PfSense 2.3.1-P1 Unusual Average System Load

[churchi]

Hi All,

I am seeing on my pfSense that is running in vmware that the average system load is always around
Load average 0.51, 0.62, 0.51

I can see when i look at the VM in vcentre that the host MHz is always hovering around the 1220 mark.

When i SSH into the firewall and run 'top' i can see the service that is taking up most of the CPU looks like the pkg service. I have no idea what that service does, but that and the php service seems always to be on top.

I have tested with without basically any traffic passing the firewall, just seems to hover around these figure as a minimum throughout the day.

My VMWare VM settings are the same as they were on the 2.2.x release. Do i need to up those values?

Does anyone have any thoughts on what could be making the load so high when the firewall is basically idol?

I will attach some pics to illustrate the issue.

Cheers.

[cmb]

pkg isn't a service, it only runs during certain operations. What output do you get for:

ps auwwx|grep pkg

[churchi]

Oh i get it now. Thank you.

root  30745  0.0  0.4  45172  7796  -  S    12:35PM    0:00.00 /usr/sbin/pkg info -e pfSense-pkg-squidGuard
root  31076  0.0  0.4  45172  7832  -  R    12:35PM    0:00.00 /usr/sbin/pkg info -e pfSense-pkg-squidGuard
root  31642  0.0  0.0    392  312  0  R+  12:35PM    0:00.00 grep pkg

Looks to be maybe squidguard?

[churchi]

Interesting as i dont even have squidguard installed. May have in 2.2 but not in 2.3.

[cmb]

That doesn't necessarily mean it is, just that it's looking up the info on the package. Though that would usually only be if it's installed, there are potentially other reasons. Run 'killall -9 pkg' and see if it returns.

[churchi]

Ok so that has killed that process. The load is still high so it must be something else.

last pid: 40086;  load averages:  0.50,  0.56,  0.51

What else can i try to track down the problem service.

Thanks.

Edit: This is what i am seeing now.
ps auwwx | grep pkg
root  48874  9.0  0.5  45172 10264  -  S    1:11PM    0:00.96 /usr/sbin/pkg search –raw-format json-compact pfSense-pkg-
root  48739  0.0  0.4  45172  7796  -  S    1:11PM    0:00.00 /usr/sbin/pkg search --raw-format json-compact pfSense-pkg-

Seems to come and go, so still not sure if thats the real service/process taking up the cpu time.