Expose 1Gb nic using virtio device

jdl

New Member
Oct 14, 2014
18
1
3
Hello,
I'm installing pfSense on top of Proxmox, using virtio nic device driver.
The physical network of the host is 1Gb, but the virtio nic are exposed to pfSense as 10Gb nic.
Is it possible to force KVM to expose 1Gb nic instead of 10Gb nic ?
Thank you
 
Thank you for the link.
The base issue was "if i use virtio drivers, ICMP works but TCP/UDP doesn't", so at first i thought it could be some MTU issue related to 10Gb vs 1Gb.
With virtio the VM behind pfSense can't connect anywhere.
If i switch to E1000 drivers, pfSense works correctly.
Any idea what coud cause this behavior with virtio drivers ?
 
I have the same problem with the recent FreeBSD 10.2 guests.
E1000 driver works well, but also does not deliver full speed.
Downloading file from host system: 60 MBps, from guest: 5-10 MBps depending on TSO on/off.
There is no problem with Ubuntu 14 guest, it gives full speed.
 
With virtio the VM behind pfSense can't connect anywhere.
If i switch to E1000 drivers, pfSense works correctly.
Any idea what coud cause this behavior with virtio drivers ?

Difficult to say without having the configuration in detail.

Juts one hint: you cannot rely that only changing the virtual NIC´s type the other parameters - as seen in the VM - remain as they were; i.e. the assignment which one is eth0, eth1 etc. can be different!

If you cannot make a conclusion studying the configuration: track IP packets by investigating them with tcpdump.
 
I also checked the assignment when changing the drivers :)
By default, pfSense ask you to reassign the interfaces when the driver changes.
Anyway, disabling "Hardware Checksum Offload" in System/Advanced/Networking fixed the issue.
Iperf with virtio gives 1.4Gb/s, all protocols are ok, and a real http download hits 100MB/s.
It's explained here : https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Lost_Traffic_/_Packets_Disappear and here https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/high-cpu-idle-usage-with-pfsense-openbsd.19695 .
For FreeBSD guests, i think the related tunable is 'hw.vtnet.X.csum_disable' : https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=vtnet&sektion=4 .
Thanks for your help.
 
  • Like
Reactions: sdinet

About

The Proxmox community has been around for many years and offers help and support for Proxmox VE, Proxmox Backup Server, and Proxmox Mail Gateway.
We think our community is one of the best thanks to people like you!

Get your subscription!

The Proxmox team works very hard to make sure you are running the best software and getting stable updates and security enhancements, as well as quick enterprise support. Tens of thousands of happy customers have a Proxmox subscription. Get yours easily in our online shop.

Buy now!