pf and mxge

[Jeremy Chadwick]

On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 06:54:23AM -0400, ben wilber wrote:
> I'm trying to use PF on a machine with an mxge(4) interface and am
> having some difficulty.  With my ruleset loaded, any TCP session that
> gets a state grinds to a halt.
> 
> For example, I can log in via SSH and issue commands that return a
> couple lines, but the output from a command like dmesg(8) comes very
> slowly and sometimes won't finish before SSH times out.  MTU on the
> interface is 1500 bytes.  This doesn't happen unless states are created
> (e.g., not with "pass no state").
> 
> The machine is running -CURRENT for amd64 as of Jul 18th compiled with
> ALTQ, crypto and IPSEC, HZ=1000 and DEVICE_POLLING (though not enabled).
> IP and IPv6 forwarding are enabled, as well as fastforwarding.  Only
> filtering; no bridges, ALTQ, NAT or scrubbing.
> 
> Any insight?

I've seen this problem on RELENG_6, although the SSH connections
would not "time out" -- after a page or so of 'dmesg' output, they
would immediately get disconnected/severed.  I believe the problem was
caused by my use of "modulate state" instead of "keep state" (since on
RELENG_6 "keep state" is not implicit).

Are you using "reassemble tcp", "synproxy state", or "modulate
state" directives?

Does disabling RFC1323 (see sysctl) make a difference at all?

Are you blindly filtering all ICMP traffic and destroying PMTU
negotiation?

Can you provide your pf.conf?

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                       http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                  Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.              PGP: 4BD6C0CB |