Can't get memory properly passed to OPNsense VM

[jeanlau]

Hello everyone,

I'm not used to the forum and it's rules so very sorry if make a mistake or if my thread is not at it's right place...

So I have an issue with a little pve host that is actually a sort of mini network oriented computer with 4NICs and the following CPU :
4 x Intel(R) Celeron(R) N5105 @ 2.00GHz (1 Socket)
I have 32GB of RAM (non ecc sadly) and it runs on a 500GB NVME disk

It's a homelab install and for now everything is smooth (except the fact it's fanless and in some hard workload the NVME hangs because too hot but it's hardware design and can be mitigated with limitations and 2 mini fan blowing directly on the device, talk me about fanless design lol ! anyway I digress...)

So I have the following versions of PVE :

proxmox-ve: 7.3-1 (running kernel: 5.15.74-1-pve)
pve-manager: 7.3-3 (running version: 7.3-3/c3928077)
pve-kernel-5.15: 7.2-14
pve-kernel-helper: 7.2-14
pve-kernel-5.15.74-1-pve: 5.15.74-1
pve-kernel-5.15.39-1-pve: 5.15.39-1
pve-kernel-5.15.30-2-pve: 5.15.30-3
ceph-fuse: 15.2.16-pve1
corosync: 3.1.7-pve1
criu: 3.15-1+pve-1
glusterfs-client: 9.2-1
ifupdown2: 3.1.0-1+pmx3
ksm-control-daemon: 1.4-1
libjs-extjs: 7.0.0-1
libknet1: 1.24-pve2
libproxmox-acme-perl: 1.4.2
libproxmox-backup-qemu0: 1.3.1-1
libpve-access-control: 7.2-5
libpve-apiclient-perl: 3.2-1
libpve-common-perl: 7.3-1
libpve-guest-common-perl: 4.2-3
libpve-http-server-perl: 4.1-5
libpve-storage-perl: 7.3-1
libspice-server1: 0.14.3-2.1
lvm2: 2.03.11-2.1
lxc-pve: 5.0.0-3
lxcfs: 4.0.12-pve1
novnc-pve: 1.3.0-3
proxmox-backup-client: 2.2.7-1
proxmox-backup-file-restore: 2.2.7-1
proxmox-mini-journalreader: 1.3-1
proxmox-offline-mirror-helper: 0.5.0-1
proxmox-widget-toolkit: 3.5.3
pve-cluster: 7.3-1
pve-container: 4.4-2
pve-docs: 7.3-1
pve-edk2-firmware: 3.20220526-1
pve-firewall: 4.2-7
pve-firmware: 3.5-6
pve-ha-manager: 3.5.1
pve-i18n: 2.8-1
pve-qemu-kvm: 7.1.0-4
pve-xtermjs: 4.16.0-1
qemu-server: 7.3-1
smartmontools: 7.2-pve3
spiceterm: 3.2-2
swtpm: 0.8.0~bpo11+2
vncterm: 1.7-1
zfsutils-linux: 2.1.6-pve1

for the sake of exhaustivity I have 1 or 2 (not always on) LXC VMs and a Win10 VM that all work like a charm.
All my VM disks are on LVM Thin, let me know if there's anything more I should add...

Now let's dive in my problem, I have a OPNsense host that is extremely important for me because its literally my internet connection ( I only have a pon little box to convert fibre to ethernet) but he's the one that create the pppoe session with my provider and assume the routing, firewall, dhcp etc... for the whole house so very sensitive to have it working, it's not an issue because it's been working flawlessly for months but there's something I'd like to add and it's a permanent vpn connexion and I know it's gonna add a quite important load on the system (even though the CPU is supporting AES), I'd also like to play with other fonctions so I wanted to increase the RAM I gave to the little guy from 1 GB to something like 4, but there's no way for the system to see it, it's always showing up as 1GB.

I can tell by different ways 1st one the dashboard is showing up :

Memory usage
45 % ( 450/980 MB )

But after some searches I found a command that shows the detected RAM during boot and it's always showing the approx same whatever value I increase the VM memory :

root@firewall:~ # grep -i mem /var/run/dmesg.boot
SRAT: Ignoring memory at addr 0x100000000
real memory = 1073741824 (1024 MB)
avail memory = 993329152 (947 MB)

It was a very classic install I made with the installer iso file, I tried to play with the CPU settings, ivy, kvm64, westmere etc... (normally as its just a small node alone so I use host as CPU) sometimes no boot sometimes boot but the memory always stuck on the same numbers... It was recommended not to use balloon device but I even tried with it in case with no more luck...

I've reach then point where I don't know what more I can do... please help ?

Thanks so much if you've read until here, have nice day

 

[leesteken]

There have been reports of problems with Proxmox on N5105. I think this is the main thread about it. But I'm happy for you that you are not experiencing crashes.

If a VM only sees the first 1GB (or a little less), then maybe memory hotplug is enabled for the VM but not in (or supported by) the operating system inside the VM. Please check in the VM Options > Hotplug if Memory is enabled and disable it (and restart the VM).
If this does not resolve the memory size issue, please attach your VM configuration file (from /etc/pve/qemu-server/).

 

[jeanlau]

THANK YOU !!!! that did the trick !

And as I have no problem whatsoever I won't go to look the link it's gonna stress me out for nothing , the only real issue I have is that the device was supposed to support iommu and it's not the case, I needed it for passing through a 4G network PCI card to get a backup internet connection but I've accepted it and it can be achieved differently.

Anyways it was as often as silly as a box to untick but when you don't know you don't know so thank you very much for your quick and accurate answer !

Best Regards,

 

[dennyreiter]

I thank you also. I've been pulling my hair out trying to figure out why my OPNSense VM was running out of memory when I noticed it only showed 1G. I had balloon turned on and that didn't do it, I wonder what I was doing when I frobbed the hotplug for memory box

The forums are invaluable and I really appreciate everybody that helps.