Netgate Discussion Forum
    • Categories
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Search
    • Register
    • Login

    High CPU usage after installing new DSL modem

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
    6 Posts 3 Posters 1.3k Views
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • J
      jrittenh
      last edited by

      I'm on AT&T U-verse DSL. I previously had a 2210-02-1ATT Motorola modem.  According to AT&T, it was dying, so they sent me a new modem…but instead of a plain modem, they sent me an Arris NVG510 "modem/router/firewall" that apparently has issues with passthrough mode.  I finally managed to get that working by manually configuring the pfSense WAN port's IP and netmask, but as soon as pfSense gets the public IP, the CPU redlines.  I thought I had it mostly working finally last night, but this morning now the 256MB memory is 88% full, the CPU is pegged again, and I can barely get to the web interface to do anything.  I did manage to update it to 2.1.4, but that hasn't helped any.  Remotely, the web interface is basically useless, and I can't even connect via SSH.  The last time I was able to pull up the system activity diagnostics page, php was the process pegging the CPU, but I can't get to a console or web page to kill it.  If I take the modem out of passthrough mode, the router settles down, but then of course I can't do anything outside of browse the web since i'm double-NATed.

      So...any ideas?  As I'm writing this, I did finally manage to SSH to the pfSense box, dropped to a shell, and killall-ed php.  That temporarily cleaned things up somewhat, but it's already back to 100% CPU and 100MB memory usage since all that did was clear the existing processes just to spawn new ones.  My wife is now firmware-resetting the modem/router/firewall so that she can have functional internet today, so I'll have to wait until tonight to test.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • H
        Harvy66
        last edited by

        Could you post your "System Activity" from under "Diagnostics"?

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • J
          jrittenh
          last edited by

          This is now, with it leasing a private IP from the modem:

          last pid: 45252;  load averages:  0.35,  0.34,  0.22  up 0+12:19:06    21:17:30
          93 processes:  2 running, 78 sleeping, 13 waiting
          
          Mem: 28M Active, 9588K Inact, 53M Wired, 304K Cache, 26M Buf, 171M Free
          Swap: 1024M Total, 20M Used, 1004M Free, 1% Inuse
          
            PID USERNAME PRI NICE   SIZE    RES STATE    TIME   WCPU COMMAND
             11 root     171 ki31     0K     8K RUN    641:49 63.09% [idle]
          17517 root      76    0 33236K 13056K piperd   1:28 26.86% /usr/local/bin/php{php}
             12 root     -68    -     0K   104K WAIT    30:18  6.69% [intr{irq11: xl0 xl1 x}]
             12 root     -24    -     0K   104K WAIT     1:56  0.20% [intr{swi6: task queue}]
              0 root     -16    0     0K    64K sched  104:25  0.00% [kernel{swapper}]
             12 root     -32    -     0K   104K WAIT     7:17  0.00% [intr{swi4: clock}]
            257 root      76   20  3352K   756K kqread   5:46  0.00% /usr/local/sbin/check_reload_status
          46216 root      44    0  3300K  1284K select   3:40  0.00% /usr/local/sbin/miniupnpd -f /var/etc/miniupnp
             14 root     -16    -     0K     8K -        1:21  0.00% [yarrow]
             17 root     -16    -     0K     8K psleep   1:04  0.00% [pagedaemon]
          48807 root      44    0  3412K  1008K select   0:52  0.00% /usr/sbin/syslogd -s -c -c -l /var/dhcpd/var/r
          17238 root      76    0 27860K  8356K accept   0:31  0.00% /usr/local/bin/php
          16824 root      44    0  3264K  1016K select   0:30  0.00% /usr/local/sbin/apinger -c /var/etc/apinger.co
          63687 root      76   20  3644K  1488K wait     0:29  0.00% /bin/sh /var/db/rrd/updaterrd.sh
              3 root      -8    -     0K     8K -        0:26  0.00% [g_up]
             18 root     -16    -     0K     8K psleep   0:14  0.00% [vmdaemon]
              4 root      -8    -     0K     8K -        0:14  0.00% [g_down]
          53084 nobody    64   20  5512K  2800K select   0:12  0.00% /usr/local/sbin/dnsmasq --all-servers --rebind
          

          I'll post under load when it's pulling the public IP from the modem later tonight after my wife goes to bed.  Pretty sure I'll be shot if I leave it like that while she's trying to do anything.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • J
            jrittenh
            last edited by

            Well, I just flipped it back to having pfSense hold the public IP, and so far so good.  The issue last time, though, was after a night of holding it.  I'll keep an eye on it throughout the day today.  Maybe it was just a fluke.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • H
              Harvy66
              last edited by

              I just wanted to point out that "[kernel{swapper}]" has a HUGE amount of total CPU time consumed. Your interrupt usage is a bit high also, but I assume that swapper has something to do with the page file. I could be wrong.

              If this is the case, then you may have ran out of physical memory for a bit, causing your system to start paging to your storage device.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • stephenw10S
                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                last edited by

                Yep, you shouldn't be swapping, ever. Not if you want any sort of decent performance anyway.  ;) Quite why running a public IP would require more memory though is odd if that is the issue.
                What hardware are you running? I see you have 256MB RAM, are you running any packages?

                Steve

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • First post
                  Last post
                Copyright 2025 Rubicon Communications LLC (Netgate). All rights reserved.