I’ve started encountering a problem that I should use some assistance troubleshooting. I’ve got a Proxmox system that hosts, primarily, my Opnsense router. I’ve had this specific setup for about a year.

Recently, I’ve been experiencing sluggishness and noticed that the IO wait is through the roof. Rebooting the Opnsense VM, which normally only takes a few minutes is now taking upwards of 15-20. The entire time my IO wait sits between 50-80%.

The system has 1 disk in it that is formatted ZFS. I’ve checked dmesg, and the syslog for indications of disk errors (this feels like a failing disk) and found none. I also checked the smart statistics and they all “PASSED”.

Any pointers would be appreciated.

Example of my most recent host reboot.

Edit: I believe I’ve found the root cause of the change in performance and it was a bit of shooting myself in the foot. I’ve been experimenting with different tools for log collection and the most recent one is a SIEM tool called Wazuh. I didn’t realize that upon reboot it runs an integrity check that generates a ton of disk I/O. So when I rebooted this proxmox server, that integrity check was running on proxmox, my pihole, and (I think) opnsense concurrently. All against a single consumer grade HDD.

Thanks to everyone who responded. I really appreciate all the performance tuning guidance. I’ve also made the following changes:

  1. Added a 2nd drive (I have several of these lying around, don’t ask) converting the zfs pool into a mirror. This gives me both redundancy and should improve read performance.
  2. Configured a 2nd storage target on the same zpool with compression enabled and a 64k block size in proxmox. I then migrated the 2 VMs to that storage.
  3. Since I’m collecting logs in Wazuh I set Opnsense to use ram disks for /tmp and /var/log.

Rebooted Opensense and it was back up in 1:42 min.

    • Pyrosis@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      6 months ago

      Upgrading a ZFS pool itself shouldn’t make a system unbootable even if an rpool (root pool) exists on it.

      That could only happen if the upgrade took a shit during a power outage or something like that. The upgrade itself usually only takes a few seconds from the command line.

      If it makes you feel better I upgraded mine with an rpool on it and it was painless. I do have a everything backed up tho so I rarely worry. However ai understand being hesitant.

      • I’m referring to this.

        … using grub to directly boot from ZFS - such setups are in general not safe to run zpool upgrade on!

        $ sudo proxmox-boot-tool status
        Re-executing '/usr/sbin/proxmox-boot-tool' in new private mount namespace..
        System currently booted with legacy bios
        8357-FBD5 is configured with: grub (versions: 6.5.11-7-pve, 6.5.13-5-pve, 6.8.4-2-pve)
        

        Unless I’m misunderstanding the guidance.

        • Pyrosis@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          6 months ago

          It looks like you are using legacy bios. mine is using uefi with a zfs rpool

          proxmox-boot-tool status
          Re-executing '/usr/sbin/proxmox-boot-tool' in new private mount namespace..
          System currently booted with uefi
          31FA-87E2 is configured with: uefi (versions: 6.5.11-8-pve, 6.5.13-5-pve)
          

          However, like with everything a method always exists to get it done. Or not if you are concerned.

          If you are interested it would look like…

          Pool Upgrade

          sudo zpool upgrade <pool_name>
          

          Confirm Upgrade

          sudo zpool status
          
          

          Refresh boot config

          sudo pveboot-tool refresh
          
          

          Confirm Boot configuration

          cat /boot/grub/grub.cfg
          

          You are looking for directives like this to see if they are indeed pointing at your existing rpool

          root=ZFS=rpool/ROOT/pve-1 boot=zfs quiet
          

          here is my file if it helps you compare…

          #
          # DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
          #
          # It is automatically generated by grub-mkconfig using templates
          # from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
          #
          
          ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/000_proxmox_boot_header ###
          #
          # This system is booted via proxmox-boot-tool! The grub-config used when
          # booting from the disks configured with proxmox-boot-tool resides on the vfat
          # partitions with UUIDs listed in /etc/kernel/proxmox-boot-uuids.
          # /boot/grub/grub.cfg is NOT read when booting from those disk!
          ### END /etc/grub.d/000_proxmox_boot_header ###
          
          ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
          if [ -s $prefix/grubenv ]; then
            set have_grubenv=true
            load_env
          fi
          if [ "${next_entry}" ] ; then
             set default="${next_entry}"
             set next_entry=
             save_env next_entry
             set boot_once=true
          else
             set default="0"
          fi
          
          if [ x"${feature_menuentry_id}" = xy ]; then
            menuentry_id_option="--id"
          else
            menuentry_id_option=""
          fi
          
          export menuentry_id_option
          
          if [ "${prev_saved_entry}" ]; then
            set saved_entry="${prev_saved_entry}"
            save_env saved_entry
            set prev_saved_entry=
            save_env prev_saved_entry
            set boot_once=true
          fi
          
          function savedefault {
            if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then
              saved_entry="${chosen}"
              save_env saved_entry
            fi
          }
          function load_video {
            if [ x$feature_all_video_module = xy ]; then
              insmod all_video
            else
              insmod efi_gop
              insmod efi_uga
              insmod ieee1275_fb
              insmod vbe
              insmod vga
              insmod video_bochs
              insmod video_cirrus
            fi
          }
          
          if loadfont unicode ; then
            set gfxmode=auto
            load_video
            insmod gfxterm
            set locale_dir=$prefix/locale
            set lang=en_US
            insmod gettext
          fi
          terminal_output gfxterm
          if [ "${recordfail}" = 1 ] ; then
            set timeout=30
          else
            if [ x$feature_timeout_style = xy ] ; then
              set timeout_style=menu
              set timeout=5
            # Fallback normal timeout code in case the timeout_style feature is
            # unavailable.
            else
              set timeout=5
            fi
          fi
          ### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
          
          ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###
          set menu_color_normal=cyan/blue
          set menu_color_highlight=white/blue
          ### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###
          
          ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
          function gfxmode {
                  set gfxpayload="${1}"
          }
          set linux_gfx_mode=
          export linux_gfx_mode
          menuentry 'Proxmox VE GNU/Linux' --class proxmox --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-simple-/dev/sdc3' {
                  load_video
                  insmod gzio
                  if [ x$grub_platform = xxen ]; then insmod xzio; insmod lzopio; fi
                  insmod part_gpt
                  echo    'Loading Linux 6.5.13-5-pve ...'
                  linux   /ROOT/pve-1@/boot/vmlinuz-6.5.13-5-pve root=ZFS=/ROOT/pve-1 ro       root=ZFS=rpool/ROOT/pve-1 boot=zfs quiet
                  echo    'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
                  initrd  /ROOT/pve-1@/boot/initrd.img-6.5.13-5-pve
          }
          submenu 'Advanced options for Proxmox VE GNU/Linux' $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-advanced-/dev/sdc3' {
                  menuentry 'Proxmox VE GNU/Linux, with Linux 6.5.13-5-pve' --class proxmox --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-6.5.13-5-pve-advanced-/dev/sdc3' {
                          load_video
                          insmod gzio
                          if [ x$grub_platform = xxen ]; then insmod xzio; insmod lzopio; fi
                          insmod part_gpt
                          echo    'Loading Linux 6.5.13-5-pve ...'
                          linux   /ROOT/pve-1@/boot/vmlinuz-6.5.13-5-pve root=ZFS=/ROOT/pve-1 ro       root=ZFS=rpool/ROOT/pve-1 boot=zfs quiet
                          echo    'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
                          initrd  /ROOT/pve-1@/boot/initrd.img-6.5.13-5-pve
                  }
                  menuentry 'Proxmox VE GNU/Linux, with Linux 6.5.13-5-pve (recovery mode)' --class proxmox --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-6.5.13-5-pve-recovery-/dev/sdc3' {
                          load_video
                          insmod gzio
                          if [ x$grub_platform = xxen ]; then insmod xzio; insmod lzopio; fi
                          insmod part_gpt
                          echo    'Loading Linux 6.5.13-5-pve ...'
                          linux   /ROOT/pve-1@/boot/vmlinuz-6.5.13-5-pve root=ZFS=/ROOT/pve-1 ro single       root=ZFS=rpool/ROOT/pve-1 boot=zfs
                          echo    'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
                          initrd  /ROOT/pve-1@/boot/initrd.img-6.5.13-5-pve
                  }
                  menuentry 'Proxmox VE GNU/Linux, with Linux 6.5.11-8-pve' --class proxmox --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-6.5.11-8-pve-advanced-/dev/sdc3' {
                          load_video
                          insmod gzio
                          if [ x$grub_platform = xxen ]; then insmod xzio; insmod lzopio; fi
                          insmod part_gpt
                          echo    'Loading Linux 6.5.11-8-pve ...'
                          linux   /ROOT/pve-1@/boot/vmlinuz-6.5.11-8-pve root=ZFS=/ROOT/pve-1 ro       root=ZFS=rpool/ROOT/pve-1 boot=zfs quiet
                          echo    'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
                          initrd  /ROOT/pve-1@/boot/initrd.img-6.5.11-8-pve
                  }
                  menuentry 'Proxmox VE GNU/Linux, with Linux 6.5.11-8-pve (recovery mode)' --class proxmox --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-6.5.11-8-pve-recovery-/dev/sdc3' {
                          load_video
                          insmod gzio
                          if [ x$grub_platform = xxen ]; then insmod xzio; insmod lzopio; fi
                          insmod part_gpt
                          echo    'Loading Linux 6.5.11-8-pve ...'
                          linux   /ROOT/pve-1@/boot/vmlinuz-6.5.11-8-pve root=ZFS=/ROOT/pve-1 ro single       root=ZFS=rpool/ROOT/pve-1 boot=zfs
                          echo    'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
                          initrd  /ROOT/pve-1@/boot/initrd.img-6.5.11-8-pve
                  }
          }
          
          ### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
          
          ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ###
          
          ### END /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ###
          
          ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ###
          ### END /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ###
          
          ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
          ### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
          
          ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_uefi-firmware ###
          menuentry 'UEFI Firmware Settings' $menuentry_id_option 'uefi-firmware' {
                  fwsetup
          }
          ### END /etc/grub.d/30_uefi-firmware ###
          
          ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
          # This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply type the
          # menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to change
          # the 'exec tail' line above.
          ### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
          
          ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/41_custom ###
          if [ -f  ${config_directory}/custom.cfg ]; then
            source ${config_directory}/custom.cfg
          elif [ -z "${config_directory}" -a -f  $prefix/custom.cfg ]; then
            source $prefix/custom.cfg
          fi
          ### END /etc/grub.d/41_custom ###
          

          You can see the lines by the linux sections.