[tor-talk] Bandwidth in TOR

[Sebastian G. <bastik.tor>]

Maimun Rizal:
> Hi All,
> I confused about bandwidth in TOR, there are Bandwidth Max, Burst, and
> Observed.
> Where I can get information about them?
> When will we use three of them?
> 
> Thank
> Regards,
> MR

A quote form the manual[1]:

"BandwidthRate N bytes|KB|MB|GB

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 KB (that is, 30720
bytes). (Default: 5 MB)"

"BandwidthBurst N bytes|KB|MB|GB

Limit the maximum token bucket size (also known as the burst) to the
given number of bytes in each direction. (Default: 10 MB)"

"MaxAdvertisedBandwidth N bytes|KB|MB|GB

If set, we will not advertise more than this amount of bandwidth for our
BandwidthRate. Server operators who want to reduce the number of clients
who ask to build circuits through them (since this is proportional to
advertised bandwidth rate) can thus reduce the CPU demands on their
server without impacting network performance."

Relays observe peak bandwidth and store it in their state file.

A relay can advertise bandwidth it doesn't even have, therefor some
authorities measure the bandwidth of relays (bandwidth scanner)

I hope I could help you.

For further questions or more detailed insight about this topic, you'll
most likely have to wait for other replies, since I'm unable to help you
out, most likely.

[1] https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-manual.html.en

Regards,
Sebastian (bastik_tor)