Re: TOR slowing down other network services

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Subject: Re: TOR slowing down other network services

From: "Rochester TOR Admin" <onionroutor@xxxxxxxxx>

Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 20:10:11 -0400

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I'm not sure... what's a "pretty old machine"?

The server is running an old Athlon XP and my firewall is a dual Pentium Pro. Tor is using 2% of my CPU and 9% of my memory out of 384mb, 35mb are swapped.

Some more info about your link would help in the diagnosis.
If you are on ADSL, as I suppose you are, and available bandwidth is
quite asymmetric, you need most of your uplink BW to send the TCP
acknowledgements for the 4mbps downlink traffic. If your download also
needs data upload, e.g. for some tit-for-tat mechanism, some of your
upload bw should also be dedicated for that, otherwise download slows down.

Now, if you throw Tor traffic in the mix, which tends to be symmetric,
you don't feel it directly on the downlink, but it takes away uplink
resources, which indirectly (through ACK dropping and through
tit-for-tat) hits back, reducing your effective downlink speed.

The server is on a cable line versus an ADSL but that is very good to think about because from what I'm seeing, my uplink is completely maxed out.

If that's the case, is it safe to conclude that that is the problem? My up link has too much on its plate to handle the download request traffic?

I'll read over the other posts this week and do some more testing.

Thanks again!

Rochester TOR Admin
running server torroc01