Installing pfSense on a Supermicro 5018A-FTN4 SuperServer

dogbait

In case you haven't seen the new Supermicro SuperServer 5018A-FTN4 here's a quick overview of the spec:

CPU: Intel Atom C2758 - 8 Core CPU
Storage: 2x 3.5" SATA or 4x 2.5" SATA
Front Facing I/O
4x Gigabit LAN
IPMI
Gold Certified PSU
Quiet 1U, Half Depth Chassis

I thought I'd add my own experience of configuring one with pfSense.

Firstly use pfSense 2.1.1 or later to get the necessary network driver support for the I354 controller
If installing using a USB CD or USB Memory Stick plug into the black USB ports NOT the blue ones.
Install pfSense as normal.

Preventing MBUF from maxing out:

It seems the I354 chipset can cause kernel panics. Borrowing from JeGr's tip add the following lines to /boot/loader.conf.local:


kern.ipc.nmbclusters="131072"

Enabling TRIM for SSD:

Login with SSH or locally and open a shell
Run /usr/local/sbin/ufslabels.sh
Add ahci_load="YES" to /boot/loader.conf.local
Reboot

For some reason TRIM_set didn’t work for our pfSense gateways so on some of the boxes we had to:

Start pfSense in single user mode.
Run /sbin/tunefs -t enable /
Reboot

Once the machine has rebooted check the status with: tunefs -p /


[2.1-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.hemma]/root(1): tunefs -p /
tunefs: POSIX.1e ACLs: (-a)                                disabled
tunefs: NFSv4 ACLs: (-N)                                   disabled
tunefs: MAC multilabel: (-l)                               disabled
tunefs: soft updates: (-n)                                 disabled
tunefs: gjournal: (-J)                                     disabled
tunefs: trim: (-t)                                         enabled
tunefs: maximum blocks per file in a cylinder group: (-e)  2048
tunefs: average file size: (-f)                            16384
tunefs: average number of files in a directory: (-s)       64
tunefs: minimum percentage of free space: (-m)             8%
tunefs: optimization preference: (-o)                      time
tunefs: volume label: (-L)

Once done you should have a TRIM enabled pfSense install on some seriously kick ass hardware.

– Edited
1. Removed reference to 2.1 TRIM setting
2. Added a proper workaround for MBUF exhaustion issue

phil.davis

You mentioned using 2.1.1 then show some command output from 2.1
Anyway, the code behind that "touch /root/TRIM_set; /etc/rc.reboot" sequence got removed in 2.1.1, so that is why that does not work in 2.1.1. You have to do it manually, as you documented at the end of the post.

jasonlitka

@dogbait:

In the BIOS go to CPU Configuration and set the Active Processor Cores to 4 (this prevents MBUF maxing out).

This is completely unnecessary and a waste of hardware. If you only want 4 cores then buy the C2558 instead. If you bought the C2758/C2750 then just increase kern.ipc.nmbclusters. This is a fairly typical change for systems with a high core count or a high number of NICs.

dogbait

thanks guys, great advice, amended my original post.

jasonlitka

@dogbait:

thanks guys, great advice, amended my original post.

The nmbclusters number is way out of line. Just double the default and you'll be fine. No need to limit the number of queues either.

dogbait

@Jason:

The nmbclusters number is way out of line. Just double the default and you'll be fine. No need to limit the number of queues either.

Default in pfsense seems to be: 25600

The pfSense troubleshooting guide recommends: 131072 for igb adapters and 262144 for ix.

It also recommends a queue of 1. Is there a reason you recommend otherwise?

thanks.

jasonlitka

That section of the guide is 100% aimed at troubleshooting, not tuning. If you're having trouble, try those things, if not, leave them alone.

nmbclusters only needs to be high enough to make sure you don't max out mbuf (visible on the main page of pfsense once you log in). My C2758 system at home uses 51200. My systems at work with 8 cores, (12) igb NICs, and (2) ix NICs use 262144. In any case, 655356 is way too high unless you've got a 32 core box, 24 NICs, or something similar.

As to the number of queues, there was a point where the igb NICs performed better and were more stable when limited to a single queue. It also meant that you could run with a lower nmbclusters value since the amount needed was bound to # CPU cores * # of NICs * # of Queues. Stability and performance are no longer valid reasons as in as far as I can tell, there is no longer any difference when dealing with 1Gb/s of traffic whether you're using 1 queue or 8 and the multi-queue stability issues disappeared with the newest 2.4.0 igb drivers in 2.1.1/2.1.2.

Basically, don't override a driver default unless you have a good reason. You probably don't.

cfipilot

Have the same board and setup however when trying to boot in single user mode i get stuck at

ACPI APIC TABLE < INTEL TIANO   >

jasonlitka

@cfipilot:

Have the same board and setup however when trying to boot in single user mode i get stuck at
ACPI APIC TABLE < INTEL TIANO   >

Sounds like you're trying to use one of the USB 3.0 ports. Switch to a 2.0 port and give it another try.

JeGr

Just to chime in:

We used the values in the link above (https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=74772.msg408961#msg408961) as we have a system with a octo-core CPU and a possible second CPU socket (ATM empty) as well as 10igb NICs in the system, so we had quite a few issues booting with mbufs and queues gone completely bonkers ;)
The values we used were taken from a redmine ticket months ago and nodded at by JimP and ChrisB in our special case. I only mentioned them for troubleshooting and diagnosis, not for general tuning :)

Lower settings may apply for other devices (C2750 isn't quite as problematic as Xeon E5/7 we used).

Greets

robi

Two questions:

what's the max speed which can be achieved between two interfaces with this newer atom CPU?
does the I354 nic handle VLAN tagging well?

3vian

Has anyone been able to get to the console via Serial-Over-LAN? Or are we all using KVM?

jasonlitka

@robi:

Two questions:

what's the max speed which can be achieved between two interfaces with this newer atom CPU?

does the I354 nic handle VLAN tagging well?

I haven't bothered to test more than 1Gbit/s of throughput (in one port, out the other). The numbers I saw were close enough to line-speed that I'd say it can do at least that much.

Yes, in as far as I've tested at home, which is to say that I have one test vLAN setup on a single port and it probably handles about 2MB of traffic a day. It's a high-end Intel NIC. It's fine.

@3vian:

Has anyone been able to get to the console via Serial-Over-LAN? Or are we all using KVM?

I just use the KVM since I'm running a full install.

ridnhard19

dogbait,

did you have to change any settings in the bios of that board to get it to detect the drive with the ahci module? I have been unable to get my system to boot with the ahci_load line in my boot config. I did double check the bios settings and everything looks fine from the factory for those options. I also don't see any of my drives listed when it fails to find it during boot.

ridnhard19

So I figured out the ahci issue when enabling trim for the SSD I was using. I attempted to use a Crucial M500 which uses a Marvell controller and no matter which settings I changed in the BIOS it refused to mount the / file system you had ahci enabled despite having the proper fstab entries.

I tried swapping the M500 out for a Samsung Evo 840 and it solved the problem. I was able to install then enable AHCI without any trouble.

Hope this helps others.

Tillebeck

Hi cfipilot
Did you ever get pass that point?

I too get stuck at:
ACPI APIC Table: <intel tiano ="" ="">I first install the system the the SSD. Then I start to do the modifications. When getting to the point of logging in as single-user the system hangs at the point above. It is an Intel SATA SSD.

– SOLVED --

I could not boot the server in single-user mode, so I ended up reverting the patch that has made it difficult to enable TRIM.

I reverted this commit (jsut copy-pasted it back in place):
http://freshbsd.org/commit/pfsense/aa87bae5fc11a857c9dc7793fc4a932cc860e94a

Then created the file (will make the code above enable TRIM):
/root/TRIM_set

And did a reboot. That soves the "enable trim" without beeing in single-user mode..</intel>

robi

Does pfSense 2.2 run well on this?

Tillebeck

The 2.1.5 seems to install "as is".
The same seems to go for 2.2…

You allways need to increase mbuf.

I have tried one upgrade from 2.1.5 to 2.2 that crashed the system and required a reinstall. So be close to your box when upgrading.

I have had two of these boxes running pfsense 2.2. One was (and is) running with no problems at all. The other had a serious DNS problem so clients on LAN could not resolve addresses. I think I caused the DNS error and not incompatibility between hardware and pfsense. But pay attention anyway.

Regarding TRIM if you use SSD then:
This part is tricke and could be subject to change…

https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=66622.msg364411#msg364411

Login with SSH and open the shell.
Run: /usr/local/sbin/ufslabels.sh
pres 'y' to accept

Add the line ahci_load="YES" to /boot/loader.conf.local
reboot the machine

##EITHER REMOTE:
Revert patch by editing /root/rc
http://freshbsd.org/commit/pfsense/aa87bae5fc11a857c9dc7793fc4a932cc860e94a
Login with SSH and open the shell
touch /root/TRIM_set; /etc/rc.reboot
##ELSE IF YOU HAVE LOCAL ACCESS
Login as single user and run:
/sbin/tunefs -t enable /
/etc/rc.reboot

Once the machine has rebooted check the status with: tunefs -p /
See if trim enabled is in the output

ruffle

Nice boxes and I bought a pair on the basis of this thread but the network throughput seems poor.

I've got two of them with CARP enabled and doing an iperf test on the CARP interfaces (igb1 on both boxes connected by a 4" cable so no switch involved) I'm only seeing ~550Mb/s (larger iperf windows don't make any difference).

Client connecting to 10.10.1.1, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 65.0 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[  3] local 10.10.1.2 port 64350 connected with 10.10.1.1 port 5001
[ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth
[  3]  0.0-10.0 sec   654 MBytes   547 Mbits/sec

The NIC's are coming up at a gigabit as you'd expect:


igb1: flags=8843 <up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast>metric 0 mtu 1500
        options=403bb <rxcsum,txcsum,vlan_mtu,vlan_hwtagging,jumbo_mtu,vlan_hwcsum,tso4,tso6,vlan_hwtso>ether 0c:c4:7a:32:5c:31
        inet6 fe80::ec4:7aff:fe32:5c31%igb1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2 
        inet 10.10.1.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 10.10.1.255 
        nd6 options=21 <performnud,auto_linklocal>media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
        status: active</full-duplex></performnud,auto_linklocal></rxcsum,txcsum,vlan_mtu,vlan_hwtagging,jumbo_mtu,vlan_hwcsum,tso4,tso6,vlan_hwtso></up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast>

I've increased the nmbclusters to 1,000,000 (as suggested on the pfSense website), tried playing with turning off TSO but never seem to see much more than half a gig.

I'm running pfSense 2.2.1-RELEASE (amd64), 8GB RAM and a pair of 128GB Samsung Evo pro drives in a GEOM Mirror.

As I have a gigabit fibre arriving in a few weeks and I've put these boxes together to replace our aging IPcop firewalls, I really would like to get them running as close to a gigabit as possible.

Anyone got any suggestions as to what I can try?

Tillebeck

Don't know if this will do it. But if you use the shaper, then try to disable the "Explicit Congestion Notification". It seems to "eat" a lot of throughput in my networks at least.