Cannot update, system unstable

For the past couple of days the IPFire will randomly stop connecting to it’s fibre WAN, and will tell me that the ppp0 connection is idle, whereas it has no connection at all. Then it will connect okay, but it stays in DNS broken state no matter what I try for the DNS servers. Thus, despite Pakfire showing an update from 190 to 192, it refuses to download, telling me that it is offline. (The same message for the DNS servers failing “The system is offline”).
I am online, or couldn’t write this message!
So is there a way I can grab the update file from 190->192 and apply it manually?

[root@firewall ~]# dig pakfire.ipfire.org

; <<>> DiG 9.20.3 <<>> pakfire.ipfire.org
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 59240
;; flags: qr rd ra ad; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;pakfire.ipfire.org.		IN	A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
pakfire.ipfire.org.	19625	IN	A	81.3.27.49

;; Query time: 301 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1) (UDP)
;; WHEN: Tue Mar 18 11:45:15 GMT 2025
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 63

[root@firewall ~]# dig @8.8.8.8 pakfire.ipfire.org

; <<>> DiG 9.20.3 <<>> @8.8.8.8 pakfire.ipfire.org
; (1 server found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 22449
;; flags: qr rd ra ad; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 512
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;pakfire.ipfire.org.		IN	A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
pakfire.ipfire.org.	21600	IN	A	81.3.27.49

;; Query time: 508 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8) (UDP)
;; WHEN: Tue Mar 18 11:45:36 GMT 2025
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 63

[root@firewall ~]# 

Hi,

as a “qick-and-dirty” hack you manually can login on your firewall via SSH or local console and execute the following command:

“touch /var/ipfire/red/active”

This will force the system to switch to be online. The DNS page and pakfire schould work now as expected.

During connect, the involved scripts also should create this file, but as an unknown reason this not happened properly.

Please post the logging output of your red device when connecting. (maybe with enabled debug mode.)

-Stefan

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