[tor-relays] Tor relay from home - end of experiment?

[Rana]

-----Original Message-----
>From: tor-relays [mailto:tor-relays-bounces at lists.torproject.org] On Behalf Of teor

> Your relay's observed bandwidth is
>ZG0: 81.35 KByte/s
>GG2: 170.79 KByte/s
>
> (hover over the
> bandwidth heading in atlas for these details), so its consensus weight 
> will be limited to approximately
>ZG0: 81
>GG2: 170
> Your bandwidth rate and burst are
>ZG0: 256 KByte/s and 358.4 KByte/s
GG2: 153.6 KByte/s and 179.2 KByte/s
>
>Your relay is limited by:
>ZG0: its own ability to sustain more than 81.35 KByte/s over a 10 second period
>GG2: the bandwidth rate of 153.6 KByte/s
>
>In summary:
>ZG0: the relay itself reports that it is unable to sustain much tor traffic.
>GG2: it appears that the relay could handle more traffic, if you increased the bandwidth rate and bandwidth burst.

Both ZG0 and GG2 use exactly the same hardware and software (Pi with the same microsd card flashed), with the exception that ZG0's max bandwidth rates are actually configured to be HIGHER than those of GG2. 

Logical conclusion based on the above measurements: ZG0's poor bandwidth has absolutely nothing to do with the capabilities of ZG0 machine to sustain traffic. This can only have anything to do with its ISP and/or with the way the Authorities "treat" ZG0. Note that on both machines cpu utilization is minuscule and memory utilization is 12%.

Why, while GG2's speed as MEASURED by tor and reported in atlas is 153.6 kbytes/sec, its actual bandwidth utilization is about 0.3 kbytes/sec (=0.2% of its capability) is still beyond me, and resolving this by further increasing bandwidth does not seem plausible to me.

>I feel like I've given the same advice about ZG0 several times now, so I'm going to leave that with you to resolve however you want.

You and some others have been very helpful in educating me about what is going on, and for that I thank you. However, is described above, I am not anywhere near resolving the issue. The only conclusion is that I simply cannot run relays from home locations, because their use will be negligible, whatever I (reasonably) do.

This opinion was further supported by the reported two experiments with two identical Pi-based relay instances running at two different home locations with two different ISPs.

Among other things, I was given (I do not remember by whom) the explanation that the bandwidth ratings of my relays suck probably because they are measured from where the Authorities are located, and my connection to THESE locations may not be good. This may well be the correct explanation that reaffirms my conclusion that all I can do with my two relays is ditch them.

I want to reiterate my opinion that Tor network is "mistreating" home-based relays without good reason:

A. The fact that the Authorities are located in West Europe and North America does not mean that the USERS are there. I would suggest quite the opposite: the users that REALLY need Tor are NOT located in these countries. Bandwidth measurements should be performed, among others, from where the most needful users are located, not only from democratic countries that host DirAuths. While I understand why DirAuths need to be located in safe places, I see no reason for bwauths that measure the bandwidth to only be located there. DirAuths are not disposable, bwauths are.

B.  There are about 7000 relays total, many of them probably limping just like my 2 relays and not being useful. There are tens of thousands of Pi owners who have their Pis just sitting there and many of them would be happy to run relays if Tor network would let them do so usefully. Not using this huge resource by discriminating against relays that are behind dynamic IPs or because they happen to have a poor connection to, say, Germany, does not make sense to me.

Rana