pfSense WAN High Packet Loss, dropouts

Networking & Firewalls
1

Hey guys

Running 2.7.2-RELEASE (amd64) on a Dell Optiplex with an i5-4590 CPU and using an Intel i350-t4 NIC.

My pfSense box WAN port is connected to a Arris CM8200 Cable Modem (NBN in Australia), I don’t have access to any config on this modem. Speeds I get are 100mb down /50 mb up. I’ve followed Toms bufferbloat youtube guide for traffic shaping which I suspect isn’t causing this.

So far I have tried the following:
IPV6 is completely disabled.
In Wan DCHP Config under DHCP Client Configuration changing the advanced config preset to ‘FreeBSD default’
Adding in supersede dhcp-server-identifier 255.255.255.255 under Option Modifiers
In the Gateway I have enable and disabled “Disable Gateway Monitoring” and “Disable Gateway Monitoring Action” in different configurations/
Have changed the Monitor IP from my ISP provided IP to 1.1.1.1 etc

Essentailly all steps in these threads:

The only thing I haven’t tried is “Use non-local gateway” as I’m not entirely sure if this is safe?

My logs when the packet loss occures:

Under Status > System > Gateways

Sep 27 11:47:57 	dpinger 	13221 	WAN_DHCP 1.1.1.1: Alarm latency 11868us stddev 7254us loss 21%
Sep 27 11:47:57 	dpinger 	13221 	WAN_DHCP 1.1.1.1: sendto error: 65

Lots of “sendto error: 65” lines

Then

Sep 27 11:51:06 	dpinger 	13475 	exiting on signal 15
Sep 27 11:51:06 	dpinger 	13221 	exiting on signal 15

Under Status > System > Logs > DHCP

Sep 27 11:45:38 	dhclient 	60138 	DHCPREQUEST on igb0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
Sep 27 11:46:11 	dhclient 	60138 	DHCPREQUEST on igb0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
Sep 27 11:47:43 	dhclient 	41047 	EXPIRE
Sep 27 11:47:43 	dhclient 	41842 	Deleting old routes
Sep 27 11:47:43 	dhclient 	43812 	PREINIT
Sep 27 11:47:43 	dhclient 	60138 	DHCPDISCOVER on igb0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 22
Sep 27 11:48:05 	dhclient 	60138 	DHCPDISCOVER on igb0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 39
Sep 27 11:48:44 	dhclient 	60138 	No DHCPOFFERS received.
Sep 27 11:48:44 	dhclient 	60138 	No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.
Sep 27 11:48:44 	dhclient 	91423 	FAIL
2

If you connect a computer directly to the cable model does it have the same issues?

3

The one thing I haven’t tried! Will report back once I do.

4

Issue finally reoccured during waking hours. Short answer Yes.

Plugged in a PC directly into the cable modem and had full internet access, assigned it an ipv4 address.

The WAN_DHCP Gateway showed 100% loss, then after I unplugged the PC and reconnected the pfSense box it stuck on a Status of ‘Unkown’ for a few minutes. I tried restarting the gateway service but it still stayed as ‘Unkown’. So I rebooted pfSense and the gateway went back to Online. The logs are quiet long and I didn’t remember to note the times I did all of this inbetween running running between rooms, but can post if needed.

5

So you are saying that the issue was occurring even when you had a PC attached?

6

You can access the modem status with http://192.168.100.1
(user: admin, default pw: last 8 digits of serial#)

The first tab is status, click on Downstream/Upstream status.

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1 Like
7

Occuring on pfSense yes.

PC Directly into modem internet works fine.

(Edited to clear up confusion. Apologies.)

8

Thanks.

There is a a caveat with NBN provided modems is that you need to hard reset them and have a 1-2 min window to access it via this guide.

I’m not entirely certain this is a modem issue.