Incredilby slow ESXi and VM access
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So I just got pfSense reinstalled and setup (long story) on my home lab. Working well. Allocated plenty of resources for the pfSense server, and its the latest version.
The issue is that for some reason when i try to access venter, or my 2 esxi servers directly things are WAY slow. takes upwards of 1 minute for a right click menu to pop up. I fugure its some type of networking config, or potentially some type of pfSense config but ifugred I would post a quick question here to find out if anyone else has has had this issue and knows how to fix it.
Or.
How to identify the issue, I am not a network expert, and don't know how to troubleshoot my network to identify the issue, or how to do "stuff" to try to figure it out. I am however pretty versed at things in general and a quick "do that, or this" and I will search the web for these suggestions and follow the directions provided.
Thanks only about 5 million times! :-)
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So pfSense is installed as a VM in ESXi and traffic to the hypervisor is going through it?
I think a diagram will be needed here.
Steve
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S stephenw10 moved this topic from General pfSense Questions on
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@stephenw10 No. I read it as Vcenter and ESXi is done via a browser directly on the mgmt interface IP
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I followed these instructions: https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/recipes/virtualize-esxi.html
ESXi version 7 on Dell R720
These directions above are a little old for example this section is no longer valid because it defaults to VMXNET3:
"On wizard page four, add another Network Adapter and select the WAN and LAN port groups for each of the network adapters. Modify other virtual machine settings as needed. For best performance, use VMXNET 3 type of adapters instead of E1000. However, VMXNET 3 interfaces require manual interface assignment with the first boot. This guide uses the E1000 adapter type."also:
The process to install pfSense has changed a little also but basically its just default (basically <ENTER> your way through) the differences between the directions and the changes while installing pfSense 2.6.0. but the rest is correct.
I just followed these directions step-by-step. created the vitual switches, and ports - using separate physical NICs as suggested, however, my management network is the same as my LAN network which i would like to change but I don't know how...
I am wondering if there is something up with the actual NIC, or maybe some compatibility issue with esxi 7 or something...
Unfortunately I am not sure I can design an accurate network diagram for you... i just dunno how to draw a network diagram.
Finally: I think I should mention, I completed this entire process last year, and everything was working awesomely, on ESXi 6.5 on a different server (high end personal PC) using a different NIC. I had issues last week (which is the long story in the opening post) so I re-installed pfSense on my R720 with the assumption that it would be more stable and such.
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So where are you accessing it from? Is that traffic going through the pfSense VM?
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Yes. Its my router. All traffic is going through a flat cisco switch (no configs) which has a WAP attached (providing wireless throughout my house) and port 24 is connected to the LAN assigned NIC on pfSense, and the WAN assigned NIC port in pfSesne is connected to the ISP modem. Its a simple setup, nothing fancy.
I think I may just switch it back to the PC tower with the different NIC. I think maybe its some type of issue with ESXi-7 and the drivers for the NIC. The Googles deep in some forum somewhere, i read that there is some type of lag issue that was supposed to be fixed with ESXi update 2 but maybe not for every NIC... I dunno... Its simple enough to just swap it back to the other server...
Funny thing though, when i was first setting up pfSense, I was getting these constant notifications (during the setup, with messages displayed right in the middle of the setup procedure) about unknown packets or something coming from vmx1 (LAN). I had to disconnect the Ethernet cable from the server... I didn't think much of it at first but now i wonder if this may be the cause or my issue or maybe it's normal with all devices in my house... I dunno...
Does anyone know a way I can look at my traffic and see if anything looks weird?
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Are you still seeing those warnings on the console? Or in the system logs?
It sounds like they might be an unexpected connection to the LAN. Like somehow it's linked to WAN maybe. If we can see what the actual warning was we might know more.
Steve
