Starlink breaks ssh, scp, pkg update

E

eepete

Recently, my DSL ISP BrightSpeed made a changed in how they handle fixed IP accounts. They made the change, but it was much more than just the address. Their system now uses CBRAS and the modem/router I had could not be configured for it. As is typical, "tech support" had no idea what was going on and they could not have someone come out to look at the route config until Jan15.
I have a StarLink dish in bypass mode into a TP link router that was working fine for casual use on PCs and Macs. I decided to dump BrightSpeed and go 100% Starlink. The following problems showed up:
ssh connections would drop after 2 to 10 minutes.
scp did not work at all.
pkg update was not able to do anything.

I lowered my MTU go 1468 after having read that StarLink uses CGNAT in its systems. StarLink does not provide fixed IP addresses. This leaves me unable to develop server code on the "digital twin" sever and send it to the production server. I was hoping to scp from my local machine out to the production server.
It appears that during satellite changes the IP address for a connection on the StarLink side can change, which drops the TCP connection. According to some on the Net, I could set up a VPN to get to my server. But I still would not be able to do any updates to my Unix servers on site.

Has anyone else had experience using StarLink exclusively in bypass mode into a 3rd party server (The TP Linc AX20 in my case) ?

FreeBSD 14.1 (part of this effort was a desire to upgrade to 14.4) More info below:

# netstat -rW
Routing tables

Internet:
Destination Gateway Flags Nhop# Mtu Netif Expire
default 192.168.1.1 UGS 5 1468 ixl0
localhost link#3 UH 2 16384 lo0
192.168.0.0/16 link#1 U 3 1468 ixl0
pttwin.mydomain.local link#3 UHS 4 16384 lo0
Click to expand...
and when trying to pkg update:

# pkg update
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
pkg: An error occurred while fetching package: No error
pkg: An error occurred while fetching package: No error
repository FreeBSD has no meta file, using default settings
pkg: An error occurred while fetching package: No error
pkg: An error occurred while fetching package: No error
Unable to update repository FreeBSD
Error updating repositories!
 
Alain De Vos said:
According to google AI,

- $$$ : upgrade to a Starlink Business/Priority plan.

- Or
https://tailscale.com/

- Or
https://www.zerotier.com/


# Testing for 1500 MTU (1472 payload + 28 bytes for IP/ICMP headers)
ping -D -s 1472 1.1.1.1
Click to expand...
If the problem was just getting code to and from the outside server, then those would work. But I still would not be able to maintain my FreeBSD servers at my location.
I've heard people using StarLink have changed their MTU to 1472, I set mine to 1468 (1500-32) just to be safe...
I'm also concerned that if the Starlink Bussiness/Priority plan is the answer, how do we know that it fixed the problem of TCP connections dumping at every satellite change ?
Might be wireshark time to clearly identify the problem, I was hoping someone had an experience similar to mine.
 
- Get the 14.3 sources from github and do a make installkernel make installworld.
- when you do ssh do a regular "ping" , " ftp get of a small file " , to keep the connection alive.
 
Phishfry said:
Problem is you cannot pkg upgrade on version 14.1-RELEASE it is too old.
No new packages are generated for old-versions..
You could build from ports.
Click to expand...
Hmm. I'll try to find some site that will let me download something big. Of course, this doesn't explain ssh dropping out all the time.
I wanted to try autossh out, but had to upgrade packages to do it. Maybee I'l bring up a new small server from scratch and see if it has problems. I can't afford to brick the digital twin server.
 
Alain De Vos said:
https://www.google.com/search?q=ssh+setting+to+keep+connection+alive&newwindow=1&sca_esv=41cf0e5ea23eebf2&sxsrf=AE3TifMcXohBHQFpHYY5EGDsbg8MNH0xqQ:1767310924475&udm=50&fbs=AIIjpHw2KGh6wpocn18KLjPMw8n5VMz2-jUCsgxQfgddG5unn65s6qmquXjyGdRslDl9Sq1WrxVU77MwSHWsfb0o-f-ofTmcS8fL4npCvRMCyRn5oM7GfsEE9WHWC-uPwxSzqAafsAf6grxrbeOfG_QfXccePztBSpXjDV_jnbb1EOvA1Xeoj6vwe_twdTDxMe1VHXqVr9Fl&aep=1&ntc=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiKvvGewuuRAxW3nycCHTxiAJUQ2J8OegQIERAE&biw=2001&bih=955&dpr=0.8&mstk=AUtExfBlTKqoVGi7xvl8NvHHsi1M7OhiqKfgVqp0Wd0mG0OV08cAoOSGRaX-8X0E84cDTdd59bcKFwA8IZF-uy_KjoasqAqYvj4t7ygK8YzeOdAhjHx7HDPvNWbQAxNi2Ds6r62xBROzt_hlIX78fT7OUHNIngxaFQnlnkHJim2rKfsBGglrSObCsW_vMlyfUB_lga-jWg921Y6FkafAe5W7nmRcftmlwq24TugtMfbJPhqkzWv7JA3_x6onUs87UZLdAXtjObap4D9O4Nq3HKUXq8mvpNK0dr_4qxksd86HEzWwiZSbS0_dYxPq4ayF-hArICFpFV1fgvzNlQ&csuir=1&mtid=ZgZXaYTrNYz4kdUPsc-q6Q8
Click to expand...
I saw and tried that, I got an error when I restarted the sshd. I'll give it another try tomorrow.
It's an interesting challange to figure out what single problem causes idle ssh TCP connections to drop, but also causes scp data transfer to fail. Those should be very active on the TCP connection.
One of my fun diagnostic pieces of equipment is an old 100 Mbps "dumb" hub. If I put that between the StarLink and the 3rd party router, I should be able to see what's going on between the two. Seems like no matter what you do, every 4 to 6 years it's wireshark time.
Will advise later on the re-try of the ideas you were kind enough to forward.
 
Phishfry said:
Problem is you cannot pkg upgrade on version 14.1-RELEASE it is too old.
No new packages are generated for old-versions..
Click to expand...
While that's certainly the case, it should just try to fetch packages from the FreeBSD:14:amd64 (ABI string is the same) repository, and then complain about the version differences.

eepete said:
Code: 
# pkg update
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
pkg: An error occurred while fetching package: No error
Click to expand...
I've seen this "No error" before, it was an SSL/TLS issue if I remember correctly.
 
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