When IDPS is enabled, traffic experiences latency and packet drops
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When IDPS is enabled, traffic experiences latency and packet drops

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Article ID: 317782

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Updated On:

Products

VMware NSX

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
  • NSX-T Data Center is installed
  • IDS/IPS enabled even in detection-only mode
  • IDS/IPS is enabled on an src:Any dst:Any prot:Any rule
  • Traffic experiences latency and packet drops
  • On ESXi host, /var/run/log/vobd.log indicate the idps service is crashing
46385:2022-02-10T02:49:59.947Z: [UserWorldCorrelator] 5054803445447us: [vob.uw.core.dumped] /usr/lib/vmware/nsx-idps/bin/nsx-idps(31502338) /var/core/nsx-idps-zdump.000
46386:2022-02-10T03:00:38.398Z: [UserWorldCorrelator] 5055441840903us: [vob.uw.core.dumped] /usr/lib/vmware/nsx-idps/bin/nsx-idps(31513632) /var/core/nsx-idps-zdump.001
Note: The preceding log excerpts are only examples. Date, time, and environmental variables may vary depending on your environment.

Environment

VMware NSX-T Data Center

Cause

When a src:Any dst:Any prot:Any rule is created for IDPS, it results in all traffic going through the IDPS service for inspection.
In a busy environment, it is possible this may exhaust the memory pool available to the IDPS service running on the ESXi host.
As a result the service will crash and restart. When this happens traffic is dropped.

Resolution

This issue is resolved in NSX-T Data Center 3.2.2, see Download Broadcom products and software

This remains a known issue on NSX 4.0.0.1 and 4.0.1.1.

Workaround:
Remove the Any Any rule and replace it with specific rules targeted to traffic flows to be observed.

Additional Information

Note: If SMB traffic is being inspected by IDPS rules see Traffic disruption when NSX-T IDPS inspects SMB traffic flows