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    Performance / Hardware

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • Dobby_D
      Dobby_ @ahutton
      last edited by

      @ahutton

      Did you mean with 3G/3G this, 3GBit/s down and
      3Gbit/s up?

      • 3 GBit/s upload
      • 3 GBit/s download

      If you are using the pfSense behind a router, you could get from there a private IP like 192.168.1.1/24 (255.255.255.0)
      and then you will be not need to use PPPoE any more and
      gets on top of this all multi CPU threading. So with PPPoE
      you will be pinned or nailed to one CPU core and with that
      you will only see one queue at the WAN port!

      • What is your entire hardware for pfSense?
        Bare metal or VM?
      • What is you NIC for the WAN Port to the ONT/ONU?
        Intel or Realtek, or........
      • What CPU is here installed?
        Cores/HT and GHz

      #~. @Dobby

      Turris Omnia - 4 Ports - 2 GB RAM / TurrisOS 7 Release (Btrfs)
      PC Engines APU4D4 - 4 Ports - 4 GB RAM / pfSense CE 2.7.2 Release (ZFS)
      PC Engines APU6B4 - 4 Ports - 4 GB RAM / pfSense+ (Plus) 24.03_1 Release (ZFS)

      A 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • A
        ahutton @Dobby_
        last edited by

        @dobby_ I need proper exposure for the firewall so as of now it needs to run the pppoe since the bridging has failed and I need fine-grain control of my edge.

        Yes, the link is 3 Gbit/sec symmetric over pppoe. The firewall is mostly filtering known-bad actors and doing the Masq.

        What I am after is what hardware would be requires to have sufficient headroom for the current link and handle a small upgrade.

        Dobby_D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Dobby_D
          Dobby_ @ahutton
          last edited by

          @ahutton said in Performance / Hardware:

          Yes, the link is 3 Gbit/sec symmetric over pppoe.

          Intel i3, i5 or i7 with 4 cores and raw CPU GHz power is counting then. I would also perhaps give an Intel Xeon
          E3-12xxv3 a try. Maybe on a board that fit in all three different CPUs, they are often able to get cheap on eBay.

          But in real I would be more tending to a router with
          DOCSIS 3.1 (or what your ISP is offering or needing)
          standard in front of the pfSense firewall.

          #~. @Dobby

          Turris Omnia - 4 Ports - 2 GB RAM / TurrisOS 7 Release (Btrfs)
          PC Engines APU4D4 - 4 Ports - 4 GB RAM / pfSense CE 2.7.2 Release (ZFS)
          PC Engines APU6B4 - 4 Ports - 4 GB RAM / pfSense+ (Plus) 24.03_1 Release (ZFS)

          A 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • A
            ahutton @Dobby_
            last edited by

            @dobby_ unfortunately there is no removable SFP+ ONU on this model or I'd have just swapped it over, joined the vlan and no problem.. which means I'm stuck with the provided ONU/router/AP.

            Dobby_D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Dobby_D
              Dobby_ @ahutton
              last edited by

              @ahutton said in Performance / Hardware:

              @dobby_ unfortunately there is no removable SFP+ ONU on this model or I'd have just swapped it over, joined the vlan and no problem.. which means I'm stuck with the provided ONU/router/AP.

              For sure I can feel with you, but then you will need a
              CPU that is able to serve fully 3 GBit/s symmetrically at
              the WAN for the entire load! And with a sufficient router
              in front of you may profiting from the more CPU Cores and
              Hyperthreading on top of it, because then the entire WAN traffic is running over more queues at the WAN port! That
              means one queue for one CPU core!

              #~. @Dobby

              Turris Omnia - 4 Ports - 2 GB RAM / TurrisOS 7 Release (Btrfs)
              PC Engines APU4D4 - 4 Ports - 4 GB RAM / pfSense CE 2.7.2 Release (ZFS)
              PC Engines APU6B4 - 4 Ports - 4 GB RAM / pfSense+ (Plus) 24.03_1 Release (ZFS)

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

                Be sure to note the tweaks here.
                https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/hardware/tune.html#pppoe-with-multi-queue-nics

                RobbieTTR 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • RobbieTTR
                  RobbieTT @stephenw10
                  last edited by RobbieTT

                  @stephenw10 said in Performance / Hardware:

                  https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/hardware/tune.html#pppoe-with-multi-queue-nics

                  Steve,
                  Are these PPPoE tweaks required on Netgate hardware (eg 6100) or are they already encapsulated within the tweaking Netgate already provides to their own products?

                  Default on 6100:

                  [23.01-RELEASE][admin@Router-8.*******.me]/root: sysctl net.isr.dispatch
                  net.isr.dispatch: direct
                  [23.01-RELEASE][admin@Router-8.*******.me]/root: 
                  

                  The link you suggest points at other links warning of potential issues with ALTQ, Limiters, IPsec etc, so I have been reluctant to try changing it from 'direct' to 'deferred'.

                  ☕️

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

                    I have found that they did not cause a problem with shaping for me. But, no, they are not applied by default. Setting net.isr.dispatch to differed can give a significant throughout bump on pppoe WANs.

                    RobbieTTR 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • RobbieTTR
                      RobbieTT @stephenw10
                      last edited by

                      @stephenw10 Thanks for that and I will give it a go if it helps the cpu load. 👍

                      ☕️

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • RobbieTTR
                        RobbieTT
                        last edited by RobbieTT

                        I added a System Tunable via the GUI via System/Advanced/System Tunables/Edit

                        Edit Tunable
                        Tunable:	net.isr.dispatch
                        Value:		deferred
                        Description:	PPPoE single core tuning [default value=direct]
                        

                        Although I resorted to the CLI just to check the setting had changed:

                        [23.05-RELEASE][admin@Router-8.*******.me]/root: sysctl net.isr.dispatch
                        net.isr.dispatch: deferred
                        [23.05-RELEASE][admin@Router-8.*******.me]/root: 
                        

                        I'll monitor the cpu load and any impact elsewhere.

                        ☕️

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
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