topic Re: SmartConsole causing high server cpu load in General Topics

SmartConsole causing high server cpu load

Henrik_Noerr1 — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 10:52:32 GMT

Hey,

We have a rather annoying issue with our windows management servers being overloaded from the SmartConsole process.

I would like some advice if this is expected behaviour, or if something can be done.

So basically the issue is that SmartConsole causes (some) cpu load just by being opened.

We have decent hosts 3.1Ghz Xeons with 8 cores (virtual servers)

using r81.20 newest SMC client.

So logging into the MDS main domain causes smartconsole.exe to take up ~5% cpu load (on the client), continuously. Doesn't matter if the application is minimized or what tab is highlighed.

The same is true for having a Domain opened, again number of policies open or tab selected does not matter. The CPU load balances around 5% for this single console

With 10ish domains and 20+ admins who work on multiple domains at a time, this CPU load really adds up and most of our (client) management servers are running 100% loaded.

So anyone got any experience with this? I have requested to have all our servers lifted to 16 cores - but still...

I suspect with all different admins connected - there could be a lot of polling (ie gateway health) or "task sync" between the different clients. I am looking at smartconsole.exe.config and wonder if this can help us. Ie the standard values:

DebugLoggingLevel="Full"

<Connection KeepAliveIntervalSeconds="10" KeepAliveSessionTimeoutSeconds="30"

And maybe others? None of these entries seem to be documented

Any ideas??

Regards,

Henrik

Re: SmartConsole causing high server cpu load

PhoneBoy — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 12:14:40 GMT

This might need to be taken with TAC.
Might also be worth exploring WebSmartConsole (at least for some use cases).

Re: SmartConsole causing high server cpu load

Lesley — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 20:11:10 GMT

Are we sure that we can rule out client issue? So running SmartConsole on a different server and check how that goes?

Also maybe there is still a debug enabled for SmartConsole on the local system from older issue: https://support.checkpoint.com/results/sk/sk112334

Re: SmartConsole causing high server cpu load

the_rock — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 20:16:09 GMT

Sounds like smart console debug might be needed.

Andy

Re: SmartConsole causing high server cpu load

CP_Chris — Thu, 03 Oct 2024 14:30:11 GMT

The fact the log level is set to full is probably creating a lot of the overhead. I would suggest using sk112334 as Lesley suggested to run the SCConfigManager.exe and set the logging level to Error and the CommLogLevel to off to ensure they are disabled. See if that improves the CPU utilization.

Additionally, look at what type of disk is being used to ensure you are getting the best IOPs available. If you are using slow disks, that can affect the performance.

Another thing would be the amount of RAM available. From the release notes https://sc1.checkpoint.com/documents/R81.20/WebAdminGuides/EN/CP_R81.20_RN/Content/Topics-RN/Requirements.htm, SmartConsole requires at least 4 GB of RAM. If you have 20-ish admins connecting, this would infer you need at least 80 GB of RAM just for SmartConsole.