[tor-relays] Raspberry Pi Relay Node Performance and future Plans on Documentation and more

[Gordon Morehouse]

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Nick Mathewson:
> One thing that you should try is seeing whether the latest 0.2.4.x 
> release does any better for you.  In particular, I'd recommend
> trying the just-released 0.2.4.16-rc, with openssl 1.0.1e, and make
> sure that openssl 1.0.1e was built with the
> -enable-ec_nistp_64_gcc_128 option if possible.  (I see you're
> already using 1.0.1e, but it doesn't appear to have been built with
> that option.)

For any Raspberry Pi Tor node operators breathlessly following this
thread :P I succeeded in building 0.2.4.16-rc on the Pi.  We will see
how it performs now vs the circuit creation storms.

This is not a simple Debian-type binary package install, as the
packages present in the Tor Project experimental repos are built for
*Debian* wheezy - that is, ARMv7 - and not *Raspbian* which was built
to support the ARMv6 CPU on the Pi.

So for those wishing to run experimental versions, nightlies etc of
Tor on the RasPi, you will need to follow the instructions here:

https://www.torproject.org/docs/debian.html.en#source

Note that this may require over a GiB of dependency downloads, and the
compile takes a long time - I wasn't paying close attention, but maybe
40-60 minutes.

After building, when I installed I left out installing the debugging
symbols (the -dbg .deb).

I have not tried rebuilding a custom OpenSSL .deb yet.

I also noticed in the scroll that the build process appeared to be
looking around for libnacl-dev[1], which isn't present in Raspbian.  I
don't know if building NaCl would help with Tor performance on slow
machines or not, but it's a thought.  Based on some of their
statements, they're thinking about the ARM architecture, though given
that they mentioned NEON (ARMv7+), ARMv6 and older may be left out - I
haven't bothered to dig through yet and see.

[1] http://nacl.cr.yp.to/

- -Gordon

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