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
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    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
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        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.