Fortigate 80C memory usage with FortiOS 5.2.x

[MarkusM]

Hi,

we have a few 80C running now on FortiOS 5.2.x. On many of them we are running into out-of-memory situations (conserve mode, AV connection limit) with rather small configuration and typical about 10 users / PCs.

Although upgrading the hardware maybe considered later, for now we cannot upgrade all the units better hardware.

So just after a reboot the memory usage is like this:

   CPU [|||||||||||                             ]  28.0%    Mem [|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||           ]  73.0%   365M/499M    Processes: 20 (running=1 sleeping=82)    PID      RSS   CPU% ^MEM%   FDS     TIME+  NAME  * 249      54M    0.8 10.9    27  00:36.95  ipsmonitor [x3]    53       42M    0.0  8.5    13  00:15.20  pyfcgid [x4]    84       34M   21.5  6.9    15  03:54.83  sshd [x4]    52       28M    0.0  5.8    19  00:47.26  httpsd [x5]    32       20M    0.0  4.1    13  00:15.95  cmdbsvr    50       16M    0.0  3.3    28  00:01.57  miglogd    61       16M    0.0  3.2    19  00:08.20  ipshelper    67       14M    0.0  2.9   838  00:34.20  proxyd [x6]    64       14M    0.0  2.8    40  00:15.61  authd    94       12M    0.0  2.4    16  00:00.50  fgfmd    95       11M    0.0  2.4    25  00:00.48  cw_acd    70       11M    0.0  2.3    28  00:08.98  scanunitd [x3]    37       10M    0.8  2.1    89  00:13.21  zebos_launcher [x12]    82        9M    0.0  1.9    20  00:01.86  urlfilter    91        9M    0.0  1.8    29  00:01.27  dnsproxy    71        9M    0.0  1.8    11  00:00.45  updated    63        8M    0.0  1.8    14  00:00.38  forticldd    62        8M    0.0  1.8    19  00:00.20  forticron    69        8M    0.0  1.7    41  00:00.61  wad [x2]    59        8M    0.0  1.7    13  00:00.10  fnbamd

In none of the policies IPS is used, AV is currently set to inspect "nothing". Is there any way to reduce the memory used by the "ipsmonitor" process? I already tried setting the algorithm to "low", but it has no effect on the mem usage:

(global) # show ips global config ips global     set algorithm low     set default-app-cat-mask 18446744073474670591 end

Regards

Markus

[ede_pfau]

We're running v5.2.3 on a 80C rev. 2 with 1 GB RAM, with IPS and AV, at 67% mem usage. So, I'd conclude you either upgrade the hardware or downgrade to v5.0.

[Dave_Hall]

Last February we conducted our own assessment on the 80CMs (rev1) under 5.0, 5.2 and (even following Fortinet's optimizing guide) were not happy with the memory footprint.   The 80CM with a factory config under the three firmwares, the memory usage looks like this:

4.3 MR3 patch 18    23% 5.0 patch 10        39% 5.2.2            42%

With our base (template) config on 5.0.  the memory usage went up to 62-66%.   There was not that much a difference in tweaking the settings, except for changing the cache size for virus scanning compressed files/archives; standard default cache size is 10 MB -- changing this value to say 2 MB would give the 80CM about 8-10 MB more memory.

Based on the above, we have decided to keep our 80CMs on 4.3. MR3 firmware and look towards replacing them with 92D hardware.

[Allwyn_Mascarenhas]

HI

I just upgraded to 5.2.3 on FGT 80C and facing this problem.

No matter how much I optimize the settings, the memory usage won't go below 70%. It even goes up to 80% at times.

The client was facing issues with slow internet speeds, files not downloading, attachments not downloading etc.

I just upgraded thinking upgraded firmware optimizes the memory etc on devices and for the better GUI experience. Is that line of thinking just wrong?

So should I flash the device to go back to FortiOS 4.0 MR P18?

I've never downgraded a firmware before.