the FS to read-write, makes the change, and then switches back to read only.

More interesting than the filesystem being ro/rw would be a "ps uxawww" output at the time it happens. You'll probably see a command running that is needing to make a change, but exactly what would be doing that depends on your config. Could be a package, or a periodic rrd/dhcp backup, etc.

[echoranger]

I wouldn't worry about it too much. If you run the mount command when connected to the box you'll see the flash filesystems are also mounted with the synchronous option (from my ALIX setup below):

/dev/ufs/pfsense0 on / (ufs, local, noatime, synchronous)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local)
/dev/md0 on /tmp (ufs, local)
/dev/md1 on /var (ufs, local)
/dev/ufs/cf on /cf (ufs, local, noatime, synchronous)
devfs on /var/dhcpd/dev (devfs, local)

Synchronous means the system will sync all writes and not return from a command until the write has been completed. Even if a power failure were to happen with the filesystem mounted read-write it shouldn't cause any lost data as commands don't return until the write is verified as on-disk.