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    Updated today to latest snap - very slow

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved 2.1 Snapshot Feedback and Problems - RETIRED
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    • M
      markky
      last edited by

      @markky:

      …

      Many have also suggested that there's a difference in behaviour between an upgrade an a fresh install of the flash card.  I doubt it actually has any impact, but I'll run that test tomorrow on the cheapo card to eliminate/confirm it.

      • Mark

      As expected, the slow CF card still exhibits stalls in mount rw -> ro irrespective of whether the image is an upgrade or a complete reimage of the flash.

      As far as I can remember, my slow CF card can be written at just under 4 MB/s from the dev virtual machine.  The sandisk card by comparison writes at over 5MB/s.

      • Mark
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      • P
        phil.davis
        last edited by

        2.1-DEVELOPMENT (i386)
        built on Wed Apr 25 15:47:29 EDT 2012
        FreeBSD 8.3-RELEASE

        Here is some testing to observe what happens with read-only on a fresh 2.1 nanobsd system:
        After initial boot, from console shell (option 8), mount -v - "/" and "/cf" are read-only - good.
        During the wizard they remain read-only, after clicking "reload" to implement the wizard settings, they go to read-write, but then they stay that way. I tried logging off from the webGUI, still read-write - unexpected but most people will do more configuration at this point and probably reboot anyway.
        After another reboot they are read-only again - good.
        After defining an alias and applying, they are read-only - good. So a simple change like defining an alias is putting "/cf" back to read-only.

        "mount -ur /" and "mount -uw /" are really quick (<<1sec) on this test box with a simple configuration.

        As the Greek philosopher Isosceles used to say, "There are 3 sides to every triangle."
        If I helped you, then help someone else - buy someone a gift from the INF catalog http://secure.inf.org/gifts/usd/

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        • P
          phil.davis
          last edited by

          I installed cron and pfblocker - the installation of those packages correctly switches to read-write then back to read-only when the installation is done.
          Then I installed squid - at the end of the installation, "/" and "/cf" are both left read-write.
          After a reboot, "/" and "/cf" are still both read-write.
          So squid does something to the system that negates the read-only filesystems.

          As the Greek philosopher Isosceles used to say, "There are 3 sides to every triangle."
          If I helped you, then help someone else - buy someone a gift from the INF catalog http://secure.inf.org/gifts/usd/

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          • T
            tix
            last edited by

            I would like to add that I have the slow response problem as well on my Firebox x700 (non "e") that will last for about 20 - 30 mins after booting.  After that the webif responds a what consider a normal speed.

            I've also noticed that on every boot that all filesystems are RW and remain that way unless I remount them RO.  However, if I force /cf to be RO then the web interface returns to 'normal' speeds.

            I do have the LCDProc-dev package and the OpenVPN Client Export Utility installed but I'm going to uninstall them to see if that corrects the RW filesystem problem at least.

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            • stephenw10S
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              Try testing with the /etc/rc.conf_mount_rw and /etc/rc.conf_mount_ro commands instead of calling mount directly since this is what the package system uses.

              Steve

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              • E
                eweri
                last edited by

                Hello!

                Just installed pfSense-2.1-DEVELOPMENT-4g-i386-nanobsd-20120425-2326.img fresh (no update) on my 8GB Kingston CF with my ALIX board and it is still very slow.
                Well it is more like it is sleeping for minutes than does its job until it is sleeping for minutes again.

                For example: I am connected to the serial console and the first sleep happens when it tries to configure the WAN interface - boot process hangs for at least 2 minutes. After pfsense is completely up and running I select "Assign interfaces" from the menu and try to assign the interfaces in the right order. Well when I tried to detect interfaces automatically it takes very long, until I get any response.
                After every interface is assigned it takes very long "writing configuration" but after that my WAN got no IP-address (should use DHCP).
                Than I selected "Reboot system" and once again it takes ages ;-) until the system reboots.

                But one thing is better than the snapshots before - now after reboot my WAN-interface got an IP-address from my DHCP server.

                Hope this helps to solve this problem, bye,
                eweri

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                • M
                  moullas
                  last edited by

                  re-flashed today to latest snap… still extremely slow, when re-mounting as ro

                  Btw, my CF is a Lexar 4GB if it matters.. are there any logs that may shed some light?

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                  • jimpJ
                    jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                    last edited by

                    To add a couple more data points:

                    • Enabling TRIM on the slice - no effect, still slow
                    • Enabling softupdates on the slice - no effect, still slow
                    • Running sync;sync;sync; before mounting ro - no effect, still slow
                    • The mount process sticks in biowr state, which is disk i/o
                    • While mount is stuck, the system is somewhat unresponsive - can't run a process or connect with ssh, but does appear to continue routing.

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

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                    • jimpJ
                      jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                      last edited by

                      I went ahead and opened a redmine ticket for this:
                      https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/2401

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

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                      Do not Chat/PM for help!

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                      • M
                        markky
                        last edited by

                        @markky:

                        @markky:

                        …

                        Many have also suggested that there's a difference in behaviour between an upgrade an a fresh install of the flash card.  I doubt it actually has any impact, but I'll run that test tomorrow on the cheapo card to eliminate/confirm it.

                        • Mark

                        As expected, the slow CF card still exhibits stalls in mount rw -> ro irrespective of whether the image is an upgrade or a complete reimage of the flash.

                        As far as I can remember, my slow CF card can be written at just under 4 MB/s from the dev virtual machine.  The sandisk card by comparison writes at over 5MB/s.

                        • Mark

                        Within half an hour of putting the 4801 in production with a sandisk 8G card instead of the previous slower 4G card, the system started exhibiting "stall" conditions.

                        Unfortunately, my production placement makes serial access a pain (and hence kernel debugger) so I haven't garnered much since.

                        I'm at the point where I'm thinking I'll just rebuild the kernel and use unionfs to reduce flash wear and tear and do the occasional sync to either underlaying fs or a persistent overlay.

                        • Mark
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                        • M
                          markky
                          last edited by

                          @jimp:

                          I went ahead and opened a redmine ticket for this:
                          https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/2401

                          Here's a bit more detail for what you described.  The fact that flushfiles is flushing out so much on a quiescent filesystem is rather suspect (as a counter point, run lsof and look for writeable files).

                          The next line is a tty interrogation with ^T
                          load: 0.22  cmd: mount 2123 [biowr] 5.82r 0.02u 0.08s 7% 1044k

                          This is the alternate ddb entry, "~^b"

                          ~KDB: enter: Break sequence on console

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                          • M
                            moullas
                            last edited by

                            So…. has this been abandoned or still actively looked into?

                            Weekend coming up, have time for testing :-D

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                            • jimpJ
                              jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                              last edited by

                              It hasn't been forgotten, but I haven't had any new leads to try. Ermal thought it might be something that was recently fixed on FreeBSD 8-STABLE, but I wasn't able to make usable patches out of the commits I found so for me that was a dead end (someone else might give it a try)

                              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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                              • B
                                Beerman
                                last edited by

                                Any (good) News?  :)

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                                • D
                                  databeestje
                                  last edited by

                                  None yet

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                                  • T
                                    tritron
                                    last edited by

                                    It seems that the bug still exist interface is very slow unless I execute /etc/rc.conf_mount_rw  in ssh. So workaround is to run /etc/rc.conf_mount_rw  before making any changes

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                                    • jimpJ
                                      jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                                      last edited by

                                      We're still aware it's an issue, there is an open bug in redmine for it.

                                      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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                                      • P
                                        phil.davis
                                        last edited by

                                        I noticed that Seth Mos has committed "Hopefully tackle the slow nanobsd writes. Redmine ticket #2401" on Github. I guess this is probably built in the version I just updated to:
                                        2.1-BETA0 (i386)
                                        built on Tue Jun 19 20:53:01 EDT 2012
                                        FreeBSD 8.3-RELEASE-p3

                                        Is there any particular sequence of operations that we can/should test to help to see if the issue is resolved or improved?
                                        (I must say, I haven't really noticed the issue on various test nanoBSD installs on my Alix 2D3 in recent weeks!)

                                        As the Greek philosopher Isosceles used to say, "There are 3 sides to every triangle."
                                        If I helped you, then help someone else - buy someone a gift from the INF catalog http://secure.inf.org/gifts/usd/

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                                        • jimpJ
                                          jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                                          last edited by

                                          It didn't help, unfortunately.

                                          Timing the mount rw then ro calls is sufficient, see the existing redmine ticket for it.

                                          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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                                          • E
                                            eweri
                                            last edited by

                                            Just installed snapshot pfSense-2.1-DEVELOPMENT-2g-i386-nanobsd-20120629-1927
                                            still the same problem

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