pfSense

Some users have found that pfctl -ss is taking consuming large amounts of CPU and taking much longer than it should to output data on 2.5.2-RC

https://forum.netgate.com/topic/164442/pftop-hangs-my-gui-in-2-5-2-rc

pfctl -si | grep -A4 State
State Table                          Total             Rate
  current entries                     2407
  searches                          404293          546.3/s
  inserts                            20698           28.0/s
  removals                           18291           24.7/s

time pfctl -ss
0.141u 140.191s 2:20.52 99.8%   203+177k 0+0io 0pf+0w

time pfctl -vvss
0.157u 87.638s 1:28.08 99.6%    203+177k 0+0io 0pf+0w

The delay and high CPU is causing a process backlog due to RRD, and can also cause pftop to fail (from the console or Diag > pftop)

ps -ax | grep pfctl
8530 - L 42:21.31 /sbin/pfctl -i ovpnc3 -Fs
17907 - I 0:00.00 sh -c /sbin/pfctl -vvss | /usr/bin/grep creator | /usr/bin/cut -d" " -f7 | /usr/bin/sort -u
18015 - R 337:49.40 /sbin/pfctl -vvss
38322 - RN 365:07.87 /sbin/pfctl -ss
61701 - I 0:00.00 sh -c /sbin/pfctl -vvss | /usr/bin/grep creator | /usr/bin/cut -d" " -f7 | /usr/bin/sort -u
61787 - L 17:56.93 /sbin/pfctl -vvss
82409 - I 0:00.00 sh -c /sbin/pfctl -vvss | /usr/bin/grep creator | /usr/bin/cut -d" " -f7 | /usr/bin/sort -u
82711 - L 198:37.49 /sbin/pfctl -vvss
84187 - RN 385:23.46 /sbin/pfctl -ss
95032 - I 0:00.00 sh -c /sbin/pfctl -vvss | /usr/bin/grep creator | /usr/bin/cut -d" " -f7 | /usr/bin/sort -u
95080 - R 281:20.27 /sbin/pfctl -vvss
43823 0 S+ 0:00.00 grep pfctl

ps -ax | grep pftop
11621 - L 11:49.66 /usr/local/sbin/pftop -b -o bytes -w 135 -v default 100
13020 - L 13:16.32 /usr/local/sbin/pftop -b -o bytes -w 135 -v default 100
17041 - L 12:59.58 /usr/local/sbin/pftop -b -o bytes -w 135 -v default 100
39212 - L 14:19.03 /usr/local/sbin/pftop -b -o bytes -w 135 -v default 100
39821 - R 11:33.73 /usr/local/sbin/pftop -b -o bytes -w 135 -v default 100
40097 - L 15:23.33 /usr/local/sbin/pftop -b -o bytes -w 135 -v default 100
40726 - L 15:38.67 /usr/local/sbin/pftop -b -o bytes -w 135 -v default 100
40967 - L 13:05.67 /usr/local/sbin/pftop -b -o bytes -w 135 -v default 100
68675 - L 7:31.30 /usr/local/sbin/pftop -b -o bytes -w 135 -v default 100
71010 - L 13:15.83 /usr/local/sbin/pftop -b -o bytes -w 135 -v default 100
79096 - L 11:04.39 /usr/local/sbin/pftop -b -o bytes -w 135 -v default 100
85169 - L 11:26.45 /usr/local/sbin/pftop -b -o bytes -w 135 -v default 100
87241 - L 13:15.88 /usr/local/sbin/pftop -b -o bytes -w 135 -v default 100
29040 0 S+ 0:00.00 grep pftop
77243 1- L+ 0:22.80 pftop
10237 2- L+ 0:40.86 /usr/local/sbin/pftop

  PID USERNAME    THR PRI NICE   SIZE    RES STATE    C   TIME    WCPU COMMAND
18015 root          1  20    0   503M    61M CPU7     7 345:55  99.96% pfctl
38322 root          1  20   20   134M    18M CPU4     4 373:08  99.95% pfctl
84187 root          1  20   20   134M    18M CPU3     3 393:25  99.91% pfctl
95080 root          1  80    0   503M    61M RUN      5 289:22  99.90% pfctl
39212 root          1  20    0   112M    91M CPU6     6  18:23  62.80% pftop
39821 root          1  80    0   112M    92M *pf_id   4  15:57  38.04% pftop
30353 root          1  72    0   146M  3636K RUN      7   2:32   2.41% pftop
11621 root          1  20    0   113M    98M *pf_id   5  15:43   2.41% pftop
40726 root          1  75    0   112M  3264K CPU1     1  18:52   1.00% pftop
82711 root          1  81    0   503M    61M CPU0     0 199:33   0.95% pfctl

Kristof noted that it may be due to an nvlist bottleneck which was just fixed in FreeBSD:
https://cgit.freebsd.org/src/commit/?id=89d5cbb82294c8624e66f920d50353057ccab14b