Slow Ubuntu 16.04.1 installation

[ParDonny]

Hi,

Im currently working on my new home server. My old server ran on VMware and I was kinda fed up with needing a Windows client in order to manage Linux. I'm using Proxmox now for one day and must say, I'm quit pleased with it. However, I do run into some trouble now which I can't seem to figure out and hope someone can help me.

Server Setup:
Intel Pentium G4400 - 3.3GHz
8GB Ram
3x 3TB WD Red
1x Kingston SSD (120GB)
1x Sandisk Extreme USB stick 32GB

- Proxmox is installed on the USB stick.
- 1 VM installed with Freenas and added the WD disk + SSD disk to Freenas
- Setup Freenas: Raidz1 + SSD caching disk. Made NFS shares on the disks and added the NFS shares to Proxmox as storage. These contain currently of VM share and ISO share.

When installing Freenas I had no problems. The machine was installed within 5 minutes without any problem. However, I'm now installing my first Ubuntu server and the complete installation takes about 1 hour which is not what I'm used to. Usually an Ubuntu server installation takes me about 10-15 mins. The installation seems to hang multiple times. After installation however the Ubuntu VM boots within 10 seconds.

I tried multiple disk options ( Sata, virto, IDE ) and multiple CPU options (KVM, qume64 ) and none realy speed up the installation. Also tried multiple storage options, tried to put the .iso on local storage, put the .iso on the NFS share, placed the VM on local storage and placed the VM on the NFS storage, none seem to help. RAM and CPU also do not seem to be the problem, not for the Host nor the VM ( See screenshots)

I've added multiple screenshots from my settings, hope this helps the story. If something is unclear or someone needs more specific information please ask. I realy want this to be solved!

Kind regards,
ParDonny

 

[udo]

Hi,
pve installed on an usb-stick is IMHO not the best option (lifetime and performance).
Why not zfs-raid with the 3 hdd + ssd-cache. I think you would get much better IO for your VMs.

To see, if the virtual freenas is the bottleneck: Has you defined the SSD as local storage on the pve-host? Than you can install ubuntu there and see the different.

Your bios-settings for the sata-drives is right (ahci instead of ide)?

Udo

 

[ParDonny]

Thank you for your reply.

I do have a ZFS Raidz1 with the three disks and the ssd as cache, how ever, this is done within the Freenas VM. Not directly on the pve-host. I really like the usability of Freenas for ZFS, NFS, Users and Groups.

The Bios settings are at ahci, so this is not the problem.

For testing purposes I did as you suggested. I just removed the SSD as caching disk from my Freenas raidz1 and added this directly as local storage to my pve-host via LVM. I tried to do the Ubuntu installation on the local storage SSD and now the installation complete's within the regular 15 mins. So the Freenas VM is the bottleneck. Not sure where to start troubleshooting now though. Realy like to keep using Freenas. Any options as where to start?

Kind regards.

 

[lilCDNnrg]

How much ram does the freenas VM have?

 

[ParDonny]

Thank you for your reply. I should have stated this before but the FreeNas VM currently has 6gb or RAM. I know this is under the recommended minimum however, if I look at the stats of the FreeNas VM ( see screenshot) during the installation RAM does not seem to be a problem. Also seen stories of people having a 1GBS troughput while their Freenas has 4gb of RAM. ( See fifth and sixth comment: http://churnd.net/2014/03/30/all-in-one-redux-proxmox-and-freenas/)

If I rsync a file form the freshly installed Ubuntu (VM running on Proxmox, installed on the LVM SSD) to a NFS share on the Freenas, i get the following speeds:

ubuntu:~$ sudo mount -o rw -t nfs 192.168.178.111:/mnt/ZFS-POOL01/ISO /data/

ubuntu:~$ fallocate -l 5G test.img

ubuntu:~$ rsync -a --progress --stats --human-readable test.img  /data/
sending incremental file list
test.img
          5.37G 100%  147.39MB/s    0:00:34 (xfr#1, to-chk=0/1)

Number of files: 1 (reg: 1)
Number of created files: 1 (reg: 1)
Number of deleted files: 0
Number of regular files transferred: 1
Total file size: 5.37G bytes
Total transferred file size: 5.37G bytes
Literal data: 5.37G bytes
Matched data: 0 bytes
File list size: 0
File list generation time: 0.001 seconds
File list transfer time: 0.000 seconds
Total bytes sent: 5.37G
Total bytes received: 35

sent 5.37G bytes  received 35 bytes  151.27M bytes/sec
total size is 5.37G  speedup is 1.00

147MB p/sec doesn't realy seem like a problem for installing Ubuntu tbh. Seems allright judging the NFS share is hosted on a WD Red. During the rsync I also do not see any significant change in RAM speeds. Any clue what more I could investigate?

Kind regards.