UI slower the longer the system uptime

[Todd Nine]

Hi all,
I'm running FreeNAS 9.10-Stable. The root OS is installed on a USB thumbdrive, and I'm running 4 internal 2 TB HDs in an old dell desktop. I use this as my time machine backup for our network, and it works great.

I'm noticing some strange behavior. I leave the system running for at least a month or two between reboots. The longer the system runs, the slower the web UI runs. Hitting the login page and logging in takes around 2-3 minutes after 2 months of uptime. If I reboot the system, the response time is < 1 second. I have a couple of questions.

1) Does something log to the USB thumb drive if the logging configuration has never been changed? I've had 2 of the thumb drives go bad, so I'm wondering if something is constantly writing to them.

2) Are there any other things I can check that would explain the behavior I'm seeing?

Note that if I use another connection medium such as SSH it's incredibly fast. I don't experience any additional latency, regardless of the up time. Also, I have the latest patches installed.

 

[danb35]

Does something log to the USB thumb drive if the logging configuration has never been changed?

Quite possibly. It's not quite clear from the manual, but I think I've heard that the .system dataset is on the boot pool by default. You can follow that link to find and change that setting to your data pool.

 

[Ericloewe]

It's not quite clear from the manual, but I think I've heard that the .system dataset is on the boot pool by default.

I've seen claim before, but I think it's not based on any real facts.

Since some later 9.3 releases, boot pools can accept .system datasets - it's up to the admin to ensure this is not stupid (like placing it on a USB flash drive).

I just checked my backup server, which was first installed with 9.10.1 and is now at 9.10.1-U1. The .system dataset is in the data pool:

Code:

Flexo												   2.63T  7.85T   208K  /mnt/Flexo
Flexo/.system										   5.59M  7.85T   208K  legacy
Flexo/.system/configs-7f4d67ae16c94917b949456bb9f364ad   615K  7.85T   615K  legacy
Flexo/.system/cores									 1.05M  7.85T  1.05M  legacy
Flexo/.system/rrd-7f4d67ae16c94917b949456bb9f364ad	   192K  7.85T   192K  legacy
Flexo/.system/samba4									 400K  7.85T   400K  legacy
Flexo/.system/syslog-7f4d67ae16c94917b949456bb9f364ad   3.15M  7.85T  3.15M  legacy

Note that Flexo is the data pool.

 

[Stux]

The UI can be slow to load after its pages out.

I wrote a script which pages it back in periodically.

Check to see if you have any swap used.

 

[SweetAndLow]

hardware specs?

 

[dlavigne]

I've seen claim before, but I think it's not based on any real facts.

Since some later 9.3 releases, boot pools can accept .system datasets - it's up to the admin to ensure this is not stupid (like placing it on a USB flash drive).

This is true for TrueNAS-only which uses SSD for its boot devices.

 

[danb35]

This is true for TrueNAS-only which uses SSD for its boot devices.

No, FreeNAS definitely allows the .system dataset to be on the boot pool, and for that to be configured at the GUI. I should know, my system is configured that way.

 

[dlavigne]

Sorry for not being clear. It is possible in FreeNAS, but not the default. It is the default in TrueNAS.

 

[danb35]

Got it. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Todd Nine]

So just to follow up, my .system is on the internal raid.

Below are my specs

Build FreeNAS-9.10.1-U1 (ff51a5d)
Platform AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 215 Processor
Memory 3810MB
System Time Thu Oct 06 14:15:28 MST 2016
Uptime 2:15PM up 8 days, 6:12, 0 users
Load Average 0.46, 0.29, 0.26


As you can see, it's by no means huge hardware, but it also should be more than enough to run the web console.

 

[Ericloewe]

Memory 3810MB

Well, that's certainly a problem. With so little RAM, it's no wonder parts of the GUI might be swapped out to disk or unloaded entirely.

 

[SweetAndLow]

So just to follow up, my .system is on the internal raid.

Below are my specs

Build FreeNAS-9.10.1-U1 (ff51a5d)
Platform AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 215 Processor
Memory 3810MB
System Time Thu Oct 06 14:15:28 MST 2016
Uptime 2:15PM up 8 days, 6:12, 0 users
Load Average 0.46, 0.29, 0.26


As you can see, it's by no means huge hardware, but it also should be more than enough to run the web console.

Lol, not even close to enough memory to run freenas. Come back when you have hardware that meets the minimum specs.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk