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    High VSphere cpu load but low pfsense cpu load

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Virtualization
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    • S
      shms
      last edited by

      @KOM:

      Are you using pfSense in a basic manner, or do you have lots of extra packages installed like Squid and Snort?

      very basic manner, i only have nmap and OpenVPN Client Export Utility installed.

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      • T
        Terrabit_AH
        last edited by

        i have the sameproblem and make some tests.

        so here the results of my test

        the current pfs 2.1.5 have defenitly a bug under vmware 5.5u1.

        in one test the failure occurse 2 min after the restart, i think the reasen was the high load (400mbit) traffic.

        after several times something is crash and i get Dup! if i make a ping.

        the power will trunkated by 100mbit on each Interface.

        i test it with 8 cores then with 4 cores. my vm have 4 nics all intel 1000.

        also 8gb ram. thr Maschine is a ibm blade.

        here the ping:

        PING 193.84.xxx.xxx (193.84.178.161) 56(84) bytes of data.
        64 bytes from 193.84.xxx.xxx: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=8.10 ms
        64 bytes from 193.84.xxx.xxx: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=8.10 ms (DUP!)
        64 bytes from 193.84.xxx.xxx: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=8.38 ms
        64 bytes from 193.84.xxx.xxx: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=8.38 ms (DUP!)

        after a reboot of the pfs everything is ok.

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        • T
          Terrabit_AH
          last edited by

          so i made some tests and change the e1000 nic  with the vmxnet3 nic.

          the result was a freezing of the esxi host maschine.

          the 2.1.5 release version is definitly not stabel under esxi 5.5u1.

          i say bye bye pfsense it is not usable with high load of nic traffic.

          i test also vlan support with e1000 and vmxnet3 is also buggy, packet drops and so on.

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          • H
            heper
            last edited by

            must be something specific on your end ….
            i've never had stability issue's on esxi with any version of pfsense.

            i do experience somewhat high cpu usage when going from VLAN_x to VLAN_y at wire speed of 1gbit/s.

            if you want to use the vmxnet drivers, then you should wait for pf 2.2, they are builtin.

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            • KOMK
              KOM
              last edited by

              I use pfSense on ESXi 5.5.0 with e1000 NICs without any issue.  Now, we only have a 90/90Mbps link and it is rarely that busy.

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              • johnpozJ
                johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                last edited by

                I run esix 5.5u1 build 2143827 with pfsense 2.1.5 32bit without any issue, using vmxnet3 drivers - installed from esxi media, etc.

                I don't have any issues with stability at all.. now I only have a 60mbps internet connection, but I do move lots of files over gig connections locally from physical network to vm's not having any issues.

                I don't see anything out of wac to be honest.. So cpu on pfsense spikes when I max out my connection, and shows it - and sure vm shows it using more mhz..  But its running on a n40L for gosh sake with AMD Turion™ II Neo 2x1.5ghz cpus

                couple things I see from the OP, not running tools - running old version 8 of the hardware, I would run 10 - but have to run 9 since the client can not edit version 10 hardware.. Stupid vmware ;)

                I am out of town currently - all these tests where done while I was vpn'd into the pfsense network even..  Be happy to put something gig on the wan and pump as much bandwidth as it can through it. But I seems to be reporting ok to me - unless I am seeing something wrong here..  pfsense cpu goes up, esxi reports uses more mhz..

                peggedconnection.png
                peggedconnection.png_thumb
                esxihostpng.png
                esxihostpng.png_thumb
                pfsensecpu.png
                pfsensecpu.png_thumb

                An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

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                • T
                  Terrabit_AH
                  last edited by

                  how many cpu's are inside of your maschines ?

                  i reduced the cpu to 2 cores and now i have 400 mbit, bevore only 50 mbit

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                  • C
                    cmb
                    last edited by

                    @Terrabit_AH:

                    so i made some tests and change the e1000 nic  with the vmxnet3 nic.

                    the result was a freezing of the esxi host maschine.

                    the 2.1.5 release version is definitly not stabel under esxi 5.5u1.

                    i say bye bye pfsense it is not usable with high load of nic traffic.

                    Clearly you have an ESX issue to take up with VMware, a VM should never, ever, under any circumstances, be able to crash the host.

                    There are many thousands if not tens of thousands of production installs out there running on ESX, many of those on 5.5u1. There are no stability issues.

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                    • T
                      Terrabit_AH
                      last edited by

                      you wrong, we send the logs to vmware and it is realy true the pfsense maschine freezed the vswitch on the esx host.

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                      • johnpozJ
                        johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                        last edited by

                        And why don't you post those findings here, share with pfsense team so they could correct it if really the case.. Did you create a bug report from the info that vmware gave you from the logs.. What logs did you send exactly?

                        An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                        If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                        Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                        SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

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                        • T
                          Terrabit_AH
                          last edited by

                          this is very simple, the pfsense team give me no response.

                          i made the offer but now response !

                          https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=70092.45

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • J
                            Jamerson
                            last edited by

                            i've noticed your Pfsense VM doesn't have a Vmware Tools installed !

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • KOMK
                              KOM
                              last edited by

                              i made the offer but now response !

                              I suspect that they would be much more likely to attach to your cloud and try to fix the problem you're having if you had a support contract.

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • S
                                shms
                                last edited by

                                @Jamerson:

                                i've noticed your Pfsense VM doesn't have a Vmware Tools installed !

                                Yeah i've had problems with vmtools for pfsense, but thats not the issue here since i've had it running before with the same issue, unfortunetly :/

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