PC Engines apu2 experiences

fireodo

@Qinn said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

@fireodo In the past, Ntopng was slow, not to say very slow and I walked away from it, in the beginning of this year I tried it again and I was amazed how it progressed.

I am speaking from the newest version (0.8.13_5) and its the "core dump" what make me uninstall it - not the speed.

Qinn

@fireodo I am running ntopng v0.8.13_5 runs like a charm, maybe it's the ram, although your 2Gb should be enough as when I stop the service, memory usage goes down a 10% here...

fireodo

@Qinn said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

@fireodo I am running ntopng v0.8.13_5 runs like a charm, maybe it's the ram, although your 2Gb should be enough as when I stop the service, memory usage goes down a 10% here...

Lucky you - it was running fine here too, (excluding the core dump on saving settings) - maybe there is something in my configuration that is conflicting with it when I'm saving the settings ...

Qinn

@fireodo Just a guess as default Ntopng keeps settings, maybe, uncheck this and then remove the package, then reinstall, maybe vanilla works fine

fireodo

@Qinn said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

@fireodo Just a guess as default Ntopng keeps settings, maybe, uncheck this and then remove the package, then reinstall, maybe vanilla works fine

It was a vanilla install when that core dump issue occure - i gave it up ...
(And btw: its really overkill for my network)

daemonix

I got some core dumps here again... I think its quite heavy for 24/7 use.

Qinn

@daemonix It's running 24/7 since 6 months never had a problem with it.

daemonix

@Qinn Ill give it another go. all updated but got a core dump.

fireodo

@Qinn said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

@daemonix It's running 24/7 since 6 months never had a problem with it.

A little question: Have you CPU Boost activated?
https://github.com/pcengines/apu2-documentation/blob/master/docs/apu_CPU_boost.md

apu2

I recently bought a new APU2 board and installed pfsense 2.4.5 release. BIOS is coreboot version v4.11.0.6.
I had mSATA 64G drive. Installation was easy and straightforward.
This setup was runinig fine for about 1 month after which I started to get the following issues.

Disk started to show some timeouts and disconnects.
I can login to the system but cannot do anything that require disk read.

I am trying to understand if this is a hardware of software issue. Is there anything I can do to troubleshoot the issue further?
PC engines mention bootloader parameter hint.ahci.0.msi="0" but it is applicable only for bios version older than 4.6.7

igb1: link state changed to UP
ahcich0: Timeout on slot 1 port 0
ahcich0: is 00000000 cs 00000002 ss 00000000 rs 00000002 tfd d0 serr 00000000 cmd 0040e117
ahcich0: Timeout on slot 18 port 0
ahcich0: is 00000000 cs 00040000 ss 00000000 rs 00040000 tfd c0 serr 00000000 cmd 0040f217
ahcich0: AHCI reset: device not ready after 31000ms (tfd = 00000080)
ahcich0: Timeout on slot 19 port 0
ahcich0: is 00000000 cs 00080000 ss 00000000 rs 00080000 tfd 80 serr 00000000 cmd 0040f317
(aprobe0:ahcich0:0:0:0): ATA_IDENTIFY. ACB: ec 00 00 00 00 40 00 00 00 00 00 00
(aprobe0:ahcich0:0:0:0): CAM status: Command timeout
(aprobe0:ahcich0:0:0:0): Retrying command
ahcich0: Timeout on slot 20 port 0
ahcich0: is 00000000 cs 00100000 ss 00000000 rs 00100000 tfd 1d0 serr 00000000 cmd 0040f417
(aprobe0:ahcich0:0:0:0): ATA_IDENTIFY. ACB: ec 00 00 00 00 40 00 00 00 00 00 00
(aprobe0:ahcich0:0:0:0): CAM status: Command timeout
(aprobe0:ahcich0:0:0:0): Error 5, Retries exhausted
ahcich0: AHCI reset: device not ready after 31000ms (tfd = 00000180)
ahcich0: Timeout on slot 21 port 0
ahcich0: is 00000000 cs 00200000 ss 00000000 rs 00200000 tfd 180 serr 00000000 cmd 0040f517
(aprobe0:ahcich0:0:0:0): ATA_IDENTIFY. ACB: ec 00 00 00 00 40 00 00 00 00 00 00
(aprobe0:ahcich0:0:0:0): CAM status: Command timeout
(aprobe0:ahcich0:0:0:0): Error 5, Retry was blocked
ada0 at ahcich0 bus 0 scbus0 target 0 lun 0
ada0: <MT-64 H180516> s/n 978081794579 detached
g_vfs_done():ufsid/58bf2d4f649f8ad1[READ(offset=30607212544, length=65536)]error = 6
vnode_pager_generic_getpages_done: I/O read error 5
vnode_pager_generic_getpages_done: I/O read error 5
ahcich0: AHCI reset: device not ready after 31000ms (tfd = 00000180)
ahcich0: Timeout on slot 22 port 0
ahcich0: is 00000000 cs 00400000 ss 00000000 rs 00400000 tfd 180 serr 00000000 cmd 0040f617
(aprobe0:ahcich0:0:0:0): ATA_IDENTIFY. ACB: ec 00 00 00 00 40 00 00 00 00 00 00
(aprobe0:ahcich0:0:0:0): CAM status: Command timeout
(aprobe0:ahcich0:0:0:0): Retrying command
ahcich0: Timeout on slot 23 port 0
ahcich0: is 00000000 cs 00800000 ss 00000000 rs 00800000 tfd 1d0 serr 00000000 cmd 0040f717

thanks!

fireodo

@apu2 said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

I recently bought a new APU2 board and installed pfsense 2.4.5 release. BIOS is coreboot version v4.11.0.6.
I had mSATA 64G drive. Installation was easy and straightforward.
This setup was runinig fine for about 1 month after which I started to get the following issues.

Disk started to show some timeouts and disconnects.
I can login to the system but cannot do anything that require disk read.

I am trying to understand if this is a hardware of software issue. Is there anything I can do to troubleshoot the issue further?

You can try to boot in single mode and do a "/sbin/fsck -y / " (repeat until no error show)

PC engines mention bootloader parameter hint.ahci.0.msi="0" but it is applicable only for bios version older than 4.6.7
igb1: link state changed to UP
ahcich0: Timeout on slot 1 port 0

On the other hand it is possible that your SSD is dying ... make a backup of your config for the case that you have to change the drive.

thanks!

You're welcome,

fireodo

Qinn

I would check the advice from @fireodo; "A little question: Have you CPU Boost activated?" as this makes a lot off difference.

Then I may add, always install pfSense using the ZFS filesystem not the UFS (default). For a few reasons;

TRIM is default enabled (I am using mSATA), but this can also be enabled manually on a UFS filesystem, but the most important reason I advice to use ZFS is that it can 100% safegard you against bit errors, because the APU2 has ECC memory

apu2

@fireodo @Qinn Thanks both!
Good advise for my next ssd :)

Drive actually died and no longer detected by the system. Tried reseating it a few times but no lock.
I am surprised SMART didn't detected anything.
Is there any meaning to run smartd for SSDs?

stephenw10

Yes. It will show the drive wear level as spare blocks are used for example. It can't show if the controller is about to die.

Steve

sikita

Hi guys, are you running pfSense with /var & /tmp in RAM DISKS enabled on APU2?

fireodo

@sikita said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

Hi guys, are you running pfSense with /var & /tmp in RAM DISKS enabled on APU2?

Hi, no RamDisk here - as stated in my signature its all on a 16GB SSD.
/var/run 4% von 3.4MiB - ufs im RAM

Qinn

@sikita The whole filesystem zfs is running on 16GB mSATA SSD with ZFS only /var/run
4% of 3.4MiB - ufs in RAM

kinch

i retested. same result.
iperf client pc(lan) -> pfsense APU2E4 -> pc2 (opt) iperf server

With 2.4.4 p3 I have 750-850Mbit for 1 connection
After the update to 2.4.5 P1 I have 400-500Mbit.
Nothing changed, only the update was installed.
For me it means, there has changed something in the performance between 2.4.4 P3 and 2.4.5 (P1). But i dont know what.

BR

dugeem

@kinch
Try disabling ICMP Redirects to enable the faster tryforward routing path (under System / Advanced / System Tunables set net.inet.ip.redirect & net.inet6.ip6.redirect to 0)

sikita

@Qinn said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

@sikita The whole filesystem zfs is running on 16GB mSATA SSD with ZFS only /var/run
4% of 3.4MiB - ufs in RAM

Ok, thanks for a hint