On Thu, Oct 1, 2015 at 7:45 PM, Steve Snyder swsnyder@snydernet.net wrote:
Another consumer of bandwidth is name resolution, if this is an exit node. And the traffic incurred by the resolutions is not reflected in the relay statistics.
An exit node that allocates 100% of it's bandwidth to relaying traffic will starve the resolver, and vice versa.
Absolutely true where physical bandwidth is the limiting factor.
However please note this thread/topic is explicitly in regard to relays that have unconfined gigabit Ethernet connectivity in excellent capacity networks, but that must limit bandwidth consumption in order to avoid billing-plan overuse charges.
Loss of DNS resolver traffic is not a concern here.
In this specific case it appears that the Tor bandwidth allocation system "over rates" subject relays to the point where the relays will internally apply rate-limit throttling, thereby degrading end-user latency. This is not optimal and is undesirable.
As stated earlier in this thread, if the consensus weight of the relay in question does not moderate within a few days and unless a better idea materializes, an IPTABLES packet-dropping rate limit will be applied. This will cause the under-utilized gigabit connection to behave similarly to a heavily utilized lower-bandwidth connection. This should result in a lower authority rating that does not saturate the relay, while still making use of the intended amount of bandwidth.