Network reporting in Freenas 11.2-U3

Huib

Explorer
Joined
Oct 11, 2016
Messages
96
Hi Guys,

Can someone explain the new network reporting graphs or check my findings?
In the new interface I see this reporting graph:
1558437053750.png

Note the marked spike. This is about 5 minutes (checked with cursor) at about 5 Megabytes per second (eyeballing the graph).
That would mean that this transfer (the peek only) should be about 1500 Megabytes (this corresponds with a transfer I did).
However reported total Tx = 315.85 [what unit?]... The graph title is if_octets so that would be 315 * 8 bits = nothing really so that's not it.
The units on the vertical axis is Megabytes so then the total would be 315.85 Megabytes?
However this clearly does not correspond with the area under the graph.

The old interface is showing the following:
1558437444096.png


The same peak is clearly visible, and the numbers seem to be correct (or at least humanly understandable).

Am I misunderstanding the graph? Is it in some unit that I'm unaware of? Or a known bug? (I couldn't find it)

Thanks in advance for the help!
 

Huib

Explorer
Joined
Oct 11, 2016
Messages
96
Hi Guys,

I'm just wandering... was my question so stupid or incomplete that nobody thought it was worth answering? Or does nobody know if this is normal behavior in the new GUI and why? Even if it is the second I would like to file a bug report so your input would be appreciated. And if it is the first, please feel free to burn me.

Thanks!
 

pschatz100

Guru
Joined
Mar 30, 2014
Messages
1,184
The transfer speed graph looks realistic. The new graph is showing megabytes per second whereas the old graph is showing megabits per second.

As for the amount of data transferred: 315.85 megabytes would be equal to 2526 megabits which would approximate to 2.4 Gigabits (there are 1024Mb in one gigabit.) Therefore, I think the values in the old and new GUI's are consistent. I can't explain the other values.

Both Byte and Octet currently represent eight bits. The term Octet is somtimes used instead of Byte in technical applications where there may be an ambiguity about the size of the byte due to historical reasons (legacy systems sometimes used Byte to represent bits strings of different sizes ranging from 4 to10 bits). It is not as common these days, but is technically correct.

Edit: Corrected typo... 315.85 megabytes would be equal to 2526 megabits which would approximate to 2.4 Gigabits
 
Last edited:

Huib

Explorer
Joined
Oct 11, 2016
Messages
96
As for the amount of data transferred: 315.85 megabytes would be equal to 2526 megabits which would approximate to 2.4 Gigabytes (there are 1024MB in one gigabyte.)
Wouldn't 2526 magabits equal 2568/8 =315 megabytes, 315 / 1024 megabyte per gigabyte= 0.31 gigabytes?

To me it looks like you are converting megabits to gigabytes using 1024 Megabits per gigabyte and I beleave this is of by a factor of 8. Or is this precisely the mistake I'm making? This factor of 8 would also roughly explain the difference with the know amount of data I transfered

Thanks for taking the time to reply. It's appreciated
 

pschatz100

Guru
Joined
Mar 30, 2014
Messages
1,184
Wouldn't 2526 magabits equal 2568/8 =315 megabytes, 315 / 1024 megabyte per gigabyte= 0.31 gigabytes?

To me it looks like you are converting megabits to gigabytes using 1024 Megabits per gigabyte and I beleave this is of by a factor of 8. Or is this precisely the mistake I'm making? This factor of 8 would also roughly explain the difference with the know amount of data I transfered

Thanks for taking the time to reply. It's appreciated
You caught a typo in my reply, which I will go back and correct: 315.85 megabytes would be equal to 2526 megabits which would approximate to 2.4 Gigabits.

The reported TX values in the new GUI should probably show as Min: 0 Max: 7.2M Avg: 0.88M Total: 315.85M.

The labels in the display could be a little more clear.
 

c32767a

Patron
Joined
Dec 13, 2012
Messages
371
One other thing to consider is that the underlying storage FreeNAS is using to store that data (rrdtool) utilizes a 5 minute average for the sample size. So there may be some skew depending on when the samples were taken vs when you did your transfer.
 

Huib

Explorer
Joined
Oct 11, 2016
Messages
96
Sorry for the delay.
Freenas stopped reporting out right (for everything) and I had to wait for a convenient moment to restart.

I've done some further testing and I'm finding some really weird stuff.
1) My primairy nic is igb0 accoriding to my dashboard. Hereunder you can see how I'm transferring 94.4 Gigabyte at 113 MB/s and my dashboard is reporting about 0.22 MB/s (MegaBytes). Note the IP of the primary nic ends with .120. This is the IP address that is accessible over the network and assigned to \\freenas in our name server. So I would indeed call this the default nic. This is a transfer from freenas to my local workstation (so over the lan)
Dashboard during transfer.PNG


2) In network summary you can see the same:
1559123384640.png

Note that igb1 has a IP ending on 108. This IP is not accessible over our network at all. We can't even ping it.

However, the trafic shows up on igb1
1559123461727.png

It should be noted that the total Tx should be around 94 Gigabytes by now. However it reports 8509 Megabytes = 8509/1024 = 8.3 Gigabytes. That's still way off, even with this 94 GB transfer, so I don't believe this is due to average polling over a 5 minute period as
c32767a suggested. At the end of the transfer the total was registered as 10208 Megabytes. This is 9.97 so off by a factor of almost 10 considering the known amount of data I transferred.
1559124951051.png


igb0 (primary) is not recording a significant amount of trafic.
1559123683533.png


So in short I now have two questions / remarks
1) I'm am convinced that the Total values for Tx and Rx are totally out of the ballpark.
2) I'm thoroughly confused as to why my traffic is reported on a nic with an IP address that can not even be pinged from the network while the primary nic that has an IP that CAN be pinged and opened over the network has hardly any traffic registered.

Hoping to hear suggestions. Otherwise I will upgrade freenas, do the test again and file a bug report if the results are similar.
If someone wants to run a similar test that would be helpfull.

Tanks for your efforts in advance!
 

Huib

Explorer
Joined
Oct 11, 2016
Messages
96
I found something new.
Under networking / interfaces no interfaces where defined (despite of this all was working properly)
After defining ibg0 with dhcp (even if it has a static address in our router) the traffic is shown on the primary nic in both the dashboard as in network reporting.

The total amount of traffic is still incorrect though.
 

pschatz100

Guru
Joined
Mar 30, 2014
Messages
1,184
It looks like there may be an issue with your networking set up. Are you using two network interfaces for your system? Why do you have both an igb0 and igb1 defined? The numbers in your first post looked reasonable. What did you do since then?

I don't see any indication as to what version of FreeNAS you are running. Also, are you running any jails? If yes, what happens when the jails are stopped?
 

Huib

Explorer
Joined
Oct 11, 2016
Messages
96
Are you using two network interfaces for your system? Why do you have both an igb0 and igb1 defined?

Thank you so much for your time.

It looks like two ports are phisically connected. That's why I probably got the two nic's and ip's in Network Summary.
However now it looks like this (so just one defined. Previously I had NONE defined):

Interfaces:
1559130144231.png


Network summary:
1559130167579.png

As you can see igb1 has disappeared (it used to be there with ip .108)

The numbers in your first post looked reasonable.
I don't think so. You in the end concluded that Tx total 315 Megabytes. But in my first test I transfered about 1.5 Gigabytes. However the interface ibg0 was not added in the configuration tab at that moment. So this could have been the cause.

I don't see any indication as to what version of FreeNAS you are running.
It's in the title of the post: 11.2-U3 (I probably also would have missed that).

Also, are you running any jails? If yes, what happens when the jails are stopped?
Yes. OpenVPN and clonedeploy.
I've disabled them and both on dashboard and network reporting the speed is indicated correctly during the transfer of the known 94.4 GB dataset
1559130796371.png


1559131026993.png


However the total is still not correct.
1559131687431.png

The area under the graph shows the correct data size (15 minutes at 116 MB/s = 15*60*116 = 104,400 MB = 102 GB) with network overhead and rounding this corresponds 'close enough' to the 94.4 GB dataset. However Tx total is one tenth of that.
No other network interfaces show any traffic.

That is exactly the same result I got after I added igb0 in interfaces but before I disabled the jails.
So jails don't seem to make a difference.

Please note that freenas is serving me well, but if this is really a bug I want to do my part in improving freenas by reporting it.
So thank you for helping to eradicate user error!
 
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