Thanks Jake.

No problem at all.

I've put my PF tests on hold several times for months at a time for the same 
multi hat reasons you have, so postponing our pilot wasn't anything new for us 
;-}.

I missed the system clock suggestion.

Thanks again.  I appreciate your regular posts.
Steve, CSM


On Dec 9, 2013, at 8:20 AM, Sallee, Stephen (Jake) <[email protected]> wrote:

> Sorry for the lapse in my communications.  I wear a lot of hats around my 
> office and sometimes things get shoved by the way-side.
> 
> I would have posted to the list sooner but the Perl script is working too 
> blasted well and my attention was directed away from this issue for a while.
> 
> I apologize if my lack of communication has caused anyone any issues.
> 
> I do, however, have some developments that I can share.
> 
> I believe that the cause of the PFDNS crashing could be related to the system 
> clock as was suggested before by another user.  I will be looking into a way 
> to better track my system clock to verify this, but the trouble is that the 
> crashes seem to happen so randomly except for one thing.  The last three 
> crashes I had happened on Nov 17 3:34am, Dec 1 3:26am, Dec 8 3:39am.  
> 
> All the crashes have been ~3:30am, it may be that is when PF is doing its log 
> rotations, compressions, etc. and the CPU may be getting taxed causing the 
> system clock to drift outside  of some critical zone causing the DNSSec 
> portion of PFDNS to crash.
> 
> I dont have any HARD evidence of this yet, but it seems likely.
> 
> Regardless, by checking the status of the PFDNS process one every 60 seconds 
> and restarting it if it fails I have not had a single outage noticed by my 
> users since I wrote the script. 
> 
>>> I pretty much put my pilot on hold for this issue.
> 
> Over all the PF product has been very stable and I would encourage you to 
> continue on with your pilot.  Just keep an eye on your PF processes.
> 
> I can share my script if anyone is interested.  It is probably horrendously 
> bad so if you are a more experienced Perl programmer feel free to make 
> improvements, if you do please contribute them back.
> 
> I have some pressing matters to attend to at the moment or I would do a more 
> through write-up but I will endeavour to assist anyone I can if you have any 
> specific questions.
> 
> 
> Jake Sallee
> Godfather of Bandwidth
> System Engineer
> University of Mary Hardin-Baylor
> 
> 900 College St.
> Belton, Texas
> 76513
> 
> Fone: 254-295-4658
> Phax: 254-295-4221
> 
> ________________________________________
> From: Stephen Wittstruck [[email protected]]
> Sent: Friday, December 06, 2013 6:23 PM
> To: Packetfence Users Digest
> Subject: Re: [PacketFence-users] PFDNS The saga continues
> 
> Hi Jake,
> 
> Just curious is you know of any news from Inverse regarding the DNS abend 
> issue you found?  I pretty much put my pilot on hold for this issue.
> 
> Steve
> CSM
> 
> 
> On Oct 9, 2013, at 2:40 PM, Sallee, Stephen (Jake) <[email protected]> 
> wrote:
> 
>>>> I'm sorry, I wasn't running 4.0.6-2, only 4.0.6-1 (not sure how that 
>>>> happened.)
>> 
>> NP, thanks for the info.
>> 
>> I would still like to find the root cause of my PFDNS service crashing, but 
>> so far it has been pretty stable.
>> 
>> Right now I have no idea why it dies since it seems to fail completely 
>> silently.
>> 
>> So what do I do?  I wrote a Perl script that monitors the PFNDS service and 
>> pulls all the PF logs and the syslog from the server if it fails, I also 
>> have a rolling pcap running  that I can use to reconstruct all the DNS 
>> traffic from the last 10 min.  If the service stops the script gathers all 
>> the logs and the pcaps and tars it up for me, the it tries to restart the 
>> service.  If it is successful it just goes back to watching and waiting,  if 
>> not it bombs out.
>> 
>> Hopefully I will find something in the tarball when I have another incident.
>> 
>> Jake Sallee
>> Godfather of Bandwidth
>> System Engineer
>> University of Mary Hardin-Baylor
>> 900 College St.
>> Belton TX. 76513
>> Fone: 254-295-4658
>> Phax: 254-295-4221
>> HTTP://WWW.UMHB.EDU
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Stephen Wittstruck [mailto:[email protected]]
>> Sent: Wednesday, October 09, 2013 10:55 AM
>> To: [email protected]
>> Subject: Re: [PacketFence-users] PFDNS The saga continues
>> 
>> Hi again, Jake, Et al:
>> 
>> I'm sorry, I wasn't running 4.0.6-2, only 4.0.6-1 (not sure how that 
>> happened.)
>> 
>> Turns out the 4.0.6-2 GUI does stop the individual PF processes (at least 
>> the 3 or 4 I tried.)  All processes would restart too except for PFDNS, at 
>> least according to the GUI and pfcmd; I had to reboot the server to recover 
>> PFDNS.  I'm not a linux admin so don't know any tricks to confirm this 
>> except for the ps command, which I didn't try.
>> 
>> My apology for the bad info earlier.
>> 
>> Steve
>> CSM
>> 
>> 
>> On Sep 30, 2013, at 10:49 AM, Stephen Wittstruck <[email protected]> wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi Jake,
>>> 
>>> I'm running the exact same platform, i.e. OS and PF, though not in 
>>> production yet.
>>> 
>>> I couldn't get PFDNS to stop through the GUI.  Curiously I tried the 
>>> others, only PFDHCPLISTENER would stop by using the GUI; it would restart 
>>> also.
>>> 
>>> Still curious I tried the command line "./pfcmd service pfdns stop" which 
>>> didn't work.  Restart stopped it, but it looks like a server reboot is 
>>> needed to restart it as nothing else is working (I haven't done this yet), 
>>> including the GUI.  Below is the terminal session text of these tests.
>>> 
>>> Maybe "./pfcmd service pfdns watch" is what you need?
>>> 
>>> ============================================
>>> [swittstr@nac-dev bin]$ ./pfcmd service pfdns stop
>>> service|command
>>> pfdns|stop
>>> 
>>> [swittstr@nac-dev bin]$ ./pfcmd service pfdns status
>>> service|shouldBeStarted|pid
>>> pfdns|1|1573
>>> 
>>> [swittstr@nac-dev bin]$ ./pfcmd service pfdns
>>> Usage: pfcmd service <service> [start|stop|restart|status|watch]
>>> 
>>> stop/stop/restart specified service
>>> status returns PID of specified PF daemon or 0 if not running watch
>>> acts as a service watcher which can send email/restart the services
>>> 
>>> Services managed by PacketFence:
>>> dhcpd            | dhcpd daemon
>>> httpd.webservices| Apache Webservices
>>> httpd.admin      | Apache Web admin
>>> httpd.portal     | Apache Captive Portal
>>> pfdns            | DNS daemon
>>> pf               | all services that should be running based on your config
>>> pfdetect         | PF snort alert parser
>>> pfdhcplistener   | PF DHCP monitoring daemon
>>> pfmon            | PF ARP monitoring daemon
>>> pfsetvlan        | PF VLAN isolation daemon
>>> radiusd          | FreeRADIUS daemon
>>> snmptrapd        | SNMP trap receiver daemon
>>> snort            | Sourcefire Snort IDS
>>> suricata         | Suricata IDS
>>> 
>>> watch
>>> Watch performs services checks to make sure that everything is fine.
>>> It's behavior is controlled by servicewatch configuration parameters.
>>> watch is typically best called from cron with something like:
>>> */5 * * * * /usr/local/pf/bin/pfcmd service pf watch
>>> 
>>> [swittstr@nac-dev bin]$ ./pfcmd service pfdns watch
>>> 
>>> [swittstr@nac-dev bin]$ ./pfcmd service pfdns restart
>>> service|command
>>> config files|restart
>>> iptables|restart
>>> pfdns|restart
>>> 
>>> [swittstr@nac-dev bin]$ ./pfcmd service pfdns status
>>> service|shouldBeStarted|pid
>>> pfdns|1|0
>>> 
>>> [swittstr@nac-dev bin]$ ./pfcmd service pfdns restart
>>> service|command
>>> config files|restart
>>> iptables|restart
>>> pfdns|restart
>>> 
>>> [swittstr@nac-dev bin]$ ./pfcmd service pfdns status
>>> service|shouldBeStarted|pid
>>> pfdns|1|0
>>> 
>>> [swittstr@nac-dev bin]$ ./pfcmd service pfdns start
>>> httpd.admin|already running Checking configuration sanity...
>>> service|command
>>> config files|start
>>> iptables|start
>>> pfdns|start
>>> 
>>> [swittstr@nac-dev bin]$ ./pfcmd service pfdns status
>>> service|shouldBeStarted|pid
>>> pfdns|1|0
>>> 
>>> [swittstr@nac-dev bin]$ ./pfcmd service pfdns status   (after waiting 10 or 
>>> 15 minutes)
>>> [sudo] password for swittstr:
>>> service|shouldBeStarted|pid
>>> pfdns|1|0
>>> =============================================
>>> 
>>> Steve
>>> CSM
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Sep 30, 2013, at 9:57 AM, "Sallee, Stephen (Jake)"
>>> <[email protected]>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Hello PacketFence Family!
>>>> 
>>>> I am running PF 4.0.6-2 on CentOS 6.4 fully updated.
>>>> 
>>>> I am still seeing an issue with PFNDS seemingly randomly crashing.  I 
>>>> would like to get some more information of the problem but since I cannot 
>>>> stare at a single terminal all day to see exactly what is happening I am 
>>>> looking for some kind of monitoring solution.
>>>> 
>>>> Ideally I would like to monitor the PFDNS process and take some actions if 
>>>> I see it fail, namely starting the bloody thing back up again as well as 
>>>> pulling all the logs for further dissection.
>>>> 
>>>> I can do this with some srcipt-fu but I was wondering of anyone out there 
>>>> already has something like this or knows of it, that way I can avoid 
>>>> reinventing the proverbial wheel.
>>>> 
>>>> Also,  I have noticed that the issue I reported some time ago where
>>>> some PF services cannot be started from the webgui is still around
>>>> for me.  Can anyone verify this?  Specifically, if PFDNS is stopped
>>>> try starting it again using the butting in the services menu in the
>>>> webgui.  For me it does not work, but I do not get an error banner as
>>>> normal.  The service still says stopped though.]
>>>> 
>>>> As always, thank you for your time and consideration.
>>>> 
>>>> Jake Sallee
>>>> Godfather of Bandwidth
>>>> System Engineer
>>>> University of Mary Hardin-Baylor
>>>> 
>>>> 900 College St.
>>>> Belton, Texas
>>>> 76513
>>>> 
>>>> Fone: 254-295-4658
>>>> Phax: 254-295-4221
>>>> 
>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> --------- October Webinars: Code for Performance Free Intel webinars
>>>> can help you accelerate application performance.
>>>> Explore tips for MPI, OpenMP, advanced profiling, and more. Get the
>>>> most from the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts
>>>> and register >
>>>> http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60133471&iu=/4140/ostg.
>>>> clktrk _______________________________________________
>>>> PacketFence-users mailing list
>>>> [email protected]
>>>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/packetfence-users
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> October Webinars: Code for Performance
>> Free Intel webinars can help you accelerate application performance.
>> Explore tips for MPI, OpenMP, advanced profiling, and more. Get the most from
>> the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register >
>> http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60134071&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk
>> _______________________________________________
>> PacketFence-users mailing list
>> [email protected]
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/packetfence-users
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Sponsored by Intel(R) XDK 
> Develop, test and display web and hybrid apps with a single code base.
> Download it for free now!
> http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=111408631&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk
> _______________________________________________
> PacketFence-users mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/packetfence-users

Attachment: smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rapidly troubleshoot problems before they affect your business. Most IT 
organizations don't have a clear picture of how application performance 
affects their revenue. With AppDynamics, you get 100% visibility into your 
Java,.NET, & PHP application. Start your 15-day FREE TRIAL of AppDynamics Pro!
http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=84349831&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk
_______________________________________________
PacketFence-users mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/packetfence-users

Reply via email to