Virtualizor high memory usage

tester4 · January 2020

Hey guys,

I've emailed Virtualizor support before the pitchforks have been taken out but just wanted to ask for the experience of other Virtualizor users. I have a hypervisor with 3 VM's on it using a total assignment of 16GB. The machine has 32GB of memory and is somehow using 30.5GB so 15GB more than it should be. Cache usage is only 1GB and I can't see anything in top to show any additional memory usage.

I'm fairly certain it's related to memory ballooning as the actual VM processes aren't scaling back memory usage as inside VM memory usage drops, it's keeping them at 100% assigned memory usage but thought I'd ask for advice anywho.

Any particular ideas as to what would cause this?

Thanks

InceptionHosting · January 2020

I have seen this happen over and over again with virtualizor, its like it does not release the ram when a vps is shut down from the virtualizor web ui, frankly that whole product is such a f'ing mess at this point and the devs are literally blind the issues and the reality, I have just given up.

I have been decommissioning virtualizor nodes and my last one will be gone in a month.

Do yourself a HUGE favor and don't get tied in it will be much less painful in the long run.

tester4 · January 2020

Unfortunately I'm kind of tied into Virtualizor, I have a custom build that let's me use fstrim (so I can keep my qcow2 files small rather than forever growing). Don't know of any other product that yet can do this

I tried Proxmox but it just flat out didn't work on software raid 0 (it doesn't support software raid).

InceptionHosting · January 2020

A simple 10 line bash script can do that for you nightly, also even solusvm now supports file based disk images and auto trims them on reboot now.

ionswitch_stan · January 2020

@tester4

Post ps -aux and free -m and virsh domstats and virsh dominfo <id> for each machine in virsh list.

tester4 · January 2020

@ionswitch_stan said:
@tester4

Post ps -aux and free -m and virsh domstats and virsh dominfo <id> for each machine in virsh list.

Find a pastebin below, used a better ps command to list processes based on usage.

https://pastebin.com/a8218e6u

MikePT · January 2020

@tester4 said:
Hey guys,

I've emailed Virtualizor support before the pitchforks have been taken out but just wanted to ask for the experience of other Virtualizor users. I have a hypervisor with 3 VM's on it using a total assignment of 16GB. The machine has 32GB of memory and is somehow using 30.5GB so 15GB more than it should be. Cache usage is only 1GB and I can't see anything in top to show any additional memory usage.

I'm fairly certain it's related to memory ballooning as the actual VM processes aren't scaling back memory usage as inside VM memory usage drops, it's keeping them at 100% assigned memory usage but thought I'd ask for advice anywho.

Any particular ideas as to what would cause this?

Thanks

Experienced this with a client of ours.
Basically it often fails to load the flag for balloon.
Note: the os needs to have the drivers installed or else it wont balloon.

What I did to fix this was to add a ballon line in the kvm config files to sort it. Can't remember the exact config but I may check it tomorrow if needed.
Instead of adding the flag to the qemu, just add it to the config and qemu will start it accordingly.

As for Virtualizor, I seriously do not recommend any provider to use it.

Note, if you had deployed 16GB of RAM to VMs you need to see which process is consuming it, track it and investigate.

cybertech · January 2020

@MikePT said:

@tester4 said:
Hey guys,

I've emailed Virtualizor support before the pitchforks have been taken out but just wanted to ask for the experience of other Virtualizor users. I have a hypervisor with 3 VM's on it using a total assignment of 16GB. The machine has 32GB of memory and is somehow using 30.5GB so 15GB more than it should be. Cache usage is only 1GB and I can't see anything in top to show any additional memory usage.

I'm fairly certain it's related to memory ballooning as the actual VM processes aren't scaling back memory usage as inside VM memory usage drops, it's keeping them at 100% assigned memory usage but thought I'd ask for advice anywho.

Any particular ideas as to what would cause this?

Thanks

Experienced this with a client of ours.
Basically it often fails to load the flag for balloon.
Note: the os needs to have the drivers installed or else it wont balloon.

What I did to fix this was to add a ballon line in the kvm config files to sort it. Can't remember the exact config but I may check it tomorrow if needed.
Instead of adding the flag to the qemu, just add it to the config and qemu will start it accordingly.

As for Virtualizor, I seriously do not recommend any provider to use it.

Note, if you had deployed 16GB of RAM to VMs you need to see which process is consuming it, track it and investigate.

Virtualizor is nice and feature packed though. So still solusvm?

MikePT · January 2020

@cybertech said:

@MikePT said:

@tester4 said:
Hey guys,

I've emailed Virtualizor support before the pitchforks have been taken out but just wanted to ask for the experience of other Virtualizor users. I have a hypervisor with 3 VM's on it using a total assignment of 16GB. The machine has 32GB of memory and is somehow using 30.5GB so 15GB more than it should be. Cache usage is only 1GB and I can't see anything in top to show any additional memory usage.

I'm fairly certain it's related to memory ballooning as the actual VM processes aren't scaling back memory usage as inside VM memory usage drops, it's keeping them at 100% assigned memory usage but thought I'd ask for advice anywho.

Any particular ideas as to what would cause this?

Thanks

Experienced this with a client of ours.
Basically it often fails to load the flag for balloon.
Note: the os needs to have the drivers installed or else it wont balloon.

What I did to fix this was to add a ballon line in the kvm config files to sort it. Can't remember the exact config but I may check it tomorrow if needed.
Instead of adding the flag to the qemu, just add it to the config and qemu will start it accordingly.

As for Virtualizor, I seriously do not recommend any provider to use it.

Note, if you had deployed 16GB of RAM to VMs you need to see which process is consuming it, track it and investigate.

Virtualizor is nice and feature packed though. So still solusvm?

Yeah Virtualizor has a bunch of bugged features.

SolusVM for sure.

imok · January 2020

@tester4 said: I tried Proxmox but it just flat out didn't work on software raid 0 (it doesn't support software raid).

Weird. I have been using Proxmox only with software RAID.

InceptionHosting · January 2020

SolusVM is at the point of being stable but annoying, it lacks some features but the issues it has are small and manageable and well documented.

Virtualizor is like a naughty child, it thinks it can do everything and has the potential to ruin your day every single day.

tester4 · January 2020

@MikePT said:

@tester4 said:
Hey guys,

I've emailed Virtualizor support before the pitchforks have been taken out but just wanted to ask for the experience of other Virtualizor users. I have a hypervisor with 3 VM's on it using a total assignment of 16GB. The machine has 32GB of memory and is somehow using 30.5GB so 15GB more than it should be. Cache usage is only 1GB and I can't see anything in top to show any additional memory usage.

I'm fairly certain it's related to memory ballooning as the actual VM processes aren't scaling back memory usage as inside VM memory usage drops, it's keeping them at 100% assigned memory usage but thought I'd ask for advice anywho.

Any particular ideas as to what would cause this?

Thanks

Experienced this with a client of ours.
Basically it often fails to load the flag for balloon.
Note: the os needs to have the drivers installed or else it wont balloon.

What I did to fix this was to add a ballon line in the kvm config files to sort it. Can't remember the exact config but I may check it tomorrow if needed.
Instead of adding the flag to the qemu, just add it to the config and qemu will start it accordingly.

As for Virtualizor, I seriously do not recommend any provider to use it.

Note, if you had deployed 16GB of RAM to VMs you need to see which process is consuming it, track it and investigate.

If you could check it'd be appreciated - also any particular way to install the balloon drivers?

tester4 · January 2020

@imok said:

@tester4 said: I tried Proxmox but it just flat out didn't work on software raid 0 (it doesn't support software raid).

Weird. I have been using Proxmox only with software RAID.

It worked for me but using SCSI (for fstrim) - it just wouldn't cut back the qcow2 file sizes unfortunately. Only thing I could think of is the fact I was using mdadm which Proxmox doesn't support.

tester4 · February 2020

I've decided that Virtualizor is getting yeeted, do you have any recommendations for a personal VM platform that supports software RAID 0 and fstrim? @AnthonySmith

I don't actually use Virtualizor to sell VPS, was just the best thing at the time for the price.

InceptionHosting · February 2020

@tester4 said:
I've decided that Virtualizor is getting yeeted, do you have any recommendations for a personal VM platform that supports software RAID 0 and fstrim? @AnthonySmith

I don't actually use Virtualizor to sell VPS, was just the best thing at the time for the price.

Well, I think the issue is that your are putting a barrier in front of yourself by using software raid as ESX or proxmox would have been ideal, so your options are:

Solusvm + Thin disk provisioning : https://documentation.solusvm.com/display/DOCS/File+based+disks+-+thin+provisioning

Or the panel that @ReadyDedis made.

But in your situation unless you are talking about hundreds of VM's tbh I would just just native KVM and virsh.

tester4 · February 2020

It's 4 VM's in total and I have been looking at native KVM and virsh but I can't find anywhere that automatic ballooning was actually implemented into it? I'm probably wrong.

InceptionHosting · February 2020

@tester4 said:
It's 4 VM's in total and I have been looking at native KVM and virsh but I can't find anywhere that automatic ballooning was actually implemented into it? I'm probably wrong.

https://pmhahn.github.io/virtio-balloon/

Its not automatic but frankly for 4 VM's its a complete waste of money to pay for a panel just for that.

tester4 · February 2020

@AnthonySmith said:

@tester4 said:
It's 4 VM's in total and I have been looking at native KVM and virsh but I can't find anywhere that automatic ballooning was actually implemented into it? I'm probably wrong.

https://pmhahn.github.io/virtio-balloon/

Its not automatic but frankly for 4 VM's its a complete waste of money to pay for a panel just for that.

Thanks for that, I'll take a look. Do you think if I delete the Virtualizor stuff and leave virsh itself, that I can continue? Would be nice to not have to reinstall etc

InceptionHosting · February 2020

@tester4 said:

@AnthonySmith said:

@tester4 said:
It's 4 VM's in total and I have been looking at native KVM and virsh but I can't find anywhere that automatic ballooning was actually implemented into it? I'm probably wrong.

https://pmhahn.github.io/virtio-balloon/

Its not automatic but frankly for 4 VM's its a complete waste of money to pay for a panel just for that.

Thanks for that, I'll take a look. Do you think if I delete the Virtualizor stuff and leave virsh itself, that I can continue? Would be nice to not have to reinstall etc

Totally possible yes, just put some effort in to removing virtualizor fully and properly.

lentro · February 2020

@seriesn have you ever had any of these issues? Why are you using virtualizor when the general consensus seems to be that it is bad?

vyas · February 2020

I had my series of issues with Virtualizor. I was unable to log on to NoVNC- Turns our it was a Virtualizor bug/ memory issue. Happened with three providers.
https://img.gaatha.co/fAFaAu

ionswitch_stan · February 2020

@vyas said: . I was unable to log on to NoVNC- Turns our it was a Virtualizor bug/ memory issue

We have a daemon that we run on each virtualizor host that addresses ~6 bugs, NoVNC was one of them at one point... I haven't looked to see if we still see issues with it lately.

seriesn · February 2020

@lentro said:
@seriesn have you ever had any of these issues? Why are you using virtualizor when the general consensus seems to be that it is bad?

Is it an okay panel? Yes. Is it that bad? Nah. Not really. Not Atleast for my usage. I have been actively using virtualizor for almost 4 years at this point and they have gotten better. Plus I have done some additional customizations. Nothing to the level of Stallion. But myManagementPanel is pretty healthy

Honestly, I had my fair share of issues. But nothing drastic to a point where it had crazy impact on things. While their Helpdesk has always been slow (I am guessing only admins and dev team has access there), their live and Skype support has been super helpful. Specially if you catch Arbaaz.

Also, please be aware that, my setup and usage requirement is very different than many. Which might also impact the overall experience?

Yes, it does leave room for desire. But, at the very least, I don’t foresee a stupid price hike tomorrow.

There aren’t many option out there to be quiet frank.

SolusVM = Dated. Steady. Winter is coming.

Virtualizor = New kid around the block, trying hard. Comes with its own set of goods and bad. Their coding, at times, has been questionable. But, softaculous has been long enough with out any drama

Proxmox = Not touching modules gardens module. Nope to the f no.

Not ready for openstack yet.

There is also vmManager or something like that, which is , meh.

So there’s your answer.

I have a married relationship with virtualizor. We fight here and there but most of the time, we are happy and happily coexist.

WSS · February 2020

Openstack is megasperg. @Clouvider
Virtualizor is the horny teenager. @seriesn
SolusVM eats paint chips. @Janevski

lentro · February 2020

@seriesn said: Proxmox = Not touching modules gardens module. Nope to the f no.

Thanks for your response.
Not too related, but were they hacked or something like that?

seriesn · February 2020

@lentro said:

@seriesn said: Proxmox = Not touching modules gardens module. Nope to the f no.

Thanks for your response.
Not too related, but were they hacked or something like that?

Not that I am aware off. But some of their coding technique, to put it the best way, not kosher.

WSS · February 2020

@seriesn said:
Not that I am aware off. But some of their coding technique, to put it the best way, not kosher.

Virtualizor high memory usage

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