[tor-relays] MiB/s / metrics

[grarpamp]

On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 5:55 AM, Sebastian Urbach <sebastian at urbach.org> wrote:
> I opened a ticket recently with the intention to use a more common unit than
> MiB/s for metrics. Karsten basically agrees but is waiting for more input.
>
> https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/14257

Tor is at its core a network application, an interface to the
network, a router. In the real ISP world therein everyone speaks
in "mega bits per second" "10^n" (and now with 100Gbps
links, in Gbps).

Only the downstream hosting world speaks in "mega bytes"
"2^n", "per" "whatever time unit they dream up". This comes
from attempts by hosters to appease people pushing their
disk files MiB's over the net at link rate, not spread over bandwidth
rate. In fact, the hosters have to convert that appeasement on their
backend to aggregated Mbps so they can talk to their real ISP's.

I've suggested before that Tor project should use Mbit/s (or Mbps
or Mbit[s] where the slash presents a problem) as its primary default
representation for Tor client and all related projects that refer to bandwidth.
Tor is a bandwidth app, especially at the relay level. There is no disk or
instantaneous link rate transfer need applying to Tor relay. (As opposed
to user level which is more of a mashup of rate usage contexts and
interests similar to bittorrent/webserving.)

Then if people want MiB's or MB's so they can continue perpetuating
and interfacing with hosters who do the same, you could add a
few global prefix, unit and time options to switch all representations
over at once. (Tor client has recently added per stanza Mbps
configs which is a fine alternative to global. Yet again, the manpage
and even maybe the code still uses nonsense in regards to capitalization,
base 2 vs 10, crossed contexts, etc...)

Start here, use the table in the upper right, ignore jedec,
and pick and apply 10^n or 2^n representations consistantly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix

"
BandwidthRate N bytes|KBytes|MBytes|GBytes|KBits|MBits|GBits
           A token bucket limits the average incoming bandwidth usage on this
           node to the specified number of bytes per second, and the average
           outgoing bandwidth usage to that same value. If you want to run a
           relay in the public network, this needs to be at the very least 30
           KBytes (that is, 30720 bytes). (Default: 1 GByte)
Notably, "KBytes" can also be written as "kilobytes" or "kb";
"

No, "KBytes" is invalid, there is no capital "K", only "k (SI)" and
"Ki (binary)".
Nor is "b" ever a byte, nor is "Bit[s]" ever capitalized.
True network applications should also not be crossing network-like prefixes
with disk-like objects or vice versa, ie: "Gibit[s] (non-network
binary and single bit)",
or the "GBytes (network SI and binary multiples of bit)" above.
If you cross it up or make errors in context in one place that throws all your
docs and configs into question. Even I still mess it up sometimes.

"
it's easy to forget that "B" means bytes, not bits.
"

Nope :) Abbr "B" means "byte" (now formally of width eight bits as in "octet/o",
and still unfortunately caveat "bel/B" as in "dB"), and abbr "bit" means "bit",
(and "b" is now just nothing but informal efficient shorthand for
"bit" if I recall).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_80000-13
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octet_(computing)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit

Anyway, tor relay is network not disk, so I'd suggest megabits,
or kilo/giga as scale appropriate.