[tor-talk] Tor-ramdisk 20120622 released

[MacLemon]

On 23 Jun 2012, at 16:58, Anthony G. Basile wrote:
>> * Could I use Tor-Ramdisk to run a node on rackmount but diskless x86_64 hardware and boot from a hardware read-only USB stick?
> Boot the vps from the iso image as if you're doing an install.  I don't know how rackmount nodes work, but I assume you can do something like that.
I’m actually thinking about real hardware, like quad Xeon 19" server hardware. If I could boot those from a USB stick or other tiny flash module I could totally skip any mass storage, reducing price and energy consumption. Only question would be support for hardware acceleration like AES-NI for current intel i-series of processors.


>> * Have you tried running Tor-Ramdisk from a USB stick/CF card on  an ALIX board? http://pcengines.ch/alix3d2.htm
> I can write scripts for transferring the iso to usb or sd/micro sd card.  Thanks for that link to a amd driven board.

While I cannot send you ALIX hardware to test with, I’m happy to test for you as I’ve got two of those boards here for testing. (They can boot from compact flash or USB.) The AMD Geode sports a 128bit AES hardware accelerator and it’s a very good idea to support that. Under nanoBSD (FreeBSD for embedded systems) tor performance rose from about 1Mbit/s to 8Mbit/s.
Best regards
Pepi