[tor-dev] Tor metrics: Questionable relays-by-platform accounting

[Fabian Keil]

Karsten Loesing <karsten at torproject.org> wrote:

> On 07/01/16 18:48, Fabian Keil wrote:
> > Looking at "Tor metrics - Relays by platform" [0] one could think 
> > that the number of "FreeBSD" relays is only slightly lower than the
> > number of "Windows" relays.
> > 
> > It also looks like the number of "other" platforms is constantly 
> > zero while the number of "Darwin" relays is unclear (but
> > potentially zero as well).
> > 
> > Obviously that's incorrect:
> > 
> > fk at r500 ~ $sudo -u _tor grep platform
> > /usr/jails/tor-jail/var/db/tor/cached-descriptors | cut -w -f 5 |
> > sort | uniq -c | sort -rn 6662 Linux 555 Windows 286 FreeBSD 83
> > OpenBSD 25 Darwin 10 NetBSD 4 SunOS 4 ElectroBSD 4 Bitrig 2
> > DragonFly 1 GNU/kFreeBSD 1 CYGWIN_NT-10.0-WOW
> > 
> > Is it possible that the "Tor metrics" count everything but "Linux" 
> > and "Windows" as FreeBSD?  
> 
> Good question.  Not exactly: it's counting everything containing "BSD"
> as "FreeBSD".  Ugh.  I agree that this is misleading.  How about we
> change the graph legend to "BSD"?

Without further explanation that seems still a bit misleading because
"DragonFly" and "Bitrig" are BSDs, too. In fact, "DragonFly" is short
for "DragonFly BSD" so even a graph legend like "platforms that contain 'BSD'"
would be misleading for someone who does not know the actual platform strings.

>                                    (Unfortunately, we cannot
> distinguish easily between the other BSDs in that graph, because we'd
> have to re-import the archives since 2007.)

That's indeed unfortunate.

> Note that your query above is not entirely correct, either.  You're
> overcounting relays publishing more than one descriptor, whereas
> Metrics only counts descriptors being referenced from the consensus.
> The latest numbers from Tor metrics are:
> 
> 2016-01-05,,,,Darwin,,22,
> 2016-01-05,,,,FreeBSD,,371,
> 2016-01-05,,,,Linux,,6384,
> 2016-01-05,,,,Other,,9,
> 2016-01-05,,,,Windows,,387,
> 
> See https://metrics.torproject.org/servers-data.html

I see, thanks.

Fabian
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 181 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/attachments/20160108/b1212aa7/attachment.sig>