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    Virtualized pfsense & latency

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Virtualization
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    • B
      behemyth
      last edited by

      Hey guys, new to pfsense but loving the product so far. Just have a quick question;

      running pfsense virtualized in esxi 6.0, and games/discord chat are showing my latency alot higher then normal, compared to a physical router. Is this latency just because its virtualized, or is something else at play here?

      I have the low latency option turned on for this VM, and i switched it to e1000 adapters from vmnx3 just to make sure it wasnt an adapter problem. It also has 6gb of ram and 4 procs.

      Have any of you run into this issue?

      -Thanks

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      • johnpozJ
        johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
        last edited by

        And what kind of latency are you thinking is higher?  And what exactly is the low latency option on the vm?

        I run my pfsense on esxi 6.. And latency is fine to isp gateway, etc. 9 to 10ms, and to another segment normal lan speeds of less than 1ms..

        I didn't turn on any sort of low latency option which I have never heard of..

        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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        • B
          behemyth
          last edited by

          Without pfsense i get 20ms avg on all apps, with it in the mix im getting 40-45 in chat apps and 30-35 in games.

          the low latency option just locks up memory and cpu so it doesnt have to fight with other virtualized servers for it. It has its own dedicated space in ram/cpu.

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          • johnpozJ
            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
            last edited by

            are you using any packages like snort or proxy?

            what is a simple ping to your isp gateway show?  How are you connected.. Are you hairpinning, are you using vlans?

            Where exactly is this low latency option?

            Where do you have your vmkern?  Is it on the same vswitch as your normal network or on its own interface/vswitch?

            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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            • B
              behemyth
              last edited by

              no snort or proxy, dont need it right now

              12-14ms to gateway, no hairpinning or vlans currently. LAN is one /24.

              low latency option didnt do anything, so its turned off

              the vmkern is on the mgmt network on a separate vswitch. It's isolated on its own for mgmt only. My Lan uses a different vswitch, and obviously WAN is on its own.

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              • johnpozJ
                johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                last edited by

                So your latency is these other programs uses what exactly to determine latency??  You sure you just not seeing a few extra ms in a initial resolve of where your going vs it be forwarded or cached?

                Clearly your ping time to your gateway is less than the 40 ms your saying your seeing through pfsense..

                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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                • B
                  behemyth
                  last edited by

                  So just as an FYI, i updated to 2.4 and I must say wow, it feels way faster then 2.3.x. It also fixed all my percieved latency problems, and it was super simple to set up ipv6 in it. Great job guys, keep it up.

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