CARP, 1% CPU Usage, Web Interface Very Slow
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Hi all,
I have many ALIX/WRAP boards running pfSense 2.0.2 with 2GB compact flash cards, 500 MHz AMD Geode LX800 CPU and 256MB DDR RAM. Recently I set two up using CARP and virtual IPs. These two aren't live yet, they are in the workshop, and only have between 0%~1% CPU usage yet the web interface is very slow on them.
Could this be related to the CARP set up some how? What will often happen when I am browsing the web interface is that I click a menu link to goto the "Services" page for example and it just seems to load for ever. The page never loads, but my browsing is always "loading". If I click the link again the page will load in a second or two.
It's like that first request wasn't fulfilled by pfSense in a certain time and was dropped, so my browser is left loading nothing. My other identical pfSense boxes don't do this.
Cheers!
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It could be an IP conflict of some kind, or other interface/IP misconfiguration. It's definitely not an issue on a standard/normal setup. We do CARP clusters on ALIX all the time, and Netgate even sells a 1U unit with two ALIX boards built-in specifically aimed at a CARP design.
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I have a couple of units running CARP. What I did find was that if everything for CARP was not setup properly then the interface was slow. I noticed this mostly while setting them up since I had to duplicate some settings on the secondary before CARP would work properly. Once everything was working properly them got a lot faster.
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I have fixed my weird web interface time outs now. It seems just one was being particularly slow, the BACKUP CARP device, the MASTER was OK.
I took the compact flash card out of the BACKUP ALIX board and put it in a third board of the exact same spec, still slow. I then wiped and re-flashed the card, placed it back into it's original BACKUP ALIX board, and restored the config from which I had backed up to my laptop. Now its as fast as the MASTER and everything is fine, so perhaps it was a bad flash.
That may seem a bit obvious, and a waist of time posting here, but we have 40+ ALIX & WRAP boards, this has happened before.
Hopefully that will help someone else!
Cheers,
JamesB.