Re: Tor memory usage on embedded systems.

[slush <slush@xxxxxxxx>]

As Roger wrote to list before few months, experimental version of Tor optimizes RAM usage and I can confirm that. Before I switched to 0.2.1.x branch, my node used +- 2x more RAM (not sure exactly).

ad "top": Dont forget to buffers and caches. So final amount of actually used RAM by system is:
Used - Buffers - Cached.

My experience is that blank Debian system take around 10MB RAM. Currently, my home server running Xen dom0, xen-tools, sshd and nagios nrpe takes 47 MB RAM. Tor process for node like yours takes around 50 MB RAM. So I think 64 RAM is enough to run Tor without problems.

Marek

On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 12:33 AM, basile <basile@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The version I used is 0.2.0.33, but I realized that's not the issue.
The mistake I made in reporting these number is that on the i686 box I
used an initrd image in /dev/ram0 which is sized at 128MB.  Immediately
upon booting, "free" reports 133 MB of RAM in use just before starting
tor.   On the MIPS I used an initramfs image and "free" reports 5MB in
use at the same point.  It looks like my i686 numbers are messed up, too
high by 128 MB.

Thanks for pointing that out.  I'm trying to answer the question what is
the minimum amount of RAM required to run a bare minimum linux system
which can support a tor relay/exit/directory node.  Suggestions?

--

Anthony G. Basile, Ph.D.
Chair of Information Technology
D'Youville College
Buffalo, NY 14201
USA

(716) 829-8197