Re: Tor client performance (was Re: URGENT: patch needed ASAP for authority bug)

[Roger Dingledine <arma@xxxxxxx>]

On Sat, Apr 17, 2010 at 02:07:25AM -0400, Roger Dingledine wrote:
> > >But that said, there does seem to be a problem here: we're seeing way
> > >more directory requests than we were a few weeks ago. That's translating
> > >into more connections seen by relays.
> > >
> > >Is that because we're seeing way more users? Or are Tor clients generating
> > >more directory requests than they "should"? Hm.
> > >
> >      More bad news, I guess, but I don't see any direct connection to
> > the problems central to this thread so far.  That doesn't mean there isn't
> > such a connection, but none appears very obvious to me at the moment.
> 
> Well, the problem central to this thread is "Lately, certain relays are
> receiving way more *connections* than they can handle, and it's not
> only the relays at the very top of the bandwidth charts." So I think
> it's very relevant.

A plausible answer for this one occurred to me yesterday.

http://metrics.torproject.org/graphs/direct-users/china-direct-180d.png

Once upon a time (meaning a few years ago), our top three countries
by user base were US, Germany, and China, each with about 20% of our
users. Then in late 2009 and early 2010 China blocked connections to
the public Tor relays. Then on Apr 8 2010, we suddenly saw about half
the public relays unblocked from China. As far as I know, they're still
unblocked.

So we can speculate all day long about why they decided to let up on the
blocking. But aside from that, a few weeks ago we just dumped many tens
of thousands of users back onto the Tor network. And a few weeks ago,
we started wondering why we were seeing so many new connections. Related?

--Roger