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    Pfsense 2.1 + esxi poor network performance

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    2.1 Snapshot Feedback and Problems - RETIRED
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    • J
      jpmenil
      last edited by

      Yes,

      but why performance with pfsense are under freebsd on the same bsd version?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • D
        dhatz
        last edited by

        Had you enabled "pf" (even with a very simple ruleset) when testing stock FreeBSD 8.3 against pfSense ?

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        • J
          jpmenil
          last edited by

          Nope,

          because i was only testing performance without firewalling. I know i will loose a little with firewalling enbled.
          I'm very surprised that network performance under freebsd are lower than under debian.
          Maybe the ethernet driver are not so good under freebsd.
          But i did not expect so awfull performance with pfsense.

          It is a know issue?

          Regards.

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          • stephenw10S
            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
            last edited by

            How did you disable pf?

            Steve

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            • J
              jpmenil
              last edited by

              There is a check box under the System/Advanced/Firewall-NAT called "Disable all packet filtering."
              And when i do a pfctl -d under console, i got pfctl: pf not enabled.
              So i think it's disabled.

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              • stephenw10S
                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                last edited by

                Fair enough, that seems disabled.
                Still routing? NATing stuff?

                Steve

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                • E
                  eri--
                  last edited by

                  You have to check even the TSO and LRO iirc those get disabled by default on pfSense.
                  Also worth checking the difference between sysct net.isr between FreeBSD and pfSense.

                  While iperf gives performance for stream it does not generalize the different workload requirements.

                  Also you are not testing forwarding performance when running iperf on pfsense itself and you have to consider that.

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                  • J
                    jpmenil
                    last edited by

                    Yes i'm already aware of this.
                    For now it is just a test for test the virtualization.
                    I was thinking that i get the same result with freebsd and pfsense.

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                    • L
                      labasus
                      last edited by

                      You've missed ESXi version and hardware you are using.
                      Is it standalone server or vSphere cluster, do you have all esx host drivers up to date?

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                      • E
                        eri--
                        last edited by

                        One things that seems to help your workload is polling.
                        So enable polling and test with it.

                        Also in pfSense the kern.hz is reduced to 100 when VMware is detected might be worth uping that to same value as FreeBSD.
                        It used to be problematic at the time though if you run with vmware-tools than probably is worth testing that scenario.

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                        • F
                          foonus
                          last edited by

                          Not sure if this is related but earlier this week using the daily snapshots my download speed went from 250mbit to 12 when i run through the pfsense box, bypassing the box and hooking directly to cable modem gives 250 again.  Upload speed does not seem to be affected (15mbit with or without pfsense) Only started to see this earlier this week. Disabled IPv6 but problem still persists to this day.

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                          • R
                            RootWyrm
                            last edited by

                            Okay, couple things.

                            1. Which ESXi -exactly-? Version and build number.
                            2. Are you running the vmxnet2 as Flexible?
                            3. Can you please retest with the 'legacy' interface? Preferably in pcn(4) mode over lnc(4) mode. I'm rusty so I forget how to force that behavior. (Hell, I forget if the PCIID changes were committed.)
                            4. How many em(4) (aka e1000) interfaces are you running during testing? Yes, this matters.

                            I think part of the problem is that 2.1 pulled in a bad em(4) branch - but I haven't had time to test more in depth.

                            EDIT: Oh, can you also please check to see if you have "calcru: runtime went backwards" messages?

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