On 2025/12/31 13:28, Darren Tucker wrote: > On Tue, 30 Dec 2025 at 15:04, <[email protected]> wrote: > > [...] > The hardware platform is a APU2 from PCEngines using the em driver. > [...] > The sluggishness gets so bad on the apu2 router that it takes > several seconds just printing the output of ifconfig over ssh. > > > Sounds like the APU2 is maxed out on CPU. If you have not already, try > installing the latest > BIOS and make sure the "Core Performance Boost" setting is enabled, which > will increase the CPU > clock under some conditions: > https://pcengines.github.io/apu2-documentation/apu_CPU_boost/ > > When tuning my APU2 I also found that disabling PCI power management (2. > setup -> y. PCIe power > management features) also increased throughput. With these two settings and > jumbo packets it > is able to do close to a gigabit (just routing and PF, no IPSEC, though).
Old mail, but... Do you have SSH open from the internet? If bots are repeatedly trying to connect, they could easily be burning a lot of cpu. Check /var/log/authlog and consider either PF rules to block them, putting ssh behind a vpn, disabling algorithms used by bots (if doing so leaves you with enough to connect yourself), etc.
