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    PfSense underperforming, high jitter + random packet loss

    General pfSense Questions
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    • C
      Chrismallia
      last edited by

      My results pfsense 2.4.2 with no traffic shaping

      http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/26817207

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      • N
        NaterGator
        last edited by

        Thanks for the results Chris. Can you try with Hi-Res bufferbloat enabled?

        I really don't think it is the NIC, but out of sheer "I'm out of other ideas" desperation I ordered an I350T2V2 from Arrow to test.

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        • C
          Chrismallia
          last edited by

          Sure  that changes the results

          1 no shaping

          http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/26818126

          2 I enabled fq_codel  and limiters  in pfsense  but with those bufferbloat setting  still the internet came to a crawl

          http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/26818505

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          • N
            NaterGator
            last edited by

            Thanks for that. There are maybe some hints of a similar (or the same?) problem in your results, but nothing particularly conclusive or definitive. May I ask what hardware you're running on?

            For those playing along, here's how pfSense is comparing to Untangle on the exact same hardware minutes apart:

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            • C
              Chrismallia
              last edited by

              This is on a j1900
              I did a other test with traffic shaper and enabling codel in  every q
              internet kept working fine while testing

              http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/26819500

              I have Untangle also will give it a spin

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              • C
                Chrismallia
                last edited by

                Dude tested UT on same HW it first errored the test for a few times then I got these, pfsense did better with HFSC and Codel

                http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/26821430

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                • C
                  Chrismallia
                  last edited by

                  UT proof

                  utCapture.PNG
                  utCapture.PNG_thumb

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                  • N
                    NaterGator
                    last edited by

                    @Chrismallia:

                    Dude tested UT on same HW it first errored the test for a few times then I got these, pfsense did better with HFSC and Codel

                    http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/26821430

                    Bizarre. What NIC are you running?

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                    • C
                      Chrismallia
                      last edited by

                      Nic is Intel dual port server grade

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                      • N
                        NaterGator
                        last edited by

                        Tested using a brand new Intel I350T2V2, exactly the same results.

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                        • C
                          Chrismallia
                          last edited by

                          My ping spikes up to 300ms sure but it goes down and I get A with no interruption to the services  same on UT,  can you post your results with Intel nic ? was the internet slow while performing the test ? try traffic shaper with HFSC and enable codel on every q and post your results,

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                          • N
                            NaterGator
                            last edited by

                            The issue seems to be entirely with ALTQ shaping.

                            I decided to spend the day booted natively into pfSense (home alone, so nobody to be bothered with intermittent internet and no access to the TV) to troubleshoot this.

                            Ultimately after different iterations of ALTQ shapers with and without codel I couldn't find a single one that offered even remotely acceptable performance and that didn't introduce gigantic latency / bufferings spikes.

                            I decide to try this: https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=126637.0

                            Lo-and-behold, it worked like a charm. Using dummynet and real fq_codel on limiters gives me results I would expect without the altq insanity.
                            https://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/26865693

                            I don't know if I'm the only one experiencing thing, but it honestly seems like currently altq is introducing side effects worse than the problems it is supposed to fix.

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                            • w0wW
                              w0w
                              last edited by

                              pfSense 2.4.3 alphabeta built on Sat Dec 16 11:23:26 CST 2017,
                              Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770K CPU @ 3.50GHz e3c226d2i (2xi210 LAN)
                              tunables
                              kern.ipc.maxsockbuf 256000000
                              hw.igb.rxd="4096"
                              hw.igb.txd="4096"
                              net.inet.tcp.syncache.hashsize=1024
                              net.inet.tcp.syncache.bucketlimit=100
                              net.isr.defaultqlimit=4096
                              net.link.ifqmaxlen=10240
                              hw.igb.rx_process_limit="-1"
                              hw.igb.num_queues=2
                              dev.igb.0.fc=0
                              dev.igb.1.fc=0
                              kern.ipc.nmbjumbo9="20000"
                              kern.ipc.nmbclusters="1000000"
                              WAN is PPPoE 300/300Mbit over gigabit LAN to ISP router (some CISCO with 10G fiber optic connection)

                              FQ_CODEL enabled,  Hi-Res bufferbloat and other settings as posted by NaterGator:

                              http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/26877901

                              FQ_CODEL enabled,  Hi-Res bufferbloat and 30/30 streams:

                              http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/26877933

                              FQ_CODEL disabled, Hi-Res bufferbloat and other settings as posted by NaterGator:

                              http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/26877771

                              FQ_CODEL disabled, Hi-Res bufferbloat and 30/30 streams:

                              http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/26877806

                              FQ_CODEL disabled, no tunables, Hi-Res bufferbloat and other settings as posted by NaterGator:

                              http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/26877572

                              FQ_CODEL disabled, no tunables, Hi-Res bufferbloat and 30/30 streams:

                              http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/26877682

                              I do not see any huge difference, just some fluctuations that are mostly on ISP side I think.

                              If you want me to test ALTQ shaper, please provide some sample configuration. But really, I have had some not very good experience with ALTQ at least it have twice as much overhead bandwidth comparing to IPFW shaper.

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                              • N
                                NaterGator
                                last edited by

                                Interesting results… I wonder if asymmetric link bandwidth is having a greater influence?

                                This was my "typical" basic altq test with no limiter/fq_codel: https://i.imgur.com/d1vQLFc.png (only the one shaper on the WAN interface)

                                I also tried the configuration outlined here: http://www.speedtest.net/insights/blog/maximized-speed-non-gigabit-internet-connection/

                                Also...go bolts?

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                                • w0wW
                                  w0w
                                  last edited by

                                  ALTQ CODELQ, NaterGator settings — http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/27005845  As you can see dslreports automatucally dropped to 18 : 6 streams.
                                  And for the 30/30 streams we have a problem! Triple test start ended with stuck on idle latency testing with spikes (failed due to overall timeout. error:2) and at the end I've got this with 24/24 http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/27006168
                                  And repeat test with FQ_CODEL and 30/30 — http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/27006586
                                  There is something broken in ALTQ CODELQ…

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                                  • N
                                    NaterGator
                                    last edited by

                                    Thanks for the extra effort and offering some level of confirmation that I'm not totally crazy. I'm not sure if this is an issue I should submit to the pfSense tracker or if this belongs upstream on FreeBSD's end.

                                    FWIW: To reduce variables I use the preferences on the dslreports test to set fixed servers that I know are close by and a fixed number of streams.

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                                    • C
                                      Chrismallia
                                      last edited by

                                      @w0w

                                      You get great results :) using fq_codel. The minimum  ping spike I could get was 150 something just on download, upload is fine , but I think ISP matters and also that you have a symmetrical  speed  makes a difference

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                                      • w0wW
                                        w0w
                                        last edited by

                                        Chrismallia, yes it's ISP, just very good ISP network at least in my location.
                                        NaterGator, it's FreeBSD, but I don't think anybody cares ALTQ CODELQ, you have alternative with HFSC and codel enabled queue. I think next 3-5 years we will see some progress for IPFW or ALTQ — it does not matter they both need code to be rewritten from scratch, because of used 32-bit integers they both do not support modern traffic bandwidth (over 4 Gigs/sec).

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                                        • N
                                          NaterGator
                                          last edited by

                                          @w0w:

                                          NaterGator, it's FreeBSD, but I don't think anybody cares ALTQ CODELQ, you have alternative with HFSC and codel enabled queue. I think next 3-5 years we will see some progress for IPFW or ALTQ — it does not matter they both need code to be rewritten from scratch, because of used 32-bit integers they both do not support modern traffic bandwidth (over 4 Gigs/sec).

                                          Hmm, I do see this issue in HFSC with and without codel enabled. What I'm saying is any altq enabled shaping at all triggers the issue.

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                                          • C
                                            Chrismallia
                                            last edited by

                                            w0w

                                            What is strange for me is that with no traffic shaping I get low ping spikes  on download and high ping spikes on upload, when enabling any shaping including fq  I get low ping spikes on upload but then get high ping spikes on download,  see my results in post 3 if you may, I cant understand it

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