Why Firewalla (mostly red/blue) Reboot?

Here are some of the most common reasons that your Firewalla may reboot by itself.

Not Enough Power:

Not enough power for the red/blue/blue+/purple. Here you are likely using the USB connector from your modem/router feeding these units. Many of the router USB ports can not sustain the power needed. This type of reboot happens more often to the blue, blue+, and purple.

Running out of Memory:

Firewalla is a security device, and it will examine and track the different connections made by your devices. For example, device x visited site y at time z. This information is then stored in the system for our algorithms to detect abnormal behaviors.

When memory is running low, firewalla will always try its best to reduce usage, and if the memory usage increase too fast, Firewalla will self-protect and reboot.

1. Why is P2P Traffic causing the issue?

P2P software usually generates a very very large number of connections with a small amount of data transferred per connection. In any IPS system, including Firewalla, every connection needs to be processed, CPU and memory usage will be increased significantly, which may overload the system.

We have made many performance improvements,  the problem is a lot less frequent than about a year ago.   And we are working on a few more mechanisms to smooth or warn the presence of P2P (or like) services.

How to avoid this?

Try the following methods to optimize:

• Reduce the number of concurrent connections in the p2p software. Most of the p2p software provides that functionality.
• Turn monitoring off on the device which is running p2p. (Device detail -> scroll to the bottom -> switch off monitoring button)
• If you are using Firewalla Red/Blue, you might consider getting a Firewalla Blue+ for better performance.

2. Your Network may be too large for the unit.

As your connected devices grow, it is highly possible they become complex and start to increase memory usage on the Firewalla. 

How to avoid this?

• Try to turn monitoring off for non important devices. (same as above)
• Your Firewalla may need an upgrade. Try a Firewalla with more memory. 

Lastly, you can always send an email to help@firewalla.com if you need any help.