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    Increased Memory and CPU Spikes (causing latency/outage) with 2.4.5

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Problems Installing or Upgrading pfSense Software
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    • J
      JohnGalt1717
      last edited by JohnGalt1717

      I'm getting the same thing with Hyper-V host, 2 deticated NICs all offloading turned off.

      Interesting tidbit is that with me if I make any settings change and save it, it hanges for 20-30 seconds then pins the CPU, pings even over the lan to pfSense won't respond. Then it slowly comes back.

      I have OpenVPN running but had no issues with 2.4.4. In the OpenVPN logs there is now an endless stream of: AEAD Decrypt error: bad packet ID (may be a replay): that weren't there before. The System time is correct.

      AES-NI On or off doesn't make a difference (even after restart)

      Internet is PPPoE if that makes a difference.

      Download speed is normal. Upload speed is about half of what it should be compared to 2.4.4.

      Note traffic shaper is enabled and I have some floating rules for Google Hangouts.

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      • ?
        A Former User
        last edited by A Former User

        One thing to try would be to disable the Spectre/Meltdown mitigation, reboot, and see if that improves things.
        I wonder if improvements have been made to it in FreeBSD 11.3 but those improvements maybe don't play well with virtualisation.

        I'm not in a position to test at the moment, can anyone else give this idea a go?

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        • S
          snarfattack @A Former User
          last edited by

          @muppet I just disabled the meltdown mitigation, rebooted. Still have 100% CPU

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          • S
            ShadowBlade72
            last edited by

            I'm experiencing similar issues with 2.4.5. My CPU usage spikes to 100% anytime I access a website and causes an outage for about 20 seconds.

            Specs:
            Proxmox 6.1-8
            CPU: 8 vCPUs
            Memory: 8GB

            Packages:
            acme 0.6.5
            Avahi 2.1_1
            openvpn-client-export 1.4.20
            pfBlockerNG 2.1.4_21
            Service_Watchdog 1.8.6
            snort 3.2.9.10_2
            softflowd 1.2.6
            squid 0.4.44_15
            Status_Traffic_Totals 2.3.1

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • S
              snarfattack
              last edited by

              I finally got my Hyper-V virtualized install back to mostly working by removing all IP alias lists that PFBlocker had created, except one that was critical for me. Once this was done, I only get 100% cpu for a second or two during the times pfctl runs. I can deal with that over the 5 minutes lockups that were occuring before.

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              • T
                t41k2m3 @BBcan177
                last edited by

                @BBcan177 said in Increased Memory and CPU Spikes (causing latency/outage) with 2.4.5:

                @ScottishTom
                Thanks for reporting back. Will check it out tomorrow.

                @BBcan177 realizing this is going to sound somewhat odd... everything went back to normal on its own over night (typical state prior to the 2.4.5 upgrade - i.e. memory usage around 20%). None of the other issues - e.g. CPU spikes, latency, outage - manifested themselves on this setup. Also implemented your fix for Shalla and UT1 found here: https://forum.netgate.com/topic/151689/shallalist-and-ut1-lists-not-working-on-2-4-5-release-pfblockerng-devel-2-2-5_29
                Thanks for your help debugging.

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                • V
                  ViniciusBr
                  last edited by

                  Hi,

                  I reverted 3 upgrades already due to performance issues, all 3 uses pfblocker, 2 are virtualized with vmware and one with hyper-v (gen 1 vm).

                  Look at the before/after graphs, impossible to upgrade to be honest:

                  pfsense-01-cpu.JPG pfsense-02-cpu.JPG pfsense-01-mem.JPG pfsense-02-mem.JPG

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • W
                    WALK3R
                    last edited by

                    The new release is like how the RC was for me 100% CPU usage locks the system up so you can't do anything. I did a fresh install no packages less than 6 firewall rules and basic setup for routing and it started locking up today lasted about 2 days before I had to roll back to 2.4.4; only thing I changed was the subnet.

                    I'm running proxmox with:

                    CPU(s)

                    24 x Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5675 @ 3.07GHz (2 Sockets)
                    Kernel Version

                    Linux 5.3.10-1-pve #1 SMP PVE 5.3.10-1 (Thu, 14 Nov 2019 10:43:13 +0100)
                    PVE Manager Version

                    pve-manager/6.1-3/37248ce6

                    alt text
                    alt text

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

                      I also did an upgrade from 2.4.4p3 to 2.4.5 that failed to run smoothly after. I had to roll back immediately.
                      Running PFBlockerNG and OpenVPN Export packages and running OpenVPN Server and client.
                      Virtual Machine VM running on Windows Server 2016 with 1GB RAM.
                      Will delete packages, disable OpenVPN and add another 1GB memory and see if it goes any better.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • BBcan177B
                        BBcan177 Moderator
                        last edited by

                        Out of curiosity, can the users experiencing Increased memory and CPU spikes in 2.4.5 try to increase this setting?

                        Start at 2M and go up from there.

                        pfSense > Advanced > Firewall & NAT > Firewall Maximim Table Entries

                        A "Filter Reload" should be sufficient, but a reboot may be necessary to enable the change.

                        "Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it."

                        Website: http://pfBlockerNG.com
                        Twitter: @BBcan177  #pfBlockerNG
                        Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/pfBlockerNG/new/

                        T T 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • G
                          Gabri.91
                          last edited by Gabri.91

                          Just for reference, I've upgraded few hours ago my CARP nodes:

                          • ESXi 6.7U3, 1 Virtual CPU, 1GB RAM
                          • Packages => avahi, bandwidthd, cron, FTP_Client_Proxy, mailreport, nmap, Open-VM-Tools, openvpn-client-export, pfBlockerNG-devel, RRD_Summary
                          • GeoIP not used in pfBlocker, only DNSBL
                          • Firewall Maximim Table Entries already set at 5M

                          RAM usage (from inside pfSense) it's more or less the same at around 80%, CPU usage looks even a little bit better (from ESXi):pfSense2.png

                          No other issues with latency/filter reload etc..

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                          • T
                            t41k2m3 @BBcan177
                            last edited by

                            @BBcan177 said in Increased Memory and CPU Spikes (causing latency/outage) with 2.4.5:

                            Out of curiosity, can the users experiencing Increased memory and CPU spikes in 2.4.5 try to increase this setting?

                            Start at 2M and go up from there.

                            pfSense > Advanced > Firewall & NAT > Firewall Maximim Table Entries

                            A "Filter Reload" should be sufficient, but a reboot may be necessary to enable the change.

                            @BBcan177 spoke too soon as mem spikes problems are back... updated to devel 2.2.5_30 and increased max table entries as you suggested to 2.5 and 3.0 M.

                            Neither made a significant dent in that mem usage stays at or around 80%. One piece of good news is functionality degradation seems to not happen (other than fitful keystroke lag in ssh, no or limited latency or packet loss).

                            Looking at ps and top results per your request, found the following (suggesting unbound is the culprit, perhaps together with or partly due to the size of DNSBL entries):

                            ps -auxwwwm
                            USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TT STAT STARTED TIME COMMAND
                            unbound 5896 0.0 47.7 7398308 3973492 - Ss 11:59 0:31.38 unbound -c unbound.conf

                            Notice high % of MEM (47%, second highest process is at 3%)

                            top -aSH -o size
                            PID USERNAME PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE C TIME WCPU COMMAND
                            5896 unbound 20 0 7225M 3880M kqread 0 0:31 0.00% unbound -c unbound.conf{unbound}
                            5896 unbound 20 0 7225M 3880M kqread 2 0:00 0.00% unbound -c unbound.conf{unbound}
                            5896 unbound 20 0 7225M 3880M kqread 2 0:00 0.00% unbound -c unbound.conf{unbound}
                            5896 unbound 20 0 7225M 3880M kqread 2 0:00 0.00% unbound -c unbound.conf{unbound}

                            Notice high SIZE (second highest process uses about 11% of an unbound thread utilization)

                            You had also mentioned earlier that you were not sure what had changed in 2.4.5 as far as unbound. From what I am seeing, unbound was upgraded from 1.9.1 to 1.9.6 (w/python support). Please let me know if any of this data may trigger any ideas on what to look for further to debug this thing.

                            BBcan177B 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • BBcan177B
                              BBcan177 Moderator @t41k2m3
                              last edited by

                              @t41k2m3
                              Do you have TLD enabled in DNSBL? How many domains are enabled in DNSBL? You can post the snipet from the pfblockerng.log when DNSBL updates.

                              To compare memory usage, you need to see how it was in previous pfSense versions? DNSBL will consume memory depending on how its setup in Unbound.

                              Also the changelog in Unbound is huge:
                              https://nlnetlabs.nl/projects/unbound/download/

                              "Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it."

                              Website: http://pfBlockerNG.com
                              Twitter: @BBcan177  #pfBlockerNG
                              Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/pfBlockerNG/new/

                              T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • T
                                t41k2m3 @BBcan177
                                last edited by

                                @BBcan177 said in Increased Memory and CPU Spikes (causing latency/outage) with 2.4.5:

                                @t41k2m3
                                Do you have TLD enabled in DNSBL? How many domains are enabled in DNSBL? You can post the snipet from the pfblockerng.log when DNSBL updates.

                                To compare memory usage, you need to see how it was in previous pfSense versions? DNSBL will consume memory depending on how its setup in Unbound.

                                Also the changelog in Unbound is huge:
                                https://nlnetlabs.nl/projects/unbound/download/

                                To asnwer your questions (same settings pre/post upgrade):
                                DNSBL TLD enabled - yes;
                                DNSBL Domain/IP Counts: ~1M
                                Alias table IP Counts: ~330K
                                pfsense Table Usage Count: ~330K
                                based on empirical data prior to upgrading and Status - Monitoring of System Memory post upgrade, memory usage was around 20% before and may oscillate between 65-80% after upgrade (except period it went back to normal).

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                                • T
                                  taz3146 @BBcan177
                                  last edited by

                                  @BBcan177
                                  Mine was already at 4milion max states and 6million max tables entries and mbuf 1milion, same as it has been for 5+ years. (4x-cpu, 4GB-ram)
                                  I tried fresh VM loads with/without config restore, no added packages, no aliases and it seems worse with more firewall rules and services enabled and that's with no traffic passing through, as you add packages that have rules and restart other services it gets worse x10.
                                  example, just changing unbound settings and saving other config pages causes the same issues, but not as bad, also disabled unbound and tried forwarder, changing other various settings still causes it to do the same.
                                  other example, pfblocker really aggravates it with maxmind code entered and the cron-csv update enabled(unchecked), but it's sure not the root cause, just a nasty symptom and it really lags on reboot/cold start up.
                                  tried a vm with 8GB ram and the states/table entries/mbuf way higher yet, with no change, none ever show above
                                  mostly tested on esxi 6.5 host using vmxnet3 adapters.
                                  also tested an upgrade and fresh load/no config restore with latest vbox on windows 10, with same exact issues cropping up.
                                  I couldn't hit the same issue on old bare hardware upgrade (core 2 Q8400, 4GB ram)
                                  all the issues result in PHP hanging for long periods eating cpu, load averages climb to the moon 10.x and higher, ping latency goes up and wan starts flapping exacerbating the issue further. if you leave it sit long enough it sometimes straightens out or I noticed I started pulling traffic through and it suddenly jumps the latency down and works for a while. I tried disabling gateway monitor actions and it helps because wan doesn't flap, but the issue still remains.
                                  I never thought to try single CPU vm's and after so many lagged aggravating tests, I don't want to play anymore.

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • daNutzD
                                    daNutz
                                    last edited by daNutz

                                    Hi,

                                    Im also suffering CPU spikes that is causing massive lagg issues for me.

                                    Ive noticed it mainly revolves around the "pfctl" process randomly spiking. occasionally i see unbound also but mostly its pfctl.

                                    alt text

                                    ? 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                    • 2
                                      2fast4u2
                                      last edited by 2fast4u2

                                      We are experiencing the same issue. Upgraded from v2.4.4p3 to v2.4.5. CPU is stuck at 70%, up from 2% before.
                                      Memory usage is up as well.
                                      cea00ef7-651e-48d3-a158-0f69e355dfdd-image.png
                                      45d9c5cf-a43d-4c3e-a5a5-e3e57fa6bf63-image.png

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • ?
                                        A Former User @daNutz
                                        last edited by

                                        @daNutz said in Increased Memory and CPU Spikes (causing latency/outage) with 2.4.5:

                                        Hi,

                                        Im also suffering CPU spikes that is causing massive lagg issues for me.

                                        Ive noticed it mainly revolves around the "pfctl" process randomly spiking. occasionally i see unbound also but mostly its pfctl.

                                        alt text

                                        And are you running on baremetal or a virtualisation platform?

                                        daNutzD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • daNutzD
                                          daNutz @A Former User
                                          last edited by

                                          @muppet baremetal and just upgraded from a very stable v2.4.4.p3 to v2.4.5

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                                          • T
                                            taz3146
                                            last edited by

                                            I have never yet seen or caught pfctl anywhere up on cpu usage in all the testing. all I ever see is PHP at the top screaming.
                                            and no issues on the single older hardware I upgraded, it's a backup router, that rarely gets used, mainly when servicing the esxi host.
                                            now I do know without traffic limiters/shaping enabled bufferbloat on the cable ISP here caused wan flapping which then ran pfctl cpu usage up high. but that's normal since it keeps reloading everything over and over.

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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