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    PFSense 2.1 & KVM VirtIO

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved
    2.1 Snapshot Feedback and Problems - RETIRED
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    • jimpJ
      jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
      last edited by

      Correct, the virtio drivers are only in 2.1, they aren't in 2.0.x

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      • T
        tomcos
        last edited by

        ah! now it all makes sense.  Thank you for the reply :)

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        • A
          athurdent
          last edited by

          Don't know if it's related to VirtIO, but when I use
          -smp cores=2
          pfSense crashes after a few minutes. Without the smp Parameter everything's OK. Anyone else noticing this?
          I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS x64.

          Startup Parameters:

          /usr/bin/kvm \
-no-fd-bootchk \
-k de \
-cpu host \
-smp cores=2 \
-m 512 \
-machine type=pc,accel=kvm \
-drive file=/data/vms/wan-dmz-pfsense-qcow2.img,if=virtio,cache=writeback \
-net nic,model=virtio,macaddr=DE:AD:BE:EF:A0:88,vlan=88 \
-net tap,vlan=88,ifname=tap88,script=/etc/qemu-ifup-br1,downscript=/etc/qemu-ifdown-br1 \
-net nic,model=virtio,macaddr=DE:AD:BE:EF:AF:FE,vlan=89 \
-net tap,vlan=89,ifname=tap89,script=/etc/qemu-ifup-br2,downscript=/etc/qemu-ifdown-br2 \
-daemonize
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          • W
            wb-munzinger
            last edited by

            Works great here, even with 2 cores.
            I had to enable "Disable hardware checksum offload" again. Without I had no connection at all.

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            • L
              lothan
              last edited by

              After activated "VirtIO Memory Ballooning" still does not automatically granted more memory from the available range, to be increased manually. Options are: CURRENT(256m) \ MAX(2048m)

              snap2.png
              snap2.png_thumb
              snap3.png
              snap3.png_thumb

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              • A
                athurdent
                last edited by

                @wb-munzinger:

                Works great here, even with 2 cores.

                I think I have found the reason for the crashes. As soon as I turn on the SNMP CPU check in Cacti (running on my monitor host), pfSense crashes after some time. It's the same on VMWare, I have submitted the crash info for the VMWare host yesterday. Using only one virtual core or turning off SNMP CPU checks fixes the problem for me.

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                • M
                  Mattz
                  last edited by

                  This worked for me, as the vtnet was shown but not on my new installs with the latest snapshots anymore.

                  I can load virtio @ the commandline but it won't load everyting during boot. My lines are in /boot/loader.conf.local

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                  • N
                    Nachtfalke
                    last edited by

                    Thank you JR for this great tutorial.

                    I just installed for testing a pfsense 2.1BETA1 snapshot from 21.03.2013 on a ProxmoxVE 2.3 installation.
                    Loading HDD VirtIO drivers and NIC VirtIO drivers is working.

                    Not sure about ballooning. On proxmox I can type "info balloon" into the "monitor" and it always shows me the MAX mem of 1024MB.
                    The same on another VM with Windows 7 x64 and the ballooning drivers shows me other values which are below the maximum.

                    Are there any other way/methods to test if ballooning is working or not ? I am no linus/freebsd expert so perhaps someone can explain it more in detail if possible ;)

                    pfsense 2.1 "System activity" shows me this line:

                        7 root     -16    -     0K    16K vtbslp   0:01  0.00% virtio_balloon

                    Nevertheless thank you very much for that tutorial!

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                    • I
                      invitu
                      last edited by

                      I also have a big problem with incorrect cksum packets

                      configuration :
                      host : Centos 6.4 64 bit (2.6.32-358.6.2.el6.x86_64) + qemu-kvm-0.12.1.2
                      nic hardware : e1000e
                      lan : eth0
                      vlan : eth0.254
                      br0 : bridge to eth0
                      br254 : bridge to eth0.254

                      guest : pfsense 2.1RC0 64 bits snapshot (31/05/2013) with virtio or 2.1BETA0
                      LAN : br0 (virtio)
                      WAN : br254 (virtio)

                      another guest : for example fedora12
                      LAN : br0

                      from the host or the other guest, I can icmp or udp:53 to Internet but tcp:80 or udp:123 are stuck…

                      here is tcpdump extract for "ntpdate us.pool.ntp.org"  :

                      226.76.50.123.dsl.dyn.mana.pf.44299 > 192.168.254.253.rockwell-csp2: Flags [.], cksum 0xe925 (correct), seq 97, ack 432, win 320, options [nop,nop,TS val 3629676 ecr 27931684], length 0
                      10:00:13.398297 IP (tos 0x0, ttl 63, id 0, offset 0, flags [DF], proto UDP (17), length 76)
                         192.168.254.253.35791 > kapu.skafari.com.ntp: [bad udp cksum b920!] NTPv4, length 48
                             Client, Leap indicator: clock unsynchronized (192), Stratum 0 (unspecified), poll 3s, precision -6
                             Root Delay: 1.000000, Root dispersion: 1.000000, Reference-ID: (unspec)
                               Reference Timestamp:  0.000000000
                               Originator Timestamp: 0.000000000
                               Receive Timestamp:    0.000000000
                               Transmit Timestamp:   3579105613.398010432 (2013/06/01 10:00:13)
                                 Originator - Receive Timestamp:  0.000000000
                                 Originator - Transmit Timestamp: 3579105613.398010432 (2013/06/01 10:00:13)
                         192.168.254.253.59909 > housetree.sugarlabs.org.ntp: [bad udp cksum 290e!] NTPv4, length 48
                             Client, Leap indicator: clock unsynchronized (192), Stratum 0 (unspecified), poll 3s, precision -6
                             Root Delay: 1.000000, Root dispersion: 1.000000, Reference-ID: (unspec)
                               Reference Timestamp:  0.000000000
                               Originator Timestamp: 0.000000000
                               Receive Timestamp:    0.000000000
                               Transmit Timestamp:   3579105613.998007059 (2013/06/01 10:00:13)
                                 Originator - Receive Timestamp:  0.000000000
                                 Originator - Transmit Timestamp: 3579105613.998007059 (2013/06/01 10:00:13)

                      with (net2k_pci driver for br0 and virtio driver for br254) or (net2k_pci for both), everything is fine

                      I also had no problem with fedora14 64 bits + qemu-kvm-0.13.0 (exactly same hardware) as the host and pfsense 2.1BETA0 as the guest (I just upgraded my host from fedora 14 to centos 6.4…)

                      I installed a linux-based firewall distrib (ipfire.org) as a guest with same settings and I have no problem...

                      do you think the problem is with qemu-kvm-0.12.1.2 + freebsd virtio drivers ?

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                      • W
                        wallabybob
                        last edited by

                        Suppose pfSense has hardware checksums enabled. A tcpdump on pfSense will show checksum errors because software doesn't compute the checksums because the hardware does it. But in a virtualised environment pfSense doesn't have access to real hardware. Perhaps the hypervisor doesn't correctly get the hardware to compute the checksums.

                        What is the pfSense setting related to hardware checksums? See System -> Advanced, click on Networking and scroll down to Network Interfaces, Hardware Checksum Offloading.

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                        • I
                          invitu
                          last edited by

                          Yes I tried the "Hardware Checksum Offloading" setting but it did not resolve the issue.

                          tcpdump has been done on the host with "Hardware Checksum Offloading" unchecked. I will try to send tcpcump with the option checked

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                          • W
                            wallabybob
                            last edited by

                            @invitu:

                            Yes I tried the "Hardware Checksum Offloading" setting but it did not resolve the issue.

                            What did you set it to? (Note the box should be TICKED to DISABLE hardware checksum calculation.) A reboot is probably required for a change in setting to take effect.

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                            • I
                              invitu
                              last edited by

                              wallabybob, thanks for helping me

                              I just ticked the box to disable hardware calculation, reboot pfsense and ….. IT WORKS

                              Yesterday, I also did tick the box but I did not reboot the pfsense virtual machine as the web interface's message was "The changes have been applied successfully." + Close button

                              Maybe pfsense developers should modify the message to "Your appliance must be rebooted" + Reboot button

                              Thank you my problem is solved

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