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    Pfsense 2.1 vmware cpu host high usage

    Virtualization
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    • B
      biggsy
      last edited by

      I can't see anything common between these configs and haven't been able to reproduce it any way.  Only have one machine to play with now though.

      Have you guys checked that link about speed mismatch?

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      • K
        kenshirothefist
        last edited by

        @biggsy:

        Have you guys checked that link about speed mismatch?

        I have auto negotiate and it negotiates at 1000 Full … Anyway, I have 20+ running VM's on this host and only this pfSense appliance is having these issues with high pCPU load, although pfSense is the only freeBSD-based VM (others are centos and ubuntu based).

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        • B
          biggsy
          last edited by

          The worst I can do is about 93% CPU running a 120 Mbit/s download from AARNET (it's local).

          That's with a single vCPU on a Xeon E3-1265L v2 @ 2.5 GHz inside a Gen8 MicroServer.

          Idle the VM runs along at about 1.5% CPU  :-[

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          • D
            deagle
            last edited by

            That's the thing, it has no business doing 93% of one core at 120Mbit, virtualization overhead should be minimal like with other OSes.

            I'm starting to think that people who "don't have" this problem aren't really seeing it.

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            • K
              kenshirothefist
              last edited by

              Is it possible that this is related to VMware virtual machine monitor mode?

              http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1036775

              For example:

              datetime| vmx| MONITOR MODE: allowed modes : BT HV HWMMU
              datetime| vmx| MONITOR MODE: user requested modes : BT HV HWMMU
              datetime| vmx| MONITOR MODE: guestOS preferred modes: BT HWMMU HV
              datetime| vmx| MONITOR MODE: filtered list : BT HWMMU HV

              Where:

              allowed modes – Refers to the mode that the underlying hardware is capable of.
                  user requested modes – Refers to the setting defined in the virtual machine configuration.
                  guestOS preferred modes – Refers to the default values for the selected guest operating system.
                  filtered list – Refers to the actual monitor modes acceptable for use by the Hypervisor, with the left-most mode being utilized.

              I have "automatic" for my pfsense VM and it reads like this:

              datetime| vmx| I120: MONITOR MODE: allowed modes          : BT32 HV HWMMU
              datetime| vmx| I120: MONITOR MODE: user requested modes  : BT32 HV HWMMU
              datetime| vmx| I120: MONITOR MODE: guestOS preferred modes: HWMMU HV BT32
              datetime| vmx| I120: MONITOR MODE: filtered list          : HWMMU HV BT32

              Therefore it is using hardware MMU and hardware instruction set virtualization … can't change it right now, but can someone test with different settings and post results?

              Also, is it possible that is related to using distributed vSwitch? Can someone test by using regular vSwitch vs. distributed vSwitch (again, I can't change my environment to regular vSwitch right now)?

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              • D
                deagle
                last edited by

                Distributed vSwitch is just an abstraction for many standard vSwitches.

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                • K
                  kenshirothefist
                  last edited by

                  FYI: there is even more overhead when you go from 1 vCPU to 2 vCPU … I had 2.3 GHz CPU usage when my pfSense VM was configured with 1 vCPU (approaching to limit 2.67 GHz), then I reconfigured VM to use 2 vCPU and now I have 3.0 GHz CPU usage (probably from CPU threads trashing) ... this is really annoying ... and I really don't want to go back to physical ...

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                  • KOMK
                    KOM
                    last edited by

                    I've been following this thread but didn't think it was affecting me.  Then I took a look.  pfSense tells me it's using 2% CPU.  VMware tells me it's using almost nothing.  ESXTop tells me 20%…

                    My config:

                    Dell Powervault NX3000 (8 x L5520 @ 2.26 GHz)
                    ESXi 5.5U1
                    pfSense 2.1.3 i386
                    2 x vCPU, 2GB RAM
                    VM version 8 hardware
                    Intel E1000 vNICs

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                    • P
                      podilarius
                      last edited by

                      I have 2 pfSense VMs running (one 2.1.3 [143MHz used] and the other 2.2-Alpha [95MHz used]) and both are running with very low CPU. Both as reported by ESX and pfSense.
                      Are you guys running powerd, I am?

                      Edit:
                      Meant to add my config:
                      ASUS Server
                      AMD Opteron 12 core processor
                      Intel NICs on 2.1.3
                      VMXNET3 on 2.2
                      1024MB of memory
                      VMTools package is installed
                      No other packages running.

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                      • B
                        biggsy
                        last edited by

                        KOM and podilarius,

                        Under what sort of network load?

                        My CPU numbers are also low - until I start a heavy (120 Mb/s) download then they diverge very quickly.  The ESXi/esxtop numbers go through the roof while pfSense sees little change.

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                        • KOMK
                          KOM
                          last edited by

                          I pumped up a few torrents to try and saturate my 90/90 link and could only manage about 10Mb/s.  Even then, ESXTop showed pfsense taking from 50-103% of %USED.

                          I don't use powerd.

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                          • P
                            podilarius
                            last edited by

                            I am about to load test my 2.2 so I will let you know.

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                            • P
                              podilarius
                              last edited by

                              @podilarius:

                              I am about to load test my 2.2 so I will let you know.

                              Okay so pushing 500Mbits in and out of pfsense 2.2, I am getting 5987MHz and ESXTOP is showing 225-266% CPU usage for just pfsense 2.2. I hope that is out of 1000%.
                              The VM itself is showing 89-91% usage. I have a AMD 6234 at 2.4GHz per core and has 12 cores.
                              As you all know, if you are running 2.1 series and before, pf and i  think ipfw are giant locked and will only use 1 processor.
                              To me it seems that 2.2 is giant locked to 2 CPUs. This could be because I have 2 nics involved, so I am not sure if it is one CPU per NIC or just locked to dual CPUs. I have asked in another thread with no answer.
                              I am trying to get to 10GB speed, but I seem locked to 1GBE, but alas that is another issue for another topic.

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                              • G
                                Gabri.91
                                last edited by

                                Hi,
                                is this problem solved or still present?

                                I want to move my pfSense to ESXI purchasing new hardware, but now I'm not really sure about it..

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                                • M
                                  MichelZ
                                  last edited by

                                  I seem to have the same problem. 1.5 GhZ in ESX, ~14% on pfsense, about 1 MBit (!) traffic… :(
                                  Happens to both VM's of a HA Pair. Using Intel NICs, E1000 vNIC

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                                  • M
                                    MichelZ
                                    last edited by

                                    • What is the ESXi host machine and processor?  Supermicro X8DTU / E5620
                                    • Which version of pfSense and whether 32 or 64-bit?  64-bit
                                    • How many vCPUs have you allocated to the VM?  1
                                    • How much memory have you allocated to the VM?  1 GB
                                    • Have you  installed the pfSense packaged VM tools or the VMware-supplied tools? Open-VM-Tools
                                    • Are you using the e1000 adapter type or something else? E1000
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                                    • G
                                      gdi2k
                                      last edited by

                                      I have the same problem with pfsense 2.1.5 running on KVM on Ubuntu Server 14.04.

                                      See attached screenshot with pfsense running top on the right and the host machine running the VMs on the left.

                                      • What is the ESXi host machine and processor?  Thinkserver TS140 / Intel Xeon CPU E3-1225 v3 @ 3.20GHz
                                      • Which version of pfSense and whether 32 or 64-bit?  pfsense 2.1.5 - 32-bit
                                      • How many vCPUs have you allocated to the VM?  4
                                      • How much memory have you allocated to the VM?  2 GB
                                      • Have you  installed the pfSense packaged VM tools or the VMware-supplied tools? No
                                      • Are you using the e1000 adapter type or something else? E1000

                                      1_0862.png_thumb
                                      1_0862.png

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                                      • E
                                        EarlBacid
                                        last edited by

                                        I have the same issue running pfsense 2.1.5 within a proxmox (kvm) virtualization.

                                        • What is the ESXi host machine and processor?  PCEngines APU (AMD G-T40E, 2*1GHZ, 4GB RAM), running proxmox 3.2 under debian 7
                                        • Which version of pfSense and whether 32 or 64-bit?  pfsense 2.1.5 - 64-bit
                                        • How many vCPUs have you allocated to the VM?  2
                                        • How much memory have you allocated to the VM?  2 GB
                                        • Are you using the e1000 adapter type or something else? testet all kind of virtual NICs including virtio

                                        pfsense idle: while pfsense assuming less than 10% on both CPUs, the hosts recognizes about 50-60% on both cores.
                                        pfsense busy:  while pfsense assuming about 30% on both CPUs, the hosts recognizes about 70-80% on both cores. Throughput is limited to aprox. 80 MBit/s.
                                        Other guests like a Debian installation consume only 1-2 % of host CPU during idle state.

                                        I also tried the latest 2.2 snapshot. The cpu consumption decreased to 20-30%, which is still to much, but much better than 2.1.5, but the throughput was limited to ~40 MBit, so this is not an option since my internet connection is 100 MBit/s

                                        Another issue is, that I have to emulate the CPU as an qemu64 cpu, becaus using "host" causes pfsense to crash during bootup (other guests are ok with the "host" option). I also had to turn of all kind of checksum offloading to reach these throughputs. with checksum offloading enabled, the throughput is less than 1 MBit/s

                                        I have no packages installed.

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                                        • G
                                          Guldil
                                          last edited by

                                          Just to help.

                                          • What is the ESXi host machine and processor?  Supermicro H8DCL / AMD 4386 / ESX 5.5.0 2068190
                                          • Which version of pfSense and whether 32 or 64-bit?  32-bit - 2.1.5 (no tweak)
                                          • How many vCPUs have you allocated to the VM?  1
                                          • How much memory have you allocated to the VM?  1 GB
                                          • Have you  installed the pfSense packaged VM tools or the VMware-supplied tools? Open-VM-Tools
                                          • Are you using the e1000 adapter type or something else? E1000

                                          Idle Time : 371 Mhz / 10% in Performance Vmware Tabs / 0% in Pfsense Dashboard
                                          High Load (download full speed) :  5857 Mhz / 100 % in Performance Vmware Tabs / 98% in Pfsense Dahboard

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                                          • T
                                            Terrabit_AH
                                            last edited by

                                            More to help

                                            • i have the same issue on several vm's on our esxi 5.5 Cluster
                                            • 100% CPU and only 3-5 mbit traffic.
                                            • also i have the Problem with openvpn on heavy load >200mbit the ip stack Crash an i get DUP! icmp pings.
                                            • now i install one new pfs 2.1.5 with a clean config and e1000 nics.
                                            • i change the vm today in the evening.
                                            • all vm's have 2gb ram and 1 vcpu.
                                            • the new one is our boarder router with bgp that shut route 1000mbit.
                                            • i Report the results next week.
                                            • we have esii 5.5 U1.

                                            regards alexander

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