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    SG-3100 ram disk question

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    • S
      SteveITS Galactic Empire @mcury
      last edited by

      @mcury "df -h"? Now I'm more curious, since 26% of 2017 is only 524.

      Pre-2.7.2/23.09: Only install packages for your version, or risk breaking it. Select your branch in System/Update/Update Settings.
      When upgrading, allow 10-15 minutes to restart, or more depending on packages and device speed.
      Upvote 👍 helpful posts!

      M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • M
        mcury Rebel Alliance @SteveITS
        last edited by mcury

        @steveits said in SG-3100 ram disk question:

        @mcury "df -h"? Now I'm more curious, since 26% of 2017 is only 524.

        [22.05-RELEASE][root@pfsense.home.arpa]/root: df -h
        Filesystem                      Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
        /dev/diskid/DISK-D4EC8498s2a    7.0G    1.4G    5.1G    21%    /
        devfs                           1.0K    1.0K      0B   100%    /dev
        /dev/diskid/DISK-D4EC8498s1      34M    2.0M     32M     6%    /boot/u-boot
        tmpfs                            80M    236K     80M     0%    /tmp
        tmpfs                           850M    186M    664M    22%    /var
        /usr/local/bin                  7.0G    1.4G    5.1G    21%    /var/unbound/usr/local/bin
        /usr/local/lib                  7.0G    1.4G    5.1G    21%    /var/unbound/usr/local/lib
        devfs                           1.0K    1.0K      0B   100%    /var/dhcpd/dev
        /lib                            7.0G    1.4G    5.1G    21%    /var/unbound/lib
        devfs                           1.0K    1.0K      0B   100%    /var/unbound/dev
        /var/log/pfblockerng            850M    186M    664M    22%    /var/unbound/var/log/pfblockerng
        /usr/local/share/GeoIP          7.0G    1.4G    5.1G    21%    /var/unbound/usr/local/share/GeoIP
        

        dead on arrival, nowhere to be found.

        S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • M
          mcury Rebel Alliance @stephenw10
          last edited by

          @stephenw10 said in SG-3100 ram disk question:

          Mmm, 650MB is large for a 3100 but if you have lists that big you might need it. That wouldn't be possible in previous pfSense versions. Just something to be aware of if you have any older installs.
          You might consider if you really needs lists that big.

          hm, so far so good ✌

          dead on arrival, nowhere to be found.

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          • S
            SteveITS Galactic Empire @mcury
            last edited by

            @mcury said in SG-3100 ram disk question:

            tmpfs 850M 186M 664M 22% /var

            Hmm, so it's only using 186 MB for some reason, not 650. Looks like it's all pfB.

            side note: the /usr/local/share/GeoIP I looked at is only 26 MB.

            Pre-2.7.2/23.09: Only install packages for your version, or risk breaking it. Select your branch in System/Update/Update Settings.
            When upgrading, allow 10-15 minutes to restart, or more depending on packages and device speed.
            Upvote 👍 helpful posts!

            M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • M
              mcury Rebel Alliance @SteveITS
              last edited by

              @steveits Strange, I put both configuration in Meld for comparison, and it seems that this ram disk change doesn't go to the xml config.

              So, in the future in case of a new install, I can restore this configuration and then enable RAM disk, but this won't be automatic.

              dead on arrival, nowhere to be found.

              S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • S
                SteveITS Galactic Empire @mcury
                last edited by

                @mcury It should be in the config. Look for:

                <use_mfs_tmp_size>128</use_mfs_tmp_size>
                <use_mfs_var_size>256</use_mfs_var_size>
                and
                <use_mfs_tmpvar/>

                Pre-2.7.2/23.09: Only install packages for your version, or risk breaking it. Select your branch in System/Update/Update Settings.
                When upgrading, allow 10-15 minutes to restart, or more depending on packages and device speed.
                Upvote 👍 helpful posts!

                M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • M
                  mcury Rebel Alliance @SteveITS
                  last edited by mcury

                  @steveits Oh yes, you are correct, I don't know how I missed that :)

                  7def233f-c5c0-4be4-9308-57bf9de9d332-image.png

                  So, to disable I can just remove that line:

                  use_mfs_tmpvar></use_mfs_tmpvar>
                  

                  That is useful because I noticed that when you perform a clean install and restore a config, during packages reinstall there is a lot of RAM usage, which could break things for me..

                  dead on arrival, nowhere to be found.

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                  • stephenw10S
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by

                    Yes, that's the config line that triggers creating and using the ramdisks.

                    You'll find that the usage is much higher when pfBlocker updates. Probably around double what you see there now.

                    Steve

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                    • M
                      mcury Rebel Alliance @stephenw10
                      last edited by

                      @stephenw10 said in SG-3100 ram disk question:

                      You'll find that the usage is much higher when pfBlocker updates. Probably around double what you see there now.

                      hm, ramdisk for /var is set to 850M, and not problems yet, I've been monitoring and so far so good.
                      Do you think I'll face problems with this size?

                      In case of a pfsense reinstall and config restore, I would disable the ram disk just to be safe.

                      dead on arrival, nowhere to be found.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • stephenw10S
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by

                        I think that's big enough for pfBlocker to update.
                        I'm not sure if a RAM disk that size is sustainable on the 3100. But it could be the years of battling kernel memory limits we had before we switched to tmpfs making me paranoid! 😉

                        Before that ~120MB was the most you could set. That's what I use on most installs:

                        [22.05-RELEASE][admin@fw1.stevew.lan]/root: df -h
                        Filesystem                      Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
                        /dev/diskid/DISK-9E18E959s2a    7.0G    2.3G    4.1G    36%    /
                        devfs                           1.0K    1.0K      0B   100%    /dev
                        /dev/diskid/DISK-9E18E959s1      34M    2.0M     32M     6%    /boot/u-boot
                        tmpfs                            80M    2.2M     78M     3%    /tmp
                        tmpfs                           120M     34M     86M    28%    /var
                        devfs                           1.0K    1.0K      0B   100%    /var/dhcpd/dev
                        

                        Steve

                        M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • M
                          mcury Rebel Alliance @stephenw10
                          last edited by

                          @stephenw10 I'll be testing and in case of problems I'll post here to help others that try this same approach.

                          Thanks stephenw10

                          I was getting around 2TB a year of writes before making this change.. Almost 5 years using device already :)

                          [22.05-RELEASE][root@pfsense.home.arpa]/root: iostat -x
                                                  extended device statistics  
                          device       r/s     w/s     kr/s     kw/s  ms/r  ms/w  ms/o  ms/t qlen  %b  
                          flash/sp       0       0      0.0      0.0     8     0     0     8    0   0 
                          mmcsd0         0       0      1.5      4.0     1    10     0     6    0   0 
                          mmcsd0bo       0       0      0.0      0.0     0     0     0     0    0   0 
                          mmcsd0bo       0       0      0.0      0.0     0     0     0     0    0   0 
                          [22.05-RELEASE][root@pfsense.home.arpa]/root: uptime 
                          10:25AM  up 18:38, 1 user, load averages: 0.29, 0.28, 0.25
                          

                          dead on arrival, nowhere to be found.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                          • F
                            FSC830
                            last edited by

                            I am a bit confused about the RAM disk limits.
                            At my SG-3100 the limit is:

                            Maximum total size of all RAM disks cannot exceed available memory: 269.75 MiB
                            

                            To which packages/options/values/... is the limit referring/calculating?

                            I do not use RAM disks any longer since my issues, just to still curiosity 😉 .

                            Regards

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • stephenw10S
                              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                              last edited by stephenw10

                              You are probably running an older version before we switched to tmpfs?

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                              • F
                                FSC830
                                last edited by FSC830

                                Following your link ends in #12145.

                                For various reasons we may want to switch the RAM disks from ufs on md devices to tmpfs .
                                

                                What is a md device, the internal MMC?
                                Is there a diffence when using a SSD instead (ada0)?

                                Regards

                                Edit: Dashboard widget shows tmpfs!?
                                b105c935-7e14-4d78-98b2-11c61f4f5dde-grafik.png

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                                • stephenw10S
                                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                  last edited by

                                  md there is memory disk: https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=md

                                  There's no difference to the ram disks between booting from eMMC or SSD. RAM disks are more common on eMMC installs where drive ware is more of an issue.

                                  If /var/run is tmpfs you must be running 22.01 or newer. It's possible the limit detection was not updated for 22.01 and you are still seeing it rather than in 22.05?

                                  Steve

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                                  • F
                                    FSC830
                                    last edited by

                                    I updated from 22.01 to 22.05 at June, 28th at eMMC and did a complete new install from scratch to SSD at July 1st, 2022.
                                    Afterwards I restored from ACB the settings, no idea, if the limit is also an outcome of the restore.

                                    Regards

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • stephenw10S
                                      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                      last edited by

                                      Are you actually using most of the reset of the RAM then? Perhaps you really only have 270MB available.

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                                      • F
                                        FSC830
                                        last edited by

                                        The command top shows:

                                        CPU: 43.8% user,  0.0% nice, 50.0% system,  0.0% interrupt,  6.3% idle
                                        Mem: 88M Active, 464M Inact, 168M Wired, 84M Buf, 1297M Free
                                        
                                        

                                        This matches the total of 2GB.
                                        Are there any other commands available, "free" or "/proc/meminfo" seems to be not included in OS?

                                        Regards

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • stephenw10S
                                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                          last edited by

                                          Try running: sysctl -a | grep kmem

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                                          • F
                                            FSC830
                                            last edited by

                                            @stephenw10 said in SG-3100 ram disk question:

                                            sysctl -a | grep kmem

                                            The outcome is:

                                            [22.05-RELEASE][admin@xxx]/root: sysctl -a | grep kmem
                                            vm.uma_kmem_total: 46063616
                                            vm.uma_kmem_limit: 328835072
                                            vm.kmem_map_free: 282771456
                                            vm.kmem_map_size: 46063616
                                            vm.kmem_size_scale: 3
                                            vm.kmem_size_max: 328833434
                                            vm.kmem_size_min: 12582912
                                            vm.kmem_zmax: 65536
                                            vm.kmem_size: 328835072
                                            
                                            

                                            Regards

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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