[tor-bugs] #29370 [Metrics/Onionperf]: Measure mode with arbitrary tgen traffic models

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#29370: Measure mode with arbitrary tgen traffic models
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 Reporter:  irl                        |          Owner:  metrics-team
     Type:  enhancement                |         Status:  reopened
 Priority:  Low                        |      Milestone:
Component:  Metrics/Onionperf          |        Version:
 Severity:  Normal                     |     Resolution:
 Keywords:  metrics-team-roadmap-2020  |  Actual Points:  0.1
Parent ID:  #33321                     |         Points:  1
 Reviewer:                             |        Sponsor:  Sponsor59
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Comment (by acute):

 Replying to [comment:8 robgjansen]:
 >
 > My initial idea was not to make OnionPerf generate these models, but
 rather to create them externally and have OnionPerf just "pass them
 through" to tgen. That means whoever generated the models would need to
 correctly set the server addresses and SOCKS ports, etc.
 >
 > I'm not sure that Tor wants this feature for OnionPerf. An alternative
 could just be to wait until you have a specific model in mind that you've
 decided you want to start measuring, and then generate that model
 internally as we do now with the 5MiB downloads. In that case the pass-
 through feature would not be needed, and you wouldn't have to maintain
 something that you don't use.
 >
 > Do you think the pass-through feature is actually useful for Tor, or
 does generating models internally make more sense?

 Having a pass-through feature could be very useful for research. For
 example, evaluating Tor performance with clients in mobile or other type
 of bandwidth-constrained networks would require a model that minimises the
 used bandwidth; or if a user wanted to fill the pipe for a congestion
 control experiment a larger file size model would be needed etc.

 If there is no appetite for implementing this feature, what we could have
 instead is documentation that explains to users how to use their own model
 if they want to, and keep our own models (including oneshot) internally as
 suggested here.

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/29370#comment:9>
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