pfSense 2.8: WebGUI unusable (due to cat and tail many logfiles in the background)
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On one host that keeps a lot of log files (currently 1.6G), the WebGUI isn't usable any more: Page loading is slow or it even shows a crash screen. When logging in, pfSense is trying to do something with cat <log files> and tail that uses all CPU. These processes are not nice (prio 0). This did not happen on 2.7.2 and before.
I reduced now the log size and the amount of log files, but actually this is against what I want.
Since the WebGUI is not usable any longer I consider this to be a bug. How do you see this case, should I report it?
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Do you have the output showing this?
Is it only when loading the dashboard?
What widgets do you have on the dash?
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@stephenw10
The output is from top and psgrep, I did not check any logs. The processes start upon login and because pfSense always loads the dashboard, yes, it's the dashboard. Afterwards it took very long for any menu to open. I have the "Firewall Logs" widget on the dashboard. When I check the "cat" commands, it is the filter.log.xy that get read.I deleted many old filter.log.xy files manually and since then the WebGUI reacts again as usual. I also set the logs to be smaller and less in the amount to keep. The problem is basically solved for me now.
What I assume: The "Firewall Logs" widget needs to read the filter.log files to show the last 10 entries. Why it needs to read all log filter.log* files is probably not necessary and just a little lazy from the one who wrote the code, but I did not check.
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How many old filter log files did you have? What size do you have it rotating at? How many log lines do have the widget showing?
I agree the widget should only need to access the current log and one previous log (if it just rotated).
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@stephenw10
The widget shows 10 lines, I had 99 logfiles at a size of 80MB each, non-compressed, -
Hmm, yeah OK. That's... a lot! Let me see....
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@phloggu said in pfSense 2.8: WebGUI unusable (due to cat and tail many logfiles in the background):
The widget shows 10 lines, I had 99 logfiles at a size of 80MB each, non-compressed,
The log files are 'PHP' parsed ... PHP is a 'one-core' process, great for building web pages, extremely bad when it has to deal with 'huge' text files. It will takes 'ages' - and / or usage all PHP memory (512 Mbytes max).
If you really want to store/keep/use big log files : use a remote syslogger. Then you can go wild wild huge files with your firewall being impacted because you clicked 'one something' or just logged in.
