FreeNAS and pfSense compatibility issue?

[tigs]

I am new to FreeNAS. I wanted to give it a try, and it didn't go well. Here is my setup:

cable internet modem as gateway -- pfSense box running the latest pfSense -- switch:

From the switch:
2 desktop computers
1 Access point
1 Xpenology box
1 one linksys VOIP adapter

I am adding the second NAS box running the latest FreeNAS.

The Problem: once the FreeNAS started running for a while, I will lose internet connection to everything: desktop, AP and VOIP adapter. I spent hours, including from scratch installation of pfSense and FreeNAS. Nothing works. The pfSense was setup in default, I did not even run the wizard, just wanted to make sure no firewall rules or other configuration interfering with the FreeNAS box. So was the FreeNAS, no further configuration after the wizard. I then decided to turn this FreeNAS into another Xpenology. All work like a charm.

I have no plan to further trouble shoot as it is very time consuming. I thought i would let people here know there is such an issue, at least to me.

 

[Nick2253]

Honestly, this doesn't really make any sense. I'm not even sure how you concluded that it was some issue with pfSense/FreeNAS compatibility.

I'm interested in troubleshooting this problem, because if there really is a problem here, it's something that needs to get fixed. My immediate thought is an IP address conflict on the network, which might happen if the default IPs that are allocated for jails conflict with something on your network.

EDIT: I just wanted to add that I use pfSense with FreeNAS without any issue, many of my friends do as well, and I know at least a few other forum regulars that also pair the two without problems. I've never heard of a problem like you're describing, but it is incredibly serious, and it concerns me that something else might be lurking out there.

 

[omerome]

That definitely sounds like an IP conflict to me, too.

I have found that the app, Fing, really helped me to figure out what IPs are being used on my network. Sometimes a jail is taking up two IP addresses and if they are, you can see it in the app.

Now, I am not an expert in networking or anything, but that's my two cents.

 

[scrappy]

I would also think an IP conflict as the cause here.

 

[tigs]

Everyone seems to point to the possible IP conflict. I did check the DHCP lease status from the pfSense, actually, that is where I access my devices. I did not remember noticing any IP conflict. The FreeNAS box was added to the fully working system/network. After the addition, I was able to access the FreeNAS box and run the wizard. This sounds to me the newly added FreeNAS was not taking any currently assigned IP. The other aspect of the problem is that, the network will run for a while before it dies down. I have re-installed both the pfSense and FreeNAS from scratch several times before I changed to xpenology.

I first noticed the problem was when I noticed my VOIP phone does not work any more. I tried and tried power it off and unplug and re-plug to the switch, occasionally I would get it work for a short while. However, If I plug the VOIP to the pfSense directly (bypassing the switch) it will work as it should. at one point, I thought it was my switch's fault. The fact it works with both box running xpenology made me wonder whether it was switch. It is trendnet 8-port non-managed switch, the basic one. Could it be the switch?

I later noticed the computers and AP were not working either. I use windows, I would see a yellow x over the little network/computer icon at the bottom right, indicating "connected but no internet".

the Network icon has few different status:
1. connected with internet: no warning
2. unplugged: tiny red filled circle with an empty x inside
3. IP conflict (unidentified): orange solid triangle with a ! inside
4. connected with no internet: a yellow X over the computer icon.

Mine was the 4th. Can I say there was no IP conflict?

thanks all

 

[nightshade00013]

Could very easily be the switch. VOIP devices are bandwidth hungry and it could be attempting to do something that the switch does not like. Plus once a consumer switch gets a certain amount of traffic it can have issues handling it. Could also be a bad connector or port causing an issue. Possibly even a bad cable. I tend to run all my hardware before looking at the software since it's a lot easier to troubleshoot something you can physically touch and it is a common problem. Father had a computer that was constantly slow, ended up he had a cheapo cable from who knows when that looked like a cat 5 but only had two pair and was good for only 100Mbps. Had another interesting issue where my battery backups LAN filter port only passes 100Mbps and was wondering why my speeds were so slow.

But after checking all that you may want to look at the ARP tables in the router and see if something is causing an issue there. A lot of people run pfSense or forks with FreeNAS without issues. I am running OpnSense and have for quite a while without issue, the only oddity I was having in the last couple weeks was my FreeNAS could not access the internet but the jails were fine. Looked around and I had switched to a different NIC and the router was set to hold a static ARP for a different adapter and I switched over to a 10G NIC and set a static IP on it. Removed the reservation and the static ARP and problem solved.

 

[tvsjr]

VOIP devices aren't always bandwidth hungry, but they do generate a metric crapton of very small packets, often overwheming the packets-per-second rating of cheap switches and firewall/router boxen.

I *highly* doubt FreeNAS is to blame here.

 

[garm]

at the house I’m running pfSense as a gateway attached at a mediaconverter, after pfSense I have a switch that deals with the two main networks in the house. Each of those networks have their own switches further downstream. Connected to all this is various servers, gaming rigs, media players, VOIP sets and APs.

FreeNAS is not bringing all this down with it

 

[wblock]

This sounds like a problem with DHCP to me. Maybe a conflict with a static address and short leases, maybe something else. But a network problem, not a FreeNAS problem. Unless maybe an mDNS thing, but that's still kind of a network problem.

 

[Nick2253]

Mine was the 4th. Can I say there was no IP conflict?

If all your devices go down, it's unlikely a simultaneous IP conflict with every device on your network. If it's an IP conflict, more than likely, it's an IP conflict with your DNS servers and/or gateway. In that case, you'd definitely get the "connected no internet" icon. The only time you'll get an IP conflict icon is when that specific device has an IP conflict with another device on the network.

In my opinion, the proper way to troubleshoot this is to dump your ARP tables, and look at what device each IP is pointing to. I would probably write up a little batch file to dump them regularly in Windows, and then you can check the history when you realize you've lost internet.

You can also isolate IP conflicts by checking access between specific devices.

If you give us the list of IPs in use, there might be a few that jump out at us without having to go through the trouble of the ARP checks. If you can't remember everything, you could also use a network scanning tool. My favorite is: https://www.softperfect.com/products/networkscanner/