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    Virtualbox pfsense slow

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
    13 Posts 3 Posters 1.7k Views
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    • A
      aldar @Gertjan
      last edited by

      @gertjan
      I put Intel network card. And here are the results:
      Linux machine on the same network shows 600mbits, while pfsense show 10 times less.
      Both of them iperf to the exact same machine.
      8459a56b-f503-40a1-8ecb-b35cfc495ae0-image.png
      @stephenw10
      I checked all the link speeds, everywhere it's 1000 full duplex. As you may see on the screenshot above, linux machine overspeeds 100mbits.

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      • A
        aldar @aldar
        last edited by

        I also tried Freebsd x64 -> and it's 150 mbits.
        A little bit better than pfsense, but still slow.
        Seems like virtualbox and freebsd don't like each other.

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        • stephenw10S
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by

          How many CPU cores is it? What CPU?

          FreeBSD without pf running will be quicker so that looks about right. I would try running top -HaSP at the cli while while testing and see if it's CPU limited for some reason.
          VBox is not normally limited in that way:

          Screenshot from 2023-03-24 14-18-48.png

          Steve

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          • stephenw10S
            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
            last edited by

            In fact that was with VBox NATing to the host network. With a bridged NIC it gets line rate:

            Screenshot from 2023-03-24 14-24-09.png

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            • A
              aldar @stephenw10
              last edited by

              @stephenw10
              Wow, it works for you. On what host OS do you run? Do you have hyperthreading enabled?
              I use Windows 11, asus tuf b450m-pro s, with ryzen 7 3700X.
              I gave 4 CPU threads to VM. This is my top -HaSP while running iperf command
              e247a336-1a38-4ca7-8967-d0999e0d45c3-image.png

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              • A
                aldar @aldar
                last edited by

                Reinstalled host windows with newest version, enabled Secure boot and TPM. Now pfsense works. It slower than freebsd still. But 600mbits is more than enough.
                516a2ca9-a266-4742-b44b-c87160b97de1-image.png

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                • A
                  aldar @aldar
                  last edited by

                  But LAN to WAN throug pfsense is still slow
                  e4f5c244-e386-4b6f-bc56-8ec5c9d85c50-image.png @aldar

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                  • stephenw10S
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by

                    What about from that VM to pfSense directly so only using the LAN? Is it still slow?

                    My VBox host is Linux Mint but that's with only one CPU core.

                    Do you have VBox NATing or bridged from the host NIC?

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                    • A
                      aldar @stephenw10
                      last edited by

                      @stephenw10
                      From VM Lan --> to Pfsense LAN is fast. It was around 400mbits.
                      I use vbox bridged. I think pfsense below NAT is nonsense --> too much NATs.

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                      • stephenw10S
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by

                        I agree, it should almost always be bridged if you're running VBox in any sort of permanent way.

                        400Mbps between VMs is pretty slow though. That seems like it must be a problem in the VBox config somehow. Though it's been many years since I ran in Windows.

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