2.1 Upgrade - DHCP Server Will Not Start (2 instances running) [SOLVED]

HaburGate

After the 2.1 upgrade, I'm seeing that everything comes up okay, but the DHCP server will not start (see attached images). In the log it says a DHCP server is already running?

Doing a manual re-install is very difficult because the box has a broken VGA port, so I'd like to fix it without wiping and re-loading if possible. Where do I start to look?

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kejianshi

I'd pull the drive, connect to another box, wipe, reinstall BASIC installation. Then reinstall the drive to this box. Boot and then restore settings from webgui. Thats perhaps easier than hunting down an odd failure in DHCP and shouldn't require VGA.

HaburGate

@kejianshi:

I'd pull the drive, connect to another box, wipe, reinstall BASIC installation. Then reinstall the drive to this box. Boot and then restore settings from webgui. Thats perhaps easier than hunting down an odd failure in DHCP and shouldn't require VGA.

Thanks for the idea kejianshi. I come from the Windows world mostly, so pardon my ignorance, but will that cause any problems loading the hard drive back in the box after being installed on a different set of hardware?

I'd still really like to track down why 2 DHCP servers are running, I only say this because I'm seeing a lot of other posts about some other services trying to run twice after the upgrade (NTP seems to be the main culprit right now).

kejianshi

I've transplanted my own drives a couple times. If the NIC card type is similar it will work fine.

Doesn't have to be exact same but same driver family is nice.

In my case I've gone from one system that used an em0 and em1 to a totally different system that also used an em0 and em1 and had SATA and it worked without any issue.

Between exact same types of systems would surely work.

Tillebeck

Just a note…

Different NICs are no problem if you have serial access to the box you can get startet even with out proper LAN/WAN setup.

Connect a serial cable between your windows machine and your pfsense box and use putty or similar
The console will automatically write out info about missing conf for nics (if not just restart the pfsense while keeping terminal open)
From here you will be guided through the process setting up the new nics. When asked just plug in an ethernet cable in WAN port and save. Then same process for the LAN port
That is! You are up and running again :-)

kejianshi

Yep - But I don't have any serial cables laying around - Maybe OP has.

HaburGate

Hey, I just wanted to post that I managed to fix it, it was a very easy fix. There was a stale PID (Process ID) left over from the upgrade, apparently the DHCP server didn't terminate gracefully on the upgrade, and it was still sitting around making pfSense think a DHCP server was still running.

This command fixed it (from the shell or the WebGUI shell page):

rm /var/dhcpd/var/run/dhcpd.pid

After this I was able to start the DHCP server successfully. Thanks to everyone who chimed in!

techaholic

HaburGate you're de man, been pulling my hair out for 3 days about this error, and your cmd fixed it. The upgrade from 2.0 to 2.1 bombed (something about not being able to load a kernel), so I fell back onto the USB img full install, which went well except for the DHCP server error already running…. which your cmd fixed and I am now chugging on all cylinders, thanks for the fix ;D

HaburGate

Hey techaholic, glad it helped!