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English Forums => 25.7, 25.10 Series => Topic started by: GreenMatter on January 16, 2026, 08:51:04 PM

Title: Hostwatch - high disk writes
Post by: GreenMatter on January 16, 2026, 08:51:04 PM
After upgrading to 25.7.11 hostwatch (v. 1.0.2) causes high (60M) disk writes and increased CPU utilisation. 
Is there any fix for it?
Title: Re: Hostwatch - high disk writes
Post by: franco on January 16, 2026, 09:02:37 PM
https://github.com/opnsense/changelog/blob/efe03ef435b5abfff641262fd69e02efd926be5a/community/25.7/25.7.11#L10-L12

Interfaces: Neighbors: Automatic Discovery.


Cheers,
Franco
Title: Re: Hostwatch - high disk writes
Post by: GreenMatter on January 16, 2026, 09:10:27 PM
Quote from: franco on January 16, 2026, 09:02:37 PMhttps://github.com/opnsense/changelog/blob/efe03ef435b5abfff641262fd69e02efd926be5a/community/25.7/25.7.11#L10-L12

Interfaces: Neighbors: Automatic Discovery.


Cheers,
Franco
Thanks, I've seen it. But it still causing really high disk writes. For a time being I stopped this service...
Title: Re: Hostwatch - high disk writes
Post by: franco on January 16, 2026, 09:26:15 PM
Well, it's either enabled or not. There may be a bug that doesn't stop it but I haven't seen it. Worst case a reboot would take care of it (when properly disabled).


Cheers,
Franco
Title: Re: Hostwatch - high disk writes
Post by: GreenMatter on January 16, 2026, 09:37:17 PM
Quote from: franco on January 16, 2026, 09:26:15 PMWell, it's either enabled or not. There may be a bug that doesn't stop it but I haven't seen it. Worst case a reboot would take care of it (when properly disabled).


Cheers,
Franco
Does hostwatch suppose to create such disk writes?
Title: Re: Hostwatch - high disk writes
Post by: OPNenthu on January 16, 2026, 09:57:32 PM
Mine is using only ~56k so far since upgrade, but my home network is small.

root@firewall:/var/log/hostwatch # ls -l
total 56
-rw-------  1 root wheel 56388 Jan 16 14:35 hostwatch_20260116.log
lrwxr-x---  1 root wheel    41 Jan 16 15:01 latest.log -> /var/log/hostwatch/hostwatch_20260116.log


Is your hostwatch log being flooded with error messages, or is most of your log filled with host discoveries?
Title: Re: Hostwatch - high disk writes
Post by: jjelliott on January 16, 2026, 10:16:30 PM
Looking at iostat in the console, I am seeing high disk writes, too.

root@OPNsense:~ # iostat -x
                        extended device statistics
device       r/s     w/s     kr/s     kw/s  ms/r  ms/w  ms/o  ms/t qlen  %b
ada0           1     107     42.0   2570.7     1     1     0     1    0   8

You can see the instantaneous rate by issuing iostat -x 2.  When I disable Automatic Discovery, the instantaneous writes drop back to near zero.

This is on a small home network.  I have disabled the feature for now.
Title: Re: Hostwatch - high disk writes
Post by: franco on January 16, 2026, 10:19:27 PM
It's supposed to log hardware address movements, but if it seems them constantly that is probably undesirable as logging. The issue is clear and we'll find a solution for it soon.


Cheers,
Franco
Title: Re: Hostwatch - high disk writes
Post by: pfry on January 16, 2026, 11:45:06 PM
Out of curiosity, what is considered a "movement", and what sort of errors would it log? Just trying to get a handle on the high writes. I don't see any notable change in write frequency on my own system, and it's the wacky four-bridge setup, where "Interfaces: Neighbors: Automatic Discovery" (by default) picks up every MAC on multiple interfaces. (I fired it up with default settings just to see if I could trigger the issue, as I don't use it normally; actual ARP mapping does not normally move, as I do not normally re-plug machines and I have static ARP entries to tame my ISP's unlimited proxy.)
Title: Re: Hostwatch - high disk writes
Post by: OPNenthu on January 17, 2026, 12:23:05 AM
*duplicate report - delete*
Title: Re: Hostwatch - high disk writes
Post by: OPNenthu on January 17, 2026, 01:33:08 AM
*duplicate - delete*