WAN STATUS BLINKING

turk182

First, I'm new to pfsense and have just completed my first build. Its a core 2 duo rig with 4 gig of ram two NICs and an internal LAN port.

I've used the two extra NICs for two WAN Connections ( both are adsl connections with dynamic IPs ) that are configured for Load Balancing and Failover.

When monitoring either of the WAN connections via the GUI, the WAN IP ADDRESS seems to disappear and appear (blink) every five (5) seconds. What may be causing this?

a. The DSL Connections being dynamic? or
b. The use of off-the-shelf NICs ( I just stuck DLINKs that were laying around as I am currently testing out this box)?

Another question is that the 64bit installer did not work for me, as pfsense seemed to get stuck in the installation process ( all extra bios options disabled ). So the box is running in 32-bit mode and just recognizing 3gig of RAM

stephenw10

a) Nope Dynamic addresses should cause no problem.
b) Shouldn't be a problem but can be if they are particularly bad. D-Link make many NICs, good and bad, so without more info it's impossible to say. We would need to know the exact chipset used by the card. Often the model number alone is not enough as big companies often change the chipset without changing the model.

How are your DSL connections connected? Are the modems in bridge mode? Are they from the same ISP? Same gateway IP? Do you have anything in the system logs to indicate why the connections are going down?

It's unlikely you will need more than 3GB of RAM so I wouldn't worry about that. At least not until you get the connections stable.

Steve

turk182

Thanks for the reply.

Both WAN connections are:

1. From the same ISP
2. Connected via Modems in bridge mode;
3. Using dynamically assigned public IP addresses;
4. Using different gateways ( 49.x.x.x , and 112.x.x.x );

In as far as the exact models of the NICs are concerned, I will have to get back to you on this

turk182

@stephenw10:

It's unlikely you will need more than 3GB of RAM so I wouldn't worry about that.

Hi Steve,
wouldn't more RAM increase performance in general? Reason why I keep trying to install the 64 bit version, because in my mind, more RAM will mean less disk access resulting to better response or is this a wrong assumption? :)

turk182

Going back…got my hands on some intel NICS and will be installing them later. Will see if the blinking continues and update this post later.

wallabybob

@turk182:

wouldn't more RAM increase performance in general?

Depends what your box is doing. My 256MB pfSense with only a couple of "small" packages generally runs with reported free RAM in the 10s of MB.

turk182

Apologies for not being able to post this right away . . .

I installed the new network cards and the issue has been resolved ;D

Thank you.