Adding a cpu in a virtual machine.

SalSolo · Oct 15, 2011, 10:21 AM

Hi all. I did a quick search but couldn't find any detailed info so I hope someone here can help.

I am new to the linux world so I need step by step help :)

I have a vmware esx vm running newest version of pfsense - unfortunately it was installed with one vcpu and I need to assign one more. I have already done that in the vm but I need to tell pfsense to pick it up.

How do I do that?

tester_02 · Oct 15, 2011, 7:08 PM

you need to have the smp kernel installed. If it's installed, it should be just add a cpu within the visualization software. No different than adding a cpu for a windows host.
I believe smp is the default in 2.0.

SalSolo · Oct 16, 2011, 9:40 AM

Thx :)

Ok, next question is then how do I check that it actually uses the extra cpu?
I haven't found anywhere in the gui where it is shown and when looking at pftop and top I couldn't see it either.

When I just look at it the cpu usage doens't seem to change when adding the second cpu. That's why I thought I needed to do something to enable it.

marcelloc · Oct 16, 2011, 12:10 PM

type dmesg at console to see your boot log.

If you have more then one cpu it will show:
SMP: AP CPU #1 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #2 Launched!

if you run top, the column C shows CPUS in use.

last pid: 35623; load averages: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00 up 40+15:31:32 10:10:06
144 processes: 1 running, 143 sleeping
CPU: 0.0% user, 0.0% nice, 0.0% system, 0.0% interrupt, 100% idle
Mem: 2954M Active, 55M Inact, 1312M Wired, 392K Cache, 1054M Buf, 19G Free
Swap: 4096M Total, 4096M Free

PID USERNAME THR PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE C TIME WCPU COMMAND
11618 root 1 44 0 443M 437M bpf 14 299:40 0.00% /usr/sbin/tc
11844 root 1 44 0 5832K 1040K piperd 0 29:26 0.00% logger -t pf
17762 root 1 44 0 5836K 1504K select 0 9:29 0.00% /usr/local/s
38447 root 1 76 20 8292K 1736K wait 1 5:41 0.00% /bin/sh /var
18125 root 1 44 0 14772K 2796K select 1 4:04 0.00% /usr/sbin/sy
22358 root 1 44 0 9348K 2128K kqread 12 1:12 0.00% /usr/local/l
58623 root 1 44 0 87700K 51424K nanslp 8 0:58 0.00% MailScanner:
22543 root 1 44 0 25764K 6372K kqread 0 0:39 0.00% /usr/local/s
35157 postfix 1 44 0 85652K 51100K nanslp 2 0:33 0.00% MailScanner:
9765 postfix 1 44 0 85652K 51096K nanslp 8 0:33 0.00% MailScanner:
56478 postfix 1 44 0 85652K 51100K nanslp 8 0:33 0.00% MailScanner:
39386 postfix 1 44 0 85652K 51096K nanslp 8 0:33 0.00% MailScanner:
16797 postfix 1 44 0 85652K 51092K nanslp 8 0:33 0.00% MailScanner:
14133 postfix 1 44 0 85652K 51100K nanslp 2 0:33 0.00% MailScanner:
52777 postfix 1 44 0 85652K 51096K nanslp 8 0:33 0.00% MailScanner:

PistolPete · Oct 17, 2011, 2:49 PM

If you installed with the uniprocessor kernel you will need to switch it to the SMP kernel:

http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Switching_Kernels

SalSolo · Oct 22, 2011, 4:23 PM

Thank you all for the help - it was exactly what I needed.
My Vm is now running 2 vcpu's and everything looks as it should.