- Joined
- Jan 24, 2006
- Location
- South Dakota
NOTE: I posted this question in the PFSense forums but we have some smart people here. Also, OCForums seems to have a faster response time.
Problem: I have a cable internet service that has been having issues. During the last 5-7 weeks the internet will drop at random times, the cable company has acknowledged the issue. However, they are sure they have fixed the issue. I still see internet outages with some frequency (due to packet loss).
Background info: PFSense running directly behind the cable modem. I have setup smokeping on 2 computers behind pfsense to monitor a half dozen sites both via DNS and actual IPs. They report packet loss which agrees with PFSense's packet loss RRD. I have been running PFSense with the same setup for the last 2 years (updating as required) so I am now on PFSense 2.1. I have taken the extrodinary step of installing a second PFSense instance and turning off the first thinking that maybe upgrading between versions left some cruft that was exposed by my ISP's issues.
PFSense problems: I believe that at this point it is actually PFSense's fault. The modem's uptime has been good, signal strength to noise ratio has normalized etc.
Troubleshooting done: I put a switch between the modem and the PFSense box, my internet provider allows me to pull up to 3 IP's off my modem. One port of the switch goes to PFSense and then to the rest of the house. The other port goes into a spare machine which I have wiped, hardened and installed smokeping on. Over the last several days I have noted 100% packet loss 2-3 times a day for PFSense and machines behind PFSense. On the hardened machine on the switch, no such service interruptions have been seen. This is why I believe it to be a PFSense issue
I have not changed anything on the PFSense box since its initial setup so I am not really sure where the problem is. I have changed the machines (thus nics), I have changed the ethernet cables as well. I have tried virtualizing PFSense and importing the configs with the same result.
I am not doing anything overly complex with pfsense. I have half dozen forwarding rules, I am running OpenVPN and I have only 3 packages installed: OpenVPN BandwidthD and RRD summary.
I have attempted dropping the interfaces to 100TX/Full Duplex as I found suggested in a thread here, but that has not made any appreciable change that I can find.
Observation: the problem will clear itself in 15-25 minutes or if I reboot PFSense it will fix itself when PFsense comes back online.
I would appreciate any troubleshooting hints/tips. When saying things like "check this log" I would appreciate the kindness of specifying the location of said resource
Problem: I have a cable internet service that has been having issues. During the last 5-7 weeks the internet will drop at random times, the cable company has acknowledged the issue. However, they are sure they have fixed the issue. I still see internet outages with some frequency (due to packet loss).
Background info: PFSense running directly behind the cable modem. I have setup smokeping on 2 computers behind pfsense to monitor a half dozen sites both via DNS and actual IPs. They report packet loss which agrees with PFSense's packet loss RRD. I have been running PFSense with the same setup for the last 2 years (updating as required) so I am now on PFSense 2.1. I have taken the extrodinary step of installing a second PFSense instance and turning off the first thinking that maybe upgrading between versions left some cruft that was exposed by my ISP's issues.
PFSense problems: I believe that at this point it is actually PFSense's fault. The modem's uptime has been good, signal strength to noise ratio has normalized etc.
Troubleshooting done: I put a switch between the modem and the PFSense box, my internet provider allows me to pull up to 3 IP's off my modem. One port of the switch goes to PFSense and then to the rest of the house. The other port goes into a spare machine which I have wiped, hardened and installed smokeping on. Over the last several days I have noted 100% packet loss 2-3 times a day for PFSense and machines behind PFSense. On the hardened machine on the switch, no such service interruptions have been seen. This is why I believe it to be a PFSense issue
I have not changed anything on the PFSense box since its initial setup so I am not really sure where the problem is. I have changed the machines (thus nics), I have changed the ethernet cables as well. I have tried virtualizing PFSense and importing the configs with the same result.
I am not doing anything overly complex with pfsense. I have half dozen forwarding rules, I am running OpenVPN and I have only 3 packages installed: OpenVPN BandwidthD and RRD summary.
I have attempted dropping the interfaces to 100TX/Full Duplex as I found suggested in a thread here, but that has not made any appreciable change that I can find.
Observation: the problem will clear itself in 15-25 minutes or if I reboot PFSense it will fix itself when PFsense comes back online.
I would appreciate any troubleshooting hints/tips. When saying things like "check this log" I would appreciate the kindness of specifying the location of said resource