[tor-relays] Re: Hibernate vs 10 Mbps throttle when bandwidth cap exceeded

[Roger Dingledine via tor-relays <tor-relays@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, Feb 14, 2026 at 04:19:09AM -0000, forest-relay-contact--- via tor-relays wrote:
> I run a relay on a provider that, rather than suspending the service,
> simply throttles the bandwidth to 10 Mbps until the next month when the
> 8 TB/month traffic cap is reset. I run through that traffic in just half
> a month, so the relay is only operational 50% of the time. But 10 Mbps
> is not nothing. What should I do here? I can think of a few options:
> 
>   1. Set AccountingMax and let the relay hibernate like normal, ensuring
>      that, whenever it is on, it can achieve maximum performance. The
>      "free" 10 Mbps bandwidth can then be used for other things, such as
>      I2P which does not have a ramp-up period.
> 
>   2. Keep the relay running, relaying up to 1.5 TB/month extra for free,
>      but with the caveat that the relay suddenly becomes overloaded each
>      time it reaches the 8 TB mark until the consensus weight falls.
> 
>   3. Shortly before the bandwidth cap is exceeded, automatically adjust
>      the torrc to include "MaxAdvertisedBandwidth 10 Mbits", and remove
>      it when the bandwidth cap resets.

I would avoid picking (2) or (3), since it will just confuse the
bandwidth authority (bwauth) measurements and lead to overloading /
underloading the relay, and these bottlenecks could ultimately lead to
harming user experience.

So you could do option (1).

But another option to consider, which would better fit our current
bwauth model, would be to run a "little" relay on the same network
(e.g. the same computer but doesn't have to be), which offers 10mbit/s
all the time, and it can keep on chugging once your big relay hibernates.

Whether this is actually a good idea depends on the actual numbers -- how
much you can be offering before the 10mbit throttling comes in, etc.

--Roger

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