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    Updated today to latest snap - very slow

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved 2.1 Snapshot Feedback and Problems - RETIRED
    108 Posts 27 Posters 37.2k Views
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    • M
      moullas
      last edited by

      Hi there,
      1st post and all…
      I had a stable 2.0.1 install on a Watchguard X700.

      Today i took the plunge and installed the latest nanobsd snapshot (pfSense-2.1-DEVELOPMENT-4g-i386-nanobsd-20120410-2009)

      Everything looks ok, problem is, whenever I change any setting it takes almost a minute to write the change, which is driving me crazy. Any pointers on where to pinpoint the issue?

      It's installed on a 4G CF card, which previously was working perfectly.

      Edit: also played around in /boot/loader.conf
      tried setting hw.ata.wc to 1 (to enable write cache), still nothing. Can anyone confirm what's the setting on 2.0.1 for that?

      looks like reads AND writes are slow (doing an ls via ssh takes 20 seconds just to list a directory)

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Y
        yon
        last edited by

        yes. PF web GUI run slow some version.  you may try v2.1.  ;)

        If you are interested in free peering for clearnet and dn42,contact me !

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • J
          jp141
          last edited by

          I found this as well, clicking through the web interface is a lot faster than it used to be but as soon as you make a change it takes ages to commit the change while the hdd/storage light is on permanently!

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          • M
            moullas
            last edited by

            jp141 , are you also running on a Watchguard box?

            This is very strange because previously it was very fast doing writes

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • J
              jp141
              last edited by

              Hi Yeah its a X550e IIRC

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • stephenw10S
                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                last edited by

                I had this problem a while back with my X-Peak box, not with 2.1, after upgrading it went away I never got to the bottom of it.
                Anyway (assuming you are running NanoBSD) when you commit a change the file system is remounted RW, the change is written then the file system is remounted back to RO.
                How long does it take to issue these command manually?

                
                [2.0.1-RELEASE][root@pfsense.fire.box]/root(1): mount -p
                /dev/ufs/pfsense0       /                       ufs     ro,sync,noatime         1 1
                devfs                   /dev                    devfs   rw              0 0
                /dev/md0                /tmp                    ufs     rw              2 2
                /dev/md1                /var                    ufs     rw              2 2
                /dev/ufs/cf             /cf                     ufs     ro,sync,noatime         1 1
                devfs                   /var/dhcpd/dev          devfs   rw              0 0
                [2.0.1-RELEASE][root@pfsense.fire.box]/root(2): /etc/rc.conf_mount_rw
                [2.0.1-RELEASE][root@pfsense.fire.box]/root(3): mount -p
                /dev/ufs/pfsense0       /                       ufs     sync,noatime    1 1
                devfs                   /dev                    devfs   rw              0 0
                /dev/md0                /tmp                    ufs     rw              2 2
                /dev/md1                /var                    ufs     rw              2 2
                /dev/ufs/cf             /cf                     ufs     sync,noatime    1 1
                devfs                   /var/dhcpd/dev          devfs   rw              0 0
                [2.0.1-RELEASE][root@pfsense.fire.box]/root(4): /etc/rc.conf_mount_ro
                [2.0.1-RELEASE][root@pfsense.fire.box]/root(5): mount -p
                /dev/ufs/pfsense0       /                       ufs     ro,sync,noatime         1 1
                devfs                   /dev                    devfs   rw              0 0
                /dev/md0                /tmp                    ufs     rw              2 2
                /dev/md1                /var                    ufs     rw              2 2
                /dev/ufs/cf             /cf                     ufs     ro,sync,noatime         1 1
                devfs                   /var/dhcpd/dev          devfs   rw              0 0
                
                

                I included the 'mount -p' so you can see what should happen. On my 2.0.1 box the remounting is pretty much instant but when I had the 'issue' it could take 30s or more.

                Steve

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                • B
                  barista
                  last edited by

                  Just to add another voice:  very slow UI on an Alix setup.  Using snapshot from this morning : built on Mon Apr 16 03:28:01 EDT 2012

                  It's whenever there is a change to be committed.  I've had to avoid HTTPS, because then it seems to timeout even.

                  I can honestly say it is some sort of "disk" IO, as the mount command is super slow in an SSH session during any change.

                  Update with yesterday's late build, commands run this morning :

                  [2.1-DEVELOPMENT][root@h.s.com]/root(16): time mount -uw /
                  0.000u 0.006s 0:00.01 0.0% 0+0k 0+5io 0pf+0w
                  [2.1-DEVELOPMENT][root@h.s.com]/root(17): time mount -ur /
                  0.008u 0.025s 0:50.49 0.0% 64+3036k 0+722io 0pf+0w
                  [2.1-DEVELOPMENT][root@h.s.com]/root(18):

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                  • M
                    moullas
                    last edited by

                    -> stephenw10, indeed I am running the NanoBSD version.
                    I've tried running the commands from ssh, mount_rw was instant, mount_ro took around 20 seconds.

                    Does this seem to point to the problem then? Does anyone know of a workaround?

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                    • stephenw10S
                      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                      last edited by

                      Is this the only snapshot any of you have tried?
                      It would be useful to try and get some idea when this problem was introduced.
                      I'm not running 2.1 at all currently but the last snapshot I tried, some months ago, did not exhibit this behaviour.

                      Steve

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • jimpJ
                        jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                        last edited by

                        Things are smooth/snappy on my ALIX with a snapshot from today, I've not seen this slowness myself. Saving does take about 6-7 seconds but it always has on ALIX.

                        Using HTTPS to get to the GUI, everything seems happy.

                        Remember: Upvote with the 👍 button for any user/post you find to be helpful, informative, or deserving of recognition!

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                        • B
                          barista
                          last edited by

                          I'll update to the latest in 10 min, but this version from last night is already 30 seconds on the Traffic Shaper Wizard's first "Next".

                          –

                          On Latest : built on Tue Apr 17 12:13:03 EDT 2012

                          simple test using latest Chrome browser 18.0.1025.163

                          • System Advanced -> (select) -> Enable Secure Shell -> Save

                          3 minutes, 23 seconds for it to return

                          I revert the change and Save

                          3 minutes, 31 seconds for it to return

                          I think I will test another browser, just in case.  Then I may disassemble the Alix, remove the flash card and re-install the 2.1 as a test again.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • jimpJ
                            jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                            last edited by

                            I did that same test on my alix on the same snapshot, ~16 seconds to enable/disable SSH. Though I'm in Firefox, not that it should make that large of a difference.

                            Remember: Upvote with the 👍 button for any user/post you find to be helpful, informative, or deserving of recognition!

                            Need help fast? Netgate Global Support!

                            Do not Chat/PM for help!

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                            • D
                              databeestje
                              last edited by

                              this maybe largely dependent on the speed and quality of the CF card.

                              I have a CF card in one of my Alix systems that will timeout any attempt to upgrade the firmware because the 4GB CF card is just so bad.

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                              • M
                                moullas
                                last edited by

                                Agreed,

                                though here we are comparing performance from 2.0.1 stable to 2.1 on the same hardware. On 2.0.1 everything was lighting fast. On 2.1, routing / firewalling performance is good, the only problem is when changing settings.

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                                • stephenw10S
                                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                  last edited by

                                  Whilst I agree that the speed of the card will make some difference I have a hard time believing that any card should take over 3 minutes to remount.
                                  I have never detected any difference between cards of wildly varying 'quality' with regards to boot time or remounting. Since NanoBSD disables DMA they all run at PIO speeds anyway hence '133X' or '300X' claimed card speeds are irrelevant.

                                  Is 2.1 still disabling DMA correctly? Does it need to for FreeBSD 8.3?

                                  Any power saving 'spin down' type options enabled?

                                  Steve

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                                  • jimpJ
                                    jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                                    last edited by

                                    @stephenw10:

                                    Is 2.1 still disabling DMA correctly? Does it need to for FreeBSD 8.3?

                                    That hasn't changed

                                    @stephenw10:

                                    Any power saving 'spin down' type options enabled?

                                    No, in fact we actually force APM off now since otherwise some silly HDDs will kill themselves with load cycles. (But that's only done if the drive reports that feature as supported)

                                    Either way - those two types of things would be fairly universal, they would affect everyone. It wouldn't be fast for me and slow for you.

                                    Remember: Upvote with the 👍 button for any user/post you find to be helpful, informative, or deserving of recognition!

                                    Need help fast? Netgate Global Support!

                                    Do not Chat/PM for help!

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                                    • stephenw10S
                                      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                      last edited by

                                      Agreed.
                                      Perhaps a combination of pfSense and BIOS options then?
                                      Though that wouldn't account for introducing the problem by simply switching to 2.1.
                                      Config slice become corrupt or fragmented somehow?  :-\

                                      Steve

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                                      • M
                                        moullas
                                        last edited by

                                        Looking around in /boot/loader.conf defaults again… I'm no BSD expert by a longshot, I've read that increasing the kmem size reduces the change of a kernel panic.
                                        vm.kmem_size="435544320"
                                        vm.kmem_size_max="535544320"

                                        That size looks like 415Mb, and my firewall is running with 256Mb of RAM, could it be related??

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                                        • B
                                          barista
                                          last edited by

                                          Sorry for the late reply, but working on the Alix meant I had no Internet.

                                          Tests were done:

                                          • zero the 4GB card, re-image 2.1 from yesterday, re-test  :  same sluggish results
                                          • take the 2GB card that came with the units, image it with 2.1, re-test : same result
                                          • re-image 4GB card with 2.0.1 : smooth as butter, fast.  9 seconds to enable SSH, 8 seconds to disable

                                          I posit something IO related is very wonky.

                                          Sadly, until my 2nd Alix is back in my hands, I shall have to remain at 2.0.1

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • E
                                            eweri
                                            last edited by

                                            Hello!

                                            Tested with ALIX.2 v0.99h board and 8GB CF and got the same results as barista:

                                            "Build on Tue Apr 17:30:20 EDT 2012" - DHCP on WAN interface does not work, setting up something takes forever (some minutes to get a respond)
                                            connected via serial console running top - system is idle but I tried to reboot via Web-GUI and tried to start top via serial console and I was not able to start top. Looks like the system got hung for minutes then get back to normal work (top starts in console and I got the shutdown message but the system does not shutdown so I unplug the power).

                                            After reboot I switched the slice (lasting for minutes…) I rebooted (once again waiting minutes ...could not wait ... unplugged power)
                                            "Build on Mon Apr 16 08:51:47 EDT 2012" - WAN got an IP via DHCP but changing configuration takes a long time

                                            both builds take a long time to configure WAN but the damaged takes a lot longer.

                                            At the moment im updating to "build Wed Apr 18 18:57:19 EDT 2012" - reporting later.

                                            Bye,
                                            eweri

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