Re: Switching Tor relay speed

[Scott Bennett <bennett@xxxxxxxxxx>]

     On Sun, 22 Feb 2009 22:35:26 +0100 Lexi Pimenidis
<lexi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 05:48:30AM CET, slush wrote:
>
>hej Marek :-)
>
>> Im switching configuration file in bash by calling /etc/init.d/tor reload and
>> it is working like a charm for me. But I know it is not the best solution for
>> users, because their tors expect that my node's throughput is much more higher
>> than it really is at the moment when Im online.
>> 
>> And Im asking you what happen, when this difference in speed is not 100 - 20 =
>> 80kB/s, but for example 3000 - 100 = 2800 kB/s. I expect it will lead to slow
>> down clients and overload of this relay, because everybody will expect for long
>> time that there is much better throughput than really is. So....
>
>Ich guess that it will not be a big issue to change from a low bandwidth situation
>to a high bandwidth. Maybe it will take a while before the information propagates,
>but that should be OK. IMHO there would be more problems switiching back to low
>bandwidth mode.

     No one gets cut off when the rate is reduced.  In fact, if you've ever
tried reducing the rate with the BandwidthRate statement in torrc, you may
have noticed that the actual data rate takes a while to slow down to the newly
imposed limit.

>Maybe a solution would be to try a slow approach throtteling bandwidth: to stay with
>the example of 3000 to 100 kB/s: I'd try to go down one third of the speed every 20min.
>(BTW, 3000-100=2900 ;-) ). This way you could likely avoid too much throtteling of
>inbound connections, even if the information is only slowly propagating.

     No, no, NO.  That means three times as many descriptor uploads to the
authorities, which is the small part, and then potentially twice as many
fetches of your relay's descriptor by every relay and active client around the
planet during the next couple of hours.  That is exactly the wrong approach.
Please read my previous followup.


                                  Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
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