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    Gigabit WAN speeds dropped to 100 mb/s in XCP-ng pfSense VM

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Virtualization
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    • T
      talaverde
      last edited by talaverde

      For most of this year, my pfSense VMs in XCP-ng have been working great, getting better speeds with my gigabit fiber internet than I did in HyperV. Last weekend, I installed some updates and made some minor changes. Upon doing a speedtest, my results dropped from 900+ mb/s down and up to around 500 mb/s down and 100 mb/s up. I've tried just about everything. I downgraded all the XCP-ng updates. I restored config backups for every device involved. I've tried a fresh install of pfSense AND fresh install of XCP-ng. I must be missing something because I can't figure out what is causing this. Speed test directly from my Windows or Debian VMs in XCP-ng provide the full 950+ mb/s down and up speeds so the issue definitely has something to do with pfSense, FreeBSD and/or the way it interacts with XCP-ng.

      Here is my post in the XCP-ng forum. I'm not making progress over there so I thought I'd try this forum to see if anyone has some thoughts.

      https://xcp-ng.org/forum/topic/3774/poor-pfsense-wan-speeds-after-xcp-ng-updates

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      • viktor_gV
        viktor_g Netgate
        last edited by

        pfSense version?

        Try to disable hardware checksum offloading:
        https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/virtualization/virtio.html

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        • T
          talaverde @viktor_g
          last edited by

          @viktor_g
          The pfSense version is 2.4.5p1
          Yes, checksum offloading was disabled the moment the VM was initially created earlier this year. I've double checked it countless times.

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          • Wischi83W
            Wischi83
            last edited by

            Is there a solution to the performance problem under HyperV? 2.5.0-RC doesn't do it any better. Or is the only sensible solution to install Pfsense directly on a real server

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            • T
              talaverde @Wischi83
              last edited by

              @wischi83

              To summarize the recent updates to the XCP-ng thread above, the issue was narrowed down to a specific kernel patch/update. Since XCP-ng is open source, affected users were able to build a custom kernel RPM w/o the troublesome patch while the issue is dealt with upstream. (A custom build like this would NOT be possible with HyperV). This has been working well and a permanent solution is in the works.

              The focus of this thread is the XCP-ng patch. If you would like to discuss the pros / cons of HyperV or physical hardware, I would suggest starting a separate thread. I would be happy to share my thoughts there.

              Wischi83W 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • Wischi83W
                Wischi83 @talaverde
                last edited by

                @talaverde the only thing that is actually of interest to me is whether a solution is within reach / uncomplicated nearness. Therefore I think it is unnecessary to open an extra thread ...

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