[metrics-bugs] #29370 [Metrics/Onionperf]: Measure mode with arbitrary tgen traffic models

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#29370: Measure mode with arbitrary tgen traffic models
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 Reporter:  irl                        |          Owner:  metrics-team
     Type:  enhancement                |         Status:  reopened
 Priority:  Low                        |      Milestone:
Component:  Metrics/Onionperf          |        Version:
 Severity:  Normal                     |     Resolution:
 Keywords:  metrics-team-roadmap-2020  |  Actual Points:  0.1
Parent ID:  #33321                     |         Points:  1
 Reviewer:                             |        Sponsor:  Sponsor59
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Comment (by robgjansen):

 The use case was to allow OnionPerf to measure traffic patterns other than
 the usual "file download" pattern (the model that OnionPerf generates for
 itself internally). So, for example, you could set up a tgen traffic model
 to act like a ping utility, sending a few bytes to the server side and
 back to the client to measure circuit round-trip times.

 My initial idea was not to make OnionPerf generate these models, but
 rather to create them externally and have OnionPerf just "pass them
 through" to tgen. That means whoever generated the models would need to
 correctly set the server addresses and SOCKS ports, etc.

 I'm not sure that Tor wants this feature for OnionPerf. An alternative
 could just be to wait until you have a specific model in mind that you've
 decided you want to start measuring, and then generate that model
 internally as we do now with the 5MiB downloads. In that case the pass-
 through feature would not be needed, and you wouldn't have to maintain
 something that you don't use.

 Do you think the pass-through feature is actually useful for Tor, or does
 generating models internally make more sense?

 (The tgen models in Shadow are generated with the correct addresses/ports
 during the phase when we generate the Shadow experiment configuration.
 This is currently done using the Shadow-Tor config generator
 [https://github.com/shadow/tornetgen here].)

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/29370#comment:8>
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