High CPU usage when downloading with muliwan config
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Basically here's my config:
Version 2.1-RELEASE (amd64)
built on Wed Sep 11 18:17:37 EDT 2013
FreeBSD 8.3-RELEASE-p11CPU Type AMD Sempron
140 ProcessorWhen I trigger an HTTP download (I'm using dual WAN config), my CPU usage spikes up to 100% which is weird. I tried looking at the System Activity and I notice that the command /usr/local/sbin/check_reload takes around 50% CPU usage. I tried reading in this forum first and found out that this is just a symptom of another problem. So how do I start troubleshooting this? I think my CPU is more than enough for my purpose, right?
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What I also don't understand is why the CPU usage reaches 100% when the idle command in the system activity never reaches any value below 50%. Common sense says that CPU usage should not increase above 50% because of the behavior of the idle command, right?
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How are you looking at the system activity?
Try using 'top -SH' at the command line.What other threads have you looked at that implied this was a symptom?
What packages are you running?Steve
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I just look at it by going to Diagnostics -> System Activity, isn't that the same as "top -SH" ?
I've looked at this thread: http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,59996.0.html
I don't use any packages at all.
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BUMP!
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I see nothing about check_reload in the thread you linked to.
Is that a typo? Do you actually mean check_reload_status?
Did you try running top -SH at the CLI? What does the system idle show for each processor?
The webgui screen doesn't show the total cpu usage by type breakdown line:CPU: 0.0% user, 0.0% nice, 0.4% system, 0.0% interrupt, 99.6% idleYou might have a high interrupt load accounting for you high CPU usage.
Steve
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I see nothing about check_reload in the thread you linked to.
Is that a typo? Do you actually mean check_reload_status?
Did you try running top -SH at the CLI? What does the system idle show for each processor?
The webgui screen doesn't show the total cpu usage by type breakdown line:CPU: 0.0% user, 0.0% nice, 0.4% system, 0.0% interrupt, 99.6% idleYou might have a high interrupt load accounting for you high CPU usage.
Steve
Ooops, yeah I meant check_reload_status. Sorry didn't notice that.
Yes I did and it did show approximately the same percentage for the idle command compared to that of the one shown in the webgui. I have to double check when I get back home.
If ever I have high interrupt load, what can I do with that?
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I tried running top -SH again and the results is EXACTLY the same to that of the webgui's. I thought the top -SH should present more details? I already forgot but I think my CPU is just single core.
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Hmm, interesting. On my test box here the Diagnostics: System Activity: screen does not show the interrupt load. It's running Nano 32 bit but I can't see why that would make any difference.
If you do have a high interrupt load it could be linked to the problem.
Try running vmstat -i from the console to see more interrupt info.Steve
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Well, I don't see the interrupt load on both GUI and the command line. We're using the same version of pfsense, right?
This is what I have with vmstat -i:
$ vmstat -i
interrupt total rate
irq14: ata0 271172 1
irq18: fxp2 35396773 184
irq19: fxp3 23563272 123
cpu0: timer 382836731 1999
irq256: em0 56883303 297
Total 498951251 2606
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Like I say I'm running the 32bit NanoBSD version which is probably different to you.
[2.1-RELEASE][root@pfsense.localdomain]/root(7): top -SH last pid: 28780; load averages: 0.05, 0.05, 0.01 up 16+00:13:51 22:00:38 144 processes: 3 running, 105 sleeping, 36 waiting CPU: 0.0% user, 0.0% nice, 0.4% system, 0.2% interrupt, 99.4% idle Mem: 74M Active, 18M Inact, 113M Wired, 1228K Cache, 77M Buf, 745M Free Swap: PID USERNAME PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE C TIME WCPU COMMAND 10 root 171 ki31 0K 16K RUN 0 381.6H 100.00% idle{idle: cpu0} 10 root 171 ki31 0K 16K CPU1 1 381.6H 100.00% idle{idle: cpu1} 11 root -32 - 0K 288K WAIT 1 89:32 0.00% intr{swi4: clock} 32487 root 44 0 6280K 6300K select 0 56:51 0.00% ntpd 11 root -64 - 0K 288K WAIT 0 24:50 0.00% intr{irq23: uhci0 14 root -44 - 0K 168K - 1 21:11 0.00% usb{usbus0} 52329 nobody 74 r30 3316K 1364K nanslp 1 10:33 0.00% LCDd 65162 root 64 20 3300K 1208K nanslp 0 4:06 0.00% lcdproc 11 root -44 - 0K 288K WAIT 1 3:59 0.00% intr{swi1: netisr 32131 root 76 20 3644K 1468K wait 1 2:39 0.00% sh 26623 root 44 0 3264K 1232K select 0 2:23 0.00% apinger 296 root 76 20 3352K 1180K kqread 1 1:37 0.00% check_reload_stat 0 root -16 0 0K 152K sched 0 1:32 0.00% kernel{swapper} 49 root -8 - 0K 8K mdwait 0 1:09 0.00% md1 11 root -32 - 0K 288K WAIT 0 1:00 0.00% intr{swi4: clock} 29864 dhcpd 44 0 11456K 7916K select 1 0:32 0.00% dhcpd [2.1-RELEASE][root@pfsense.localdomain]/root(8): uname -a FreeBSD pfsense.localdomain 8.3-RELEASE-p11 FreeBSD 8.3-RELEASE-p11 #0: Wed Sep 11 19:13:36 EDT 2013 root@snapshots-8_3-i386.builders.pfsense.org:/usr/obj.pfSense/usr/pfSensesrc/src/sys/pfSense_wrap.8.i386 i386That does seem like quite a high rate on cpu0 : timer. Here's my home box for comparison:
[2.1-RELEASE][root@pfsense.fire.box]/root(1): vmstat -i interrupt total rate irq4: uart0 942 0 irq14: ata0 1692946 0 irq16: fxp3 uhci0 7461649 1 irq17: fxp2 fxp6 58819745 8 irq18: em0 ath0++ 438389933 60 irq19: fxp0 fxp4+ 4 0 irq23: ehci0 1 0 irq26: em1 59344136 8 irq27: em2 132075810 18 cpu0: timer 2905412614 400 Total 3603197780 496What traffic load was it handling when those figures were taken?
This might be a complete distraction from the cause. ::)
Steve
Edit: Are you using device polling? (it's off by default)
Has this install always done this or has something changed?
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Like I say I'm running the 32bit NanoBSD version which is probably different to you.
[2.1-RELEASE][root@pfsense.localdomain]/root(7): top -SH last pid: 28780; load averages: 0.05, 0.05, 0.01 up 16+00:13:51 22:00:38 144 processes: 3 running, 105 sleeping, 36 waiting CPU: 0.0% user, 0.0% nice, 0.4% system, 0.2% interrupt, 99.4% idle Mem: 74M Active, 18M Inact, 113M Wired, 1228K Cache, 77M Buf, 745M Free Swap: PID USERNAME PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE C TIME WCPU COMMAND 10 root 171 ki31 0K 16K RUN 0 381.6H 100.00% idle{idle: cpu0} 10 root 171 ki31 0K 16K CPU1 1 381.6H 100.00% idle{idle: cpu1} 11 root -32 - 0K 288K WAIT 1 89:32 0.00% intr{swi4: clock} 32487 root 44 0 6280K 6300K select 0 56:51 0.00% ntpd 11 root -64 - 0K 288K WAIT 0 24:50 0.00% intr{irq23: uhci0 14 root -44 - 0K 168K - 1 21:11 0.00% usb{usbus0} 52329 nobody 74 r30 3316K 1364K nanslp 1 10:33 0.00% LCDd 65162 root 64 20 3300K 1208K nanslp 0 4:06 0.00% lcdproc 11 root -44 - 0K 288K WAIT 1 3:59 0.00% intr{swi1: netisr 32131 root 76 20 3644K 1468K wait 1 2:39 0.00% sh 26623 root 44 0 3264K 1232K select 0 2:23 0.00% apinger 296 root 76 20 3352K 1180K kqread 1 1:37 0.00% check_reload_stat 0 root -16 0 0K 152K sched 0 1:32 0.00% kernel{swapper} 49 root -8 - 0K 8K mdwait 0 1:09 0.00% md1 11 root -32 - 0K 288K WAIT 0 1:00 0.00% intr{swi4: clock} 29864 dhcpd 44 0 11456K 7916K select 1 0:32 0.00% dhcpd [2.1-RELEASE][root@pfsense.localdomain]/root(8): uname -a FreeBSD pfsense.localdomain 8.3-RELEASE-p11 FreeBSD 8.3-RELEASE-p11 #0: Wed Sep 11 19:13:36 EDT 2013 root@snapshots-8_3-i386.builders.pfsense.org:/usr/obj.pfSense/usr/pfSensesrc/src/sys/pfSense_wrap.8.i386 i386That does seem like quite a high rate on cpu0 : timer. Here's my home box for comparison:
[2.1-RELEASE][root@pfsense.fire.box]/root(1): vmstat -i interrupt total rate irq4: uart0 942 0 irq14: ata0 1692946 0 irq16: fxp3 uhci0 7461649 1 irq17: fxp2 fxp6 58819745 8 irq18: em0 ath0++ 438389933 60 irq19: fxp0 fxp4+ 4 0 irq23: ehci0 1 0 irq26: em1 59344136 8 irq27: em2 132075810 18 cpu0: timer 2905412614 400 Total 3603197780 496What traffic load was it handling when those figures were taken?
This might be a complete distraction from the cause. ::)
Steve
Edit: Are you using device polling? (it's off by default)
Has this install always done this or has something changed?Weird then. I hope someone who knows the difference can chime in in this thread.
When those figures were taken, I initiated an Nvidia driver download in Firefox. I'll see if those values change if I use Internet Download Manager (multi-thread downloading) so that the two WAN interfaces will max out.
If device polling is off by default, then no I do not do that.
I'm not really sure if this was the behavior from before because the CPU bar in the dashboard updates every 10 seconds only so I never noticed any 100% usage until now when I closely monitored it. And no, nothing has changed from the very start, really.
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Hmm, what speed are your two WANs? It could be just loading the cpu correctly, though that seems unlikely without any packages unless you have very fast WANs.
Steve
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Hmm, what speed are your two WANs? It could be just loading the cpu correctly, though that seems unlikely without any packages unless you have very fast WANs.
Steve
Well, when I tested that my WAN's reached 13 - 15 Mbps down each and I was downloading using IDM at around 3MBps. What do you think?
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2X15Mbps is well within the capabilities of that CPU even if you were running a load of packages.
I'm pretty sure the high load check_reload_status is a symptom not a cause but I can't think what it might be. :-\
Anything in the syslogs?
Steve
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Are you using IPv6 at all? This may have some relevance: https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/2555
Steve
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I think I know what's causing it now. It's dynDNS. I had it setup for my first WAN since the beginning when my ISP used to gave me public IP addresses. Now that my ISP uses carrier-grade NAT (my modem is given a private IP), dynDNS keeps on working on updating. I noticed that in the system logs. One weird thing I have in the syslogs is that dynDNS is alos updating my second WAN when I never set it up to do so and there are no entries under dynDNS anymore. Why is this?
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This may also be a symptom of something else causing the interface settings to be reloaded. The dyndns client is triggered and checks to see whether an update is necessary.
Steve
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This may also be a symptom of something else causing the interface settings to be reloaded. The dyndns client is triggered and checks to see whether an update is necessary.
Steve
Yeah, I noticed that it does this when the alternative gateway set for WAN 2 has a "packet latency" or "packet loss" status. But why will it update dyndns for WAN 2 when I don't have an entry for it?
