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    Proxmox 3.2 and pfsense 2.1.1

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Virtualization
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    • C
      CaptainWTF
      last edited by

      Right now I'm attempting to virtualize a pfsense machine on a proxmox host.

      Hardware is as follows.

      HP ML350 G5 rack server with 2x quad core Xeon 5420's @ 2.5ghz
      16gb pc-5300 ECC FB ram
      Intel dual gigabit nic (82571EB gigabit ethernet control rev 06) ( I have checked debian HCL and it is on there)

      My problem is when I start issuing a network load and its something super minor like downloading a game or whatever it may be. 2.6mb/s it puts 2 cores @ 80% which is freaking ridiculous.

      For a while I thought perhaps its possible the drivers arent right and its not offloading the network processing to the processor on the NIC. but I have no idea.

      Attatched is a image of my hardware allocation to the VM
      And my NIC bindings in proxmox.

      Any insight as to why its being such a resource hog would be awesome.

      Much appreciated in advance.

      pfsense.png
      pfsense.png_thumb
      pfsense2.png
      pfsense2.png_thumb

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      • E
        eradicator006
        last edited by

        You could try using virtio for the network interfaces.  That should help quite a bit.

        Here is how to get pfsense 2.1 working with virtio: https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/VirtIO_Driver_Support

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        • C
          CaptainWTF
          last edited by

          That seemed to help quite a bit but im still pushin 80% usage on a single core downloading @ 2.6mb/s or is that the extent of the performance gain i'd get from switching to virtio? If anything I may move over to an Ubiquiti Edge router

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          • D
            diablo266
            last edited by

            Your performance should be considerably better than that, see this thread: https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=72521.0

            Either way, pfsense/freebsd does not perform well under KVM/Proxmox which is really disappointing. It performs extremely well under esxi if that is an option for you.

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            • C
              CaptainWTF
              last edited by

              @diablo266:

              Your performance should be considerably better than that, see this thread: https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=72521.0

              Either way, pfsense/freebsd does not perform well under KVM/Proxmox which is really disappointing. It performs extremely well under esxi if that is an option for you.

              ESXi was actually originally what I was going to use but unfortunately my SATA controller in my server isnt on the HCL so it doesn't detect my drives… I mean it detects drives that are being used by my raid controller but my SATA controller it does not. So I'd need to create a custom bootable ESXi installation image with drivers in it. whiiiiiiiiich i've no idea how to do. A bit out of my range.

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              • P
                pftdm007
                last edited by

                What CPU type are you using for your VM's config under proxmox?

                You should maybe use Qemu64.  At first I was using kvm64 thn tried various flavors or CPU drivers then somebody on proxmox's forums recommended to use Qemu64 for 64bit FreeBSD based machines…

                Not sure though why but on my server, my pfsense VM uses at MOST 30% of its single core at 3.1GHz with Gigabit traffic and all kind of of apps running (snort, HAVP, Squid, etc)..

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