PFSENSE high RAM consumption

[rmanzanilla]

Hello, I'm having a problem with RAM usage in my PVE Virtual Environment version 9.2.2.

In PVE, the usage is between 94% and 99%, while within pfSense it's only 8%.

I've already tried everything I found in forums, and the problem persists.


PfSense:

QEMU Guest Agent y Ballooning are ready.

 

[Neobin]

https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Upgrade_from_8_to_9#VM_Memory_Consumption_Shown_is_Higher

 

[Johannes S]

J

[TUTORIAL] Thread 'FABC: Why is ProxmoxVE using all my RAM and why can't I see the real RAM usage of the vms in the dashboard?'

May 7, 2025

This article is about a question frequently answered by community members. It was inspired by UdoBs great FabU posts ( https://forum.proxmox.com/search/7994094/?q=FabU&c[title_only]=1&c[users]=UdoB ) and aims to give an in depth-explaination to an often asked question so it can be referenced in future threads. It will be changed as needed, any Feedback/suggestions welcome

My dashboard shows that most of my RAM is used although my VMs and LXCs only have a small fraction allocated. Is this a memory leak bug?

Propably not. First you need to know that ProxmoxVE is based on Debian Linux...

• Johannes S
• cache dashboard fabc kernel linux memory monitoring ram tutorial zfs
• Replies: 7
• Forum: Proxmox VE: Installation and configuration

• 

 

[daanw]

Proxmox can't properly read RAM usage of FreeBSD based VM's (like PfSense and also OPnSense), related to the abilities of the Qemu agent installed.

There's a ton of topics on that, for example:
https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/reduce-high-ram-ratio.92190/#post-401962
https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/o...vm-on-proxmox-always-using-100-memory.137132/
https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/freebsd-guest-wrong-ram-usage.87693/
https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=15708.0
https://github.com/aborche/qemu-guest-agent/issues/19
https://forum.netgate.com/topic/162083/pfsense-vm-on-proxmox-qemu-agent-installation

 

[Everson Pereira]

The `vtballoon-stats.ko` kernel driver does not report all memory parameters; it returns -1 for several of them. I created a fix for the module and made it available in this repository:

https://github.com/eversonpereira/vtballoon-stats-freebsd-pfsense

There is a module for version 2.7.2 and one for version 2.8.1, but they should also work with earlier sub-versions. To install, you can download the `.ko` file and set it to load at startup; there is also a script available that handles the download and installation. For proper operation, it is best to have `qemu-guest-agent` installed and enabled.

The source code is also available for review and contributions.

 

[frank.brandt]

@Everson Pereira Awesome work. Any plans for a version for pfSense 2.9.0?
Without your kernel driver our Zabbix monitoring of our pfSense instances ram usage is not possible

 

[LnxBil]

The `vtballoon-stats.ko` kernel driver does not report all memory parameters; it returns -1 for several of them. I created a fix for the module and made it available in this repository:

https://github.com/eversonpereira/vtballoon-stats-freebsd-pfsense

Have you tried getting the support upstream into OPNsense or even FreeBSD? That should IMHO be the correct place to put the patch upstream.