High CPU (~60%) after changing/saving configs a few times

[Deas]

Hello,

I am quite new to pfSense, but basically I have it running after a few days with pfBlockerNG and it is doing what I want. I run 2.4.5-RELEASE on a ESXi 6.7 with latest Patches. My first try was a 1 vCPU, 1GB RAM machine, and after I had set up everything it started with 60% cpu usage and some time later it was running on 100%. I did a search on the internet and found nothing that match my problem.

Then I did a backup of the config and created a new VM. 2 vCPU and 2GB RAM. I restored the backup immediately after the setup and the VM was running fine. About 6% CPU usage on average. Now, 20 hours later it was still running very well at about 6% CPU usage.

But I had to change a few things now. I saved the config a few times and now I recognize again a high CPU usage at ~ 60% to 70%. top -aSH says this:

  PID USERNAME   PRI NICE   SIZE    RES STATE   C   TIME    WCPU COMMAND
   11 root       155 ki31     0K    32K RUN     1  19.1H  37.71% [idle{idle: cpu1}]
   11 root       155 ki31     0K    32K RUN     0  18.8H  35.12% [idle{idle: cpu0}]
90688 root        35    0 12536K  8364K kqread  1  35:24  23.55% /usr/local/sbin/lighttpd_pfb -f /var/unbound/pfb_dnsbl_lighty.conf
82021 root        52    0   153M   132M piperd  1  10:03   6.09% /usr/local/bin/php -f /usr/local/pkg/pfblockerng/pfblockerng.inc dnsbl

Does anyone have an idea why this is happening? If I can make a downtime tonight I can try to reset the VM again and restore the latest backup to see if this helps.

Thanks a lot for your help!

Brgds Andreas

[SteveITS]

Did you see https://forum.netgate.com/topic/151690/increased-memory-and-cpu-spikes-causing-latency-outage-with-2-4-5 and https://forum.netgate.com/topic/151819/2-4-5-high-latency-and-packet-loss-not-in-a-vm? There are a few similar threads for 2.4.5, and anecdotally it appears using 1 CPU in a VM, or lowering table usage (e.g. not using bogons and/or pfBlocker) help.

[jimp]

https://forum.netgate.com/post/908806