Netgate Discussion Forum
    • Categories
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Search
    • Register
    • Login

    KVM and pfsense CPU overhead

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Virtualization
    4 Posts 2 Posters 1.1k Views
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • L
      l0rdraiden
      last edited by l0rdraiden

      This CPU diference between running top at hypervisor level (KVM) and inside pfsense is normal?

      fcff9d8f-d262-4b79-9a27-fd2e4fb98f56-imagen.png

      This is when the firewall is almost idle, qemu process is beween 10 and 25% and pfsense values never go over 1% if you sum up all of them.

      I have 2 intel i350 nic passthrough.

      Do you experience the same issue?

      S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • S
        segobi @l0rdraiden
        last edited by

        @l0rdraiden yup same issue here - on esxi and also on kvm.
        1Gbit iperf test through pfsense also pumps one 3.9 ghz core (i3 7100) to 100%. On bare metal it barely touches the cpu.

        On esxi its getting better when you set hw.pci.honor_msi_blacklist=0 in /boot/loader.conf.local
        so the igb driver uses msi-x interrupts instead of msi.

        L 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • L
          l0rdraiden @segobi
          last edited by

          @segobi said in KVM and pfsense CPU overhead:

          hw.pci.honor_msi_blacklist=0 in /boot/loader.conf.local

          Do you know the equivalent configuration for KVM? I have my config in xml format.
          Or any solution for KVM?

          S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • S
            segobi @l0rdraiden
            last edited by

            @l0rdraiden Hi,
            yea found a solution for virtualizing pfsense. I switched from kvm / esxi to XEN and its working perfectly now.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • First post
              Last post
            Copyright 2025 Rubicon Communications LLC (Netgate). All rights reserved.