You are on 0.2.9.11 and #20059 was merged in 0.2.9.12 https://gitweb.torproject.org/tor.git/tree/ReleaseNotes?h=release-0.2.9
I see. I'm trying to stay on 0.2.9.x since that is considered the "long-term support" release. This is a fallback directory mirror which I'd like to keep as stable as possible. apt wants to upgrade straight to 0.3.1.7 (from the repo at http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org). I will see if I can install 0.2.9.12 from the repo instead, or perhaps install the package manually (or perhaps give up and switch to 0.3.1.7).
As for the relay, I am pretty sure there is a firewall or something which throttles the incoming / outgoing TCP connection a process/user/pid can initiate or something like this. The problem is either in the operating system itself either a network-level firewall or built-in router firewall.
Could be. It's just simple iptables on the node, and I've tried to follow best practices for the sysctl and ulimit tweaks, but I don't really know what's going on upstream with the provider. It's a little odd that this is only a recent problem, as the node has been up for 700+ days and aside from kernel upgrades, there's no recent changes. Maybe it's just busier than usual now. I'll keep digging. Thanks for the feedback!