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Observed bandwidth doubled?



Hello,

This is my first message to this list. I've tried searching for the answer to my question in the archives, but I couldn't find it.

I run a Tor non-exit relay, named DigitalBrains. Bandwidth is shaped and prioritized by Linux, with the HTB scheduler in the 2.6 kernel. The maximum token rate is 750,000 bits/s. To be completely exact, the iproute2 command that shapes my TOR traffic is:

# tc class add dev eth0 parent 1:1 classid 1:12 htb rate 80Kbit quantum 1600 ceil 750Kbit

It will borrow tokens when there is no higher-priority traffic. This is the upstream traffic, i.e., away from the server. Downstream traffic is not shaped.

Now, if I don't enter any shaping configuration in my torrc, the observed bandwidth in the server descriptor happily doubles that rate:

-- from descriptor --
bandwidth 5242880 10485760 151973
-- end --

I've seen this more often than not. Checking the torstatus pages (f.e. [1],[2]), the actual rate in the graphs is limited to what the token bucket dictates (obviously, I'd almost say).

Can anybody explain why the observed rate is so much higher than the actual rate?

And more importantly: am I hurting the performance of the network when I let this situation continue? Should I enter a MaxAdvertisedBandwidth of, say:
MaxAdvertisedBandWidth 91 KBytes

In that figure, I assumed that KBytes means kibibytes; it almost corresponds to 750,000 bits/s.

For completeness' sake, the machine is a Debian Squeeze i686 running Tor 0.2.0.34-1. It's behind an ADSL connection. If you need more info, I'll gladly supply it.

Thanks in advance,

Peter Lebbing.

PS: I accidentally pulled the power cord of the TOR machine today while working on it, so the current stats might be a bit different from what they usually are.

[1]<http://torstatus.blutmagie.de/router_detail.php?FP=b41e3847499234874688b2f354c6764b8589eaf8>
[2]<http://torstatus.kgprog.com/router_detail.php?FP=b41e3847499234874688b2f354c6764b8589eaf8>