Re: feedback about 0.2.0.6-alpha (r11277), traffic pattern and memory consumption

[Olaf Selke <olaf.selke@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Aquatorius wrote:
> 
> I've "only" a 10 MBit connection but I do see this behaviour too (Tor
> 0.1.2.17 at the moment):
> 
> http://aquatorius.spemaus.net/munin/spemaus.net/aquatorius.spemaus.net.html#Network
> 
> I usually restart Tor every 5 days when network utilization decreases due
> to heavy swapping, see memory usage graph. But this strange traffic pattern
>  repeats almost daily.

my tor's cpu load and number of concurrent tcp connection graphs do
confirm Aquatorius' readings. (The cpu load graph may exceed 100% due to
four cores - 2xXeon hyper threading cpu). In comparison with tor the
extra traffic and cpu load caused by the Apache web server
http://torstatus.blutmagie.de running on the same box is peanuts.

btw: besides the German BKA (German 'FBI') the German Verfassungsschutz
(Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution) does know about
tor, and they feel quite uncomfortable with it.

It might not be desirable for the tor network if a few servers do exit
most of the traffic. On the other hand pushing the limits always is
challenging. I would be happy if tor needs less memory and improves
support of multiple cores/cpus. Even with numcpu parameter set to four,
one core is running the main tor thread with max load and the other
three are more or less idle (load <10%) running the helper threads.

regards, Olaf