[tor-relays] MiB/s / metrics

Tue Jan 20 08:07:32 UTC 2015

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Hi grarpamp,

thanks for the detailed explanation.  I just changed MiB/s to Gbit/s.

All the best,
Karsten

On 20/01/15 00:08, grarpamp wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 5:55 AM, Sebastian Urbach
> <sebastian at urbach.org> wrote:
>> I opened a ticket recently with the intention to use a more
>> common unit than MiB/s for metrics. Karsten basically agrees but
>> is waiting for more input.
>> 
>> https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/14257
> 
> Tor is at its core a network application, an interface to the 
> network, a router. In the real ISP world therein everyone speaks in
> "mega bits per second" "10^n" (and now with 100Gbps links, in
> Gbps).
> 
> Only the downstream hosting world speaks in "mega bytes" "2^n",
> "per" "whatever time unit they dream up". This comes from attempts
> by hosters to appease people pushing their disk files MiB's over
> the net at link rate, not spread over bandwidth rate. In fact, the
> hosters have to convert that appeasement on their backend to
> aggregated Mbps so they can talk to their real ISP's.
> 
> I've suggested before that Tor project should use Mbit/s (or Mbps 
> or Mbit[s] where the slash presents a problem) as its primary
> default representation for Tor client and all related projects that
> refer to bandwidth. Tor is a bandwidth app, especially at the relay
> level. There is no disk or instantaneous link rate transfer need
> applying to Tor relay. (As opposed to user level which is more of a
> mashup of rate usage contexts and interests similar to
> bittorrent/webserving.)
> 
> Then if people want MiB's or MB's so they can continue
> perpetuating and interfacing with hosters who do the same, you
> could add a few global prefix, unit and time options to switch all
> representations over at once. (Tor client has recently added per
> stanza Mbps configs which is a fine alternative to global. Yet
> again, the manpage and even maybe the code still uses nonsense in
> regards to capitalization, base 2 vs 10, crossed contexts, etc...)
> 
> Start here, use the table in the upper right, ignore jedec, and
> pick and apply 10^n or 2^n representations consistantly. 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix
> 
> " BandwidthRate N bytes|KBytes|MBytes|GBytes|KBits|MBits|GBits A
> token bucket limits the average incoming bandwidth usage on this 
> node to the specified number of bytes per second, and the average 
> outgoing bandwidth usage to that same value. If you want to run a 
> relay in the public network, this needs to be at the very least 30 
> KBytes (that is, 30720 bytes). (Default: 1 GByte) Notably, "KBytes"
> can also be written as "kilobytes" or "kb"; "
> 
> No, "KBytes" is invalid, there is no capital "K", only "k (SI)"
> and "Ki (binary)". Nor is "b" ever a byte, nor is "Bit[s]" ever
> capitalized. True network applications should also not be crossing
> network-like prefixes with disk-like objects or vice versa, ie:
> "Gibit[s] (non-network binary and single bit)", or the "GBytes
> (network SI and binary multiples of bit)" above. If you cross it up
> or make errors in context in one place that throws all your docs
> and configs into question. Even I still mess it up sometimes.
> 
> " it's easy to forget that "B" means bytes, not bits. "
> 
> Nope :) Abbr "B" means "byte" (now formally of width eight bits as
> in "octet/o", and still unfortunately caveat "bel/B" as in "dB"),
> and abbr "bit" means "bit", (and "b" is now just nothing but
> informal efficient shorthand for "bit" if I recall).
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_80000-13 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octet_(computing) 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit
> 
> Anyway, tor relay is network not disk, so I'd suggest megabits, or
> kilo/giga as scale appropriate. 
> _______________________________________________ tor-relays mailing
> list tor-relays at lists.torproject.org 
> https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays .
> 

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