[tor-relays] Tor Relay - RelayBandwidthRate vs. RelayBandwidthBurst

[teor]

Hi,

> On 20 Aug 2019, at 20:23, petrarca at protonmail.ch wrote:
> 
> I'm struggling a bit with the two config options for RelayBandwidthRate and RelayBandwidthBurst - what I currently have in my torrc config file is:
> 
> ...
> RelayBandwidthRate  8 Mbit
> RelayBandwidthBurst 12 Mbit
> ...
> 
> My assumption was that on average the Relay would consume 8 Mbps max. but over a shorter period of time also up to 12 Mbps in case needed.
> What I see (historical monitor data at 10 s intervals for the past 6 months) is that the bandwidth usage never exceeds 8 Mbps. I can also see the consumption to be levelled out at 8 Mbps for minutes or hours so it looks like there would be a need for more bandwidth.

Yes the Tor network does need more bandwidth, particularly for exits.

> My question: why can't I see the bandwidth usage going above 8 Mbps and making use of the allowed burst? Btw, I'm typically using the latest stable tor, currently the relay is on 0.4.0.5.

The burst is over a very short period of time.
I think it's about 1 second.

The rate is averaged is over a slightly longer period of time, and
includes any burst bandwidth. That is, if the bandwidth burst to
12 Mbps in the last second, the bandwidth in this second will be
4 Mbps. The lower bandwidth in the next second keeps the average to
8 Mbps.

T

--
teor
----------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 833 bytes
Desc: Message signed with OpenPGP
URL: <http://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/attachments/20190822/49262fda/attachment.sig>