max connections - nat through a apache webserver

[mako]

dear community,

i have tuned my apache webserver behind my pfsense to access more then 5000 current connections at the same time.

customers got always "connection aborted" in their browsers if we have a launch with more than 1000 peoples.

i have also upgraded the server to 10G UP and DOWN. and have tuned my apache configuration.

can this be that pfsense blocks before the traffic goes through the server?

i have my apache webserver behind the 1:1 nat.

i am using vmware 7.0, my virtual machine settings:
CPU-cores: 8
Sockets:8
Core per Socket: 1
4 GB RAM

my host system is
PowerEdge R640
32 CPUs x Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 5218 CPU @ 2.30GHz

my webserver is debian buster:
12 CPUs
32 GB RAM
CPU-cores:12
Sockets:12
Core per Socket: 1

how can i do performance tests before we have the next new big launch?

thank you so much

many greets

[stephenw10]

You can set state limits on firewall rules but they would not be by default.

What's the rate of new connections here?

1000 connections though the firewall is nothing. State tables in the millions is not uncommon in pfSense. What size was your state table when you saw aborted connections?

Steve

[mako]

@stephenw10
Thank you stephenw, i have now found my issues, the webserver closes the connection on 150 (per default). i have done apache tuning now all is good.

thank you so much