pf miscellanea on FreeBSD

pf Status

Install and run /usr/ports/sysutils/pftop. Press "5" and "8" to see how your rules and queues are doing. "?" for help on what else you can do.

/usr/ports/net/trafshow is also very useful for seeing what going through your network cards.

pf Logging

To get logging to work on FreeBSD, make a rule like:

(pf.conf) pass in log quick on $ext_inf

then enable the pf logging interface with:

$ kldload ~/test_pf/pflog.ko
$ ifconfig pflog0 up

then you can watch the logged stuff with:

$ tcpdump -n -e -ttt -i pflog0


queues of queues

If you try to have multilayer queues, with borrowing, things won't work as you expect, e.g.:

queue bandwidth 20kb q1(a,b) bandwidth 20kb borrow
queue bandwidth 10kb a borrow
queue bandwidth 10kb b borrow
queue bandwidth 20kb q2(y,z) bandwidth 20kb borrow
queue bandwidth 10kb y borrow
queue bandwidth 10kb z borrow

If queue a fills up, it seems to borrow from b, but then when a+b reaches 20kbit, it doesn't seem to borrow (at all / very well) from q2, even if q2 is idle.