[tor-relays] Another Slow Relay

[Ben Riley]

On Thu, Apr 4, 2019 at 7:06 PM teor <teor at riseup.net> wrote:

> Hi Ben,
>
> > On 4 Apr 2019, at 10:58, Ben Riley <blades1000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I've read over a couple of other threads regarding relays being slow,
> however, I can't figure out why mine is running as slow as it is.
>
> Have you read our wiki page about slow relays?
> https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/MyRelayIsSlow
>
> What do you see when you follow the steps on that page?
>

Bandwidth rate: 1MiB/s
Bandwidth burst: 2MiB/s
Observed: 485.52 KiB/s


> > I used to have a FAST flag and was getting a throughput of several
> hundred KB/sec on my relay. Now I can't remember if I upgraded TOR or just
> updated the OS, but I lost the flag. I figured that I'd changed something
> and would have to 'earn' it again after a few days, week and now months?
>
> Normally, relays with slow or high-latency connections to North America
> and Europe won't get used much. Since you're on the other side of the
> globe, that's inevitable.
>

OK, no worries.


>
> > According to NYX, my average is 6.4KB/sec. I did have the limit set to
> 1MB and 2MB burst for the last few months thinking that would be more than
> enough.
> >
> > This morning I changed those (via NYX) to 0 (default) 1GB/s and it looks
> like it's starting to climb.
>
> Setting a limit faster than your connection makes Tor delay or drop
> packets. Since you already have high latency, drops or delays are going to
> make your measurements worse.
>

Maybe this is what I've done in the hope of opening up more bandwidth?
I have to admit I'm a little confused by the four options:
BandwidthRate - 1GB
BandwidthBurst - 1GB
RelayBandwidthRate - 1MB
RelayBandwidthBurst - 2 MB

I find that when I try and change these within NYX by hitting the right
arrow and then editing them, that sometimes I go back out to the main
screen, hit X twice to reset, that the settings go back. So I've gone in
and edited the torrc file directly instead.

I've changed those lines to:

RelayBandwidthRate 500 KB  # Throttle traffic to 100KB/s (800Kbps)
RelayBandwidthBurst 600 KB # But allow bursts up to 200KB/s (1600Kbps)

Now when I restarted NYX it says:
Bandwidth (limit: 500 KB/s, burst: 600 KB/s, measured: 13.0 B/s):


>
> > My internet connection is on a home set up with a connection speed of
> about 97Mb, so plenty of speed available.
>
> Just use the speed of your connection. (And if it's asymmetric, use the
> minimum of your upload and download.) Careful with the difference between
> megabits and megabytes per second!
>

So based on a connection of about 97Mb, which means I can usually peak out
my download speeds at 11Mb/sec. Are those speeds above ok? I don't want to
drown my connection, but happy to give it a couple of meg :)


>
> > If you look at my previous reports on:
> https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#details/9F19251CEE17B1E05084898D164F0544CCB095DD
> there appears to be a massive drop off in speed during Feb 2019. I'm open
> to suggestion.
>
> Looking at the 5 year graphs, your relay was used when the network was
> under heavy load for a few months in 2017/2018, and 2018/2019. Now the
> network isn't overloaded any more, clients don't need your relay as much,
> so it's back to its usual level.
>

OK, that's interesting. I didn't realise the network would change things
that much.


>
> > Additionally, I'm considering opening an exit port, but everyone seems
> to say that is a REALLY bad idea on a home set up. Plus I don't really know
> what I'm doing :)
>
> Don't open an exit port at home, unless you like dealing with confused
> police officers.
>
> If you have another IPv4 address, consider setting up a bridge relay.
> (Bridges on the same IP as relays are easy to censor.)
>
> If you don't, try setting up another relay instance on the same IPv4.
> (There's a limit of two relays per IPv4 address.)
>
>
OK, I might leave the exit node alone then :)

Thanks
Ben.



> T
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