commit 4233fb7014b0ef5a6830f36608e1779299e07cd8 Author: Roger Dingledine <arma@torproject.org> Date: Wed Oct 16 06:13:14 2019 -0400 clarify in man page: we count by powers of two Make clear in the man page, in both the bandwidth section and the accountingmax section, that Tor counts in powers of two, not powers of ten: 1 GByte is 1024*1024*1024 bytes, not one billion bytes. Resolves ticket 32106. --- changes/bug32106 | 5 +++++ doc/tor.1.txt | 17 +++++++++++++---- 2 files changed, 18 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) diff --git a/changes/bug32106 b/changes/bug32106 new file mode 100644 index 000000000..c6e8e9586 --- /dev/null +++ b/changes/bug32106 @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ + o Minor features (documentation): + - Make clear in the man page, in both the bandwidth section and the + accountingmax section, that Tor counts in powers of two, not + powers of ten: 1 GByte is 1024*1024*1024 bytes, not one billion + bytes. Resolves ticket 32106. diff --git a/doc/tor.1.txt b/doc/tor.1.txt index 6b81e19ba..be0a1ed92 100644 --- a/doc/tor.1.txt +++ b/doc/tor.1.txt @@ -211,10 +211,14 @@ GENERAL OPTIONS Note that this option, and other bandwidth-limiting options, apply to TCP data only: They do not count TCP headers or DNS traffic. + + + Tor uses powers of two, not powers of ten, so 1 GByte is + 1024*1024*1024 bytes as opposed to 1 billion bytes. + + + With this option, and in other options that take arguments in bytes, KBytes, and so on, other formats are also supported. Notably, "KBytes" can also be written as "kilobytes" or "kb"; "MBytes" can be written as "megabytes" or "MB"; "kbits" can be written as "kilobits"; and so forth. + Case doesn't matter. Tor also accepts "byte" and "bit" in the singular. The prefixes "tera" and "T" are also recognized. If no units are given, we default to bytes. @@ -2292,9 +2296,9 @@ is non-zero): using a given calculation rule (see: AccountingStart, AccountingRule). Useful if you need to stay under a specific bandwidth. By default, the number used for calculation is the max of either the bytes sent or - received. For example, with AccountingMax set to 1 GByte, a server - could send 900 MBytes and receive 800 MBytes and continue running. - It will only hibernate once one of the two reaches 1 GByte. This can + received. For example, with AccountingMax set to 1 TByte, a server + could send 900 GBytes and receive 800 GBytes and continue running. + It will only hibernate once one of the two reaches 1 TByte. This can be changed to use the sum of the both bytes received and sent by setting the AccountingRule option to "sum" (total bandwidth in/out). When the number of bytes remaining gets low, Tor will stop accepting new connections @@ -2305,7 +2309,12 @@ is non-zero): enabling hibernation is preferable to setting a low bandwidth, since it provides users with a collection of fast servers that are up some of the time, which is more useful than a set of slow servers that are - always "available". + always "available". + + + + Note that (as also described in the Bandwidth section) Tor uses + powers of two, not powers of ten: 1 GByte is 1024*1024*1024, not + one billion. Be careful: some internet service providers might count + GBytes differently. [[AccountingRule]] **AccountingRule** **sum**|**max**|**in**|**out**:: How we determine when our AccountingMax has been reached (when we