Is traffic shaping working? " No queue statistics could be read."

[kamiller42]

I am using pfSense 2.1.5-RELEASE (i386). No packages installed. (I did have squid3 installed, but removed to eliminate possible problems.) Everything working fine. Trying to add traffic shaping.

I used the Single LAN/Multi-WAN wizard to setup my shaping queues. They were created and a number of floating firewall rules too.

When I go to Status/Queues, it says:
No queue statistics could be read.

I suspect things are not working because when I have a machine hogging bandwidth, the other machines experience a slow down when browsing the web.

What should I be checking?

[KOM]

Your shaper sounds broken.  I would delete it, recreate it and see if you get the same behaviour.

[kamiller42]

@KOM:

Your shaper sounds broken.  I would delete it, recreate it and see if you get the same behaviour.

Yea. I did that a few times. When I re-ran the wizard, my previously entered values were still there. Is that normal? Is there a way to completely reset the Shaper?

[KOM]

Yes, it is normal for any previous wizard data to be retained.  Either remove or replace any values that you want to substitute.  What kind of shaper are you creating?  Which options are you choosing?  What happens if you create a basic PRIQ or HFSC shaper with just VoIP support?

[kamiller42]

Here are the wizard values I've chosen. All others are default values.

of WAN ports: 1

D/L Scheduler: HFSC
U/L Scheduler: HFSC
Con Up: 5.5Mbps
Con Down: 34Mbps
Prioritize VoIP: Enabled
WAN #1 VoIP upload: 41Kbps
WAN #1 VoIP download: 41Kbps
Penalty Box: Disabled
P2P Shaping: Enabled
Enabled P2P Protocols: BitTorrent
Network Games: Enabled
Enabled Games: PS3, Steam
Raise/Lower Other: Enabled
Web: Higher
DNS: Higher
NNTP: Lower

Going to try creating a plan shaper with VoIP only.

[kamiller42]

@KOM:

Yes, it is normal for any previous wizard data to be retained.  Either remove or replace any values that you want to substitute.  What kind of shaper are you creating?  Which options are you choosing?  What happens if you create a basic PRIQ or HFSC shaper with just VoIP support?

I created a basic shaper, VoIP prioritization only. Only PRIQ worked. HBQ and HFSC produce nothing, i.e. no status.

[KOM]

If you're new to traffic shaping then I would avoid HFSC for now and stick with PRIQ.  Is there anything in your System log when the queues don't appear?  I'm still on 2.1.4 but I've never seen your situation where the shaper consistently fails to configure.

[kamiller42]

@KOM:

If you're new to traffic shaping then I would avoid HFSC for now and stick with PRIQ.  Is there anything in your System log when the queues don't appear?  I'm still on 2.1.4 but I've never seen your situation where the shaper consistently fails to configure.

Here's the log…

Sep 12 14:56:08 php: /status_queues.php: XML error: no altqstats object found!
Sep 12 14:56:12 check_reload_status: Syncing firewall
Sep 12 14:56:12 check_reload_status: Reloading filter
Sep 12 14:56:17 check_reload_status: Syncing firewall
Sep 12 14:56:30 php: /wizard.php: Creating rrd update script

[BeerCan]

Just curious but what NIC's are in that machine?

[kamiller42]

@BeerCan:

Just curious but what NIC's are in that machine?

It's running is in a Promox VM. The host using dual Intel NICs. The mainboard is AsRock Extreme 6. The Proxmox VM is using VirtIO NICs.

[KOM]

What type of NIC is the hypervisor presenting to the pfSense guest?  When you look at the output of the pfSense console window, what does it have listed beside WAN (wan) -> and LAN (lan) ->?

[kamiller42]

@KOM:

What type of NIC is the hypervisor presenting to the pfSense guest?  When you look at the output of the pfSense console window, what does it have listed beside WAN (wan) -> and LAN (lan) ->?

WAN (wan)      -> vtnet1
LAN (lan)      -> vtnet0

Here is my ifconfig output if it helps any:

vtnet0: flags=8843 <up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast>metric 0 mtu 1500
	options=c02bb <rxcsum,txcsum,vlan_mtu,vlan_hwtagging,jumbo_mtu,vlan_hwcsum,tso6,vlan_hwtso,linkstate>ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
	inet 192.168.1.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
	inet6 fe80::b86b:90ff:fe0c:f040%vtnet0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1 
	nd6 options=1 <performnud>media: Ethernet 1000baseT <full-duplex>
	status: active
vtnet1: flags=8843 <up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast>metric 0 mtu 1500
	options=c02bb <rxcsum,txcsum,vlan_mtu,vlan_hwtagging,jumbo_mtu,vlan_hwcsum,tso6,vlan_hwtso,linkstate>ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
	inet foo.foo.foo.foo netmask 0xffffe000 broadcast 255.255.255.255
	inet6 foo:foo:foo:foo:foo%vtnet1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2 
	inet6 foo:foo:foo:foo:foo:foo:foo prefixlen 128 
	nd6 options=3 <performnud,accept_rtadv>media: Ethernet 1000baseT <full-duplex>
	status: active
lo0: flags=8049 <up,loopback,running,multicast>metric 0 mtu 16384
	options=3 <rxcsum,txcsum>inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000 
	inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128 
	inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x3 
	nd6 options=3 <performnud,accept_rtadv>pflog0: flags=100 <promisc>metric 0 mtu 33192
enc0: flags=0<> metric 0 mtu 1536
pfsync0: flags=0<> metric 0 mtu 1460
	syncpeer: 224.0.0.240 maxupd: 128 syncok: 1
ovpns1: flags=8051 <up,pointopoint,running,multicast>metric 0 mtu 1500
	options=80000 <linkstate>inet6 foo:foo:foo:foo:foo%ovpns1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x7 
	inet 192.168.10.1 --> 192.168.10.2 netmask 0xffffffff 
	nd6 options=3 <performnud,accept_rtadv>Opened by PID 14687</performnud,accept_rtadv></linkstate></up,pointopoint,running,multicast></promisc></performnud,accept_rtadv></rxcsum,txcsum></up,loopback,running,multicast></full-duplex></performnud,accept_rtadv></rxcsum,txcsum,vlan_mtu,vlan_hwtagging,jumbo_mtu,vlan_hwcsum,tso6,vlan_hwtso,linkstate></up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast></full-duplex></performnud></rxcsum,txcsum,vlan_mtu,vlan_hwtagging,jumbo_mtu,vlan_hwcsum,tso6,vlan_hwtso,linkstate></up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast>

[KOM]

I suspect the vtnet (virtio) driver isn't ALTQ compatible.  If that's the case, you won't be able to do traffic shaping with it.  This bug report for the upcoming 2.2 (https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/3770) shows ALTQ support missing for a variety of cards.  I don't know if that applies to anything in 2.1.x though, but it may explain the behaviour you're seeing.

[kamiller42]

Just to give an update on this…

I am running pfSense 2.2 RC1, and it appears this is working now. I'm a happy camper.  :)