[tor-relays] Call for discussion: turning funding into more exit relays

[Roger Dingledine]

On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 05:49:34AM -0400, Motoko Kusanagi wrote:
> I am very interested in running 100 Mbit (maybe even more) exit nodes at 100$/month, however, a question immediately comes to mind:
> When we say "100Mbit exit node", do we imply "really unmetered" traffic at 100 Mbit, or do we mean "semi-reasonable traffic limit at 100Mbit speed".
> "Really unlimited", in my experience, oftentimes turns out to be somewhat problematic. 

I don't think we necessarily need to have the 100mbit all to ourselves
(see the other discussions here about shared connections), but I think it
needs to be able to push a good fraction of 100mbit throughout the month.

So something that can handle 20-30TB/mo is in the right ballpark.

Note that many of our current 100mbit nodes are actually gbit nodes
that try to limit themselves to a long-term average (95th percentile)
of 100mbit.

> I could arrange for 50-100 100Mbit exit nodes running 24/7, with a
>traffic limit somewhere between 1 and 4 terabytes (will need to scrutinize
>my current contract and do some math). Arranging for such a number of
>"honestly unlimited traffic at 100Mbit speed" would be...significantly
>more problematic.

4TB/mo is good for a 10mbit connection, but not good for a 100mbit
connection. You'll end up either needing to hibernate for 80% of the
month, or rate limit your relays down a lot.

That said, we don't need 50-100 100mbit exit relays from any single
group. Just 5-10 would be nice. Maybe that makes the capacity issue
easier?

--Roger