On 2013-10-19 03:50, I wrote:
Is there any utility in the very cheap VPSs with 128mb of ram?
I did some testing quite a while ago and found that 256MB was the minimum amount of RAM for a relay. It works for some time with 128MB, but it then runs out of memory, and it is not very good to have it restart all the time.
I say "was" because currently, with more than 3 million clients in the network, a relay might even run out of memory with 256MB RAM. I don't have any current data on that though.
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Moritz Bartl:
On 2013-10-19 03:50, I wrote:
Is there any utility in the very cheap VPSs with 128mb of ram?
I did some testing quite a while ago and found that 256MB was the minimum amount of RAM for a relay. It works for some time with 128MB, but it then runs out of memory, and it is not very good to have it restart all the time.
I say "was" because currently, with more than 3 million clients in the network, a relay might even run out of memory with 256MB RAM. I don't have any current data on that though.
A 128MB VPS can comfortably support an obfsproxy bridge - just get a provider that doesn't reboot you a ton. I've run a number of such bridges.
I would not go below 512MB RAM for a relay that is going to handle more than 2Mbps (about 200KB/sec) - you will eventually run out of RAM and Tor will be killed, and that's not great for the network.
My source for the above is a lot of blood, sweat and tears with Tor on the Raspberry Pi model B. :)
Best, - -Gordon M.
Gordon,
It seems useful to run obfsproxy bridges on $1 a month VPSs then. Can weather.torproject.org be used to monitor whether they're running or not?
Robert
Is there any utility in the very cheap VPSs with 128mb of ram?
I did some testing quite a while ago and found that 256MB was the minimum amount of RAM for a relay. It works for some time with 128MB, but it then runs out of memory, and it is not very good to have it restart all the time.
I say "was" because currently, with more than 3 million clients in the network, a relay might even run out of memory with 256MB RAM. I don't have any current data on that though.
A 128MB VPS can comfortably support an obfsproxy bridge - just get a provider that doesn't reboot you a ton. I've run a number of such bridges.
I would not go below 512MB RAM for a relay that is going to handle more than 2Mbps (about 200KB/sec) - you will eventually run out of RAM and Tor will be killed, and that's not great for the network.
My source for the above is a lot of blood, sweat and tears with Tor on the Raspberry Pi model B. :)
Best,
- -Gordon M.
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I:
Gordon,
It seems useful to run obfsproxy bridges on $1 a month VPSs then. Can weather.torproject.org be used to monitor whether they're running or not?
That's a very good question - I hadn't tried monitoring my bridges with it because I had other means. Fortunately, a reboot to a bridge doesn't set it back like it would a relay. Users of the bridge are inconvenienced (maybe) while it's offline, but cheap VPSes are *great* for dedicated bridges, and 128MB RAM is currently enough.
Best, - -Gordon M.
Is there any utility in the very cheap VPSs with 128mb of ram?
I did some testing quite a while ago and found that 256MB was the minimum amount of RAM for a relay. It works for some time with 128MB, but it then runs out of memory, and it is not very good to have it restart all the time.
I say "was" because currently, with more than 3 million clients in the network, a relay might even run out of memory with 256MB RAM. I don't have any current data on that though.
A 128MB VPS can comfortably support an obfsproxy bridge - just get a provider that doesn't reboot you a ton. I've run a number of such bridges.
I would not go below 512MB RAM for a relay that is going to handle more than 2Mbps (about 200KB/sec) - you will eventually run out of RAM and Tor will be killed, and that's not great for the network.
My source for the above is a lot of blood, sweat and tears with Tor on the Raspberry Pi model B. :)
Best, - -Gordon M.
Gordon,
To see if it was possible just now I set up an obfsproxy bridge as best I could but it failed to download properly. The instructions say set up Tor then the obfsproxy software which seemed to use up the ram. (I've reinstalled the OS from Ubuntu 11.. to Quantal) Have I misunderstood something? Is there an easier way to set up a bridge like the Amazon ECC ones on a 256mB VPS that ab initio Linux people can try? If the Tor Project wants to be really big it would seem to be better to be easier to provide resources such as your idea of a box anyone can plug in.
Robert
-----Original Message----- From: gordon@morehouse.me Sent: Sun, 20 Oct 2013 19:37:11 -0700 To: tor-relays@lists.torproject.org Subject: Re: [tor-relays] minimum ram
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I:
Gordon,
It seems useful to run obfsproxy bridges on $1 a month VPSs then. Can weather.torproject.org be used to monitor whether they're running or not?
That's a very good question - I hadn't tried monitoring my bridges with it because I had other means. Fortunately, a reboot to a bridge doesn't set it back like it would a relay. Users of the bridge are inconvenienced (maybe) while it's offline, but cheap VPSes are *great* for dedicated bridges, and 128MB RAM is currently enough.
Best,
- -Gordon M.
Is there any utility in the very cheap VPSs with 128mb of ram?
I did some testing quite a while ago and found that 256MB was the minimum amount of RAM for a relay. It works for some time with 128MB, but it then runs out of memory, and it is not very good to have it restart all the time.
I say "was" because currently, with more than 3 million clients in the network, a relay might even run out of memory with 256MB RAM. I don't have any current data on that though.
A 128MB VPS can comfortably support an obfsproxy bridge - just get a provider that doesn't reboot you a ton. I've run a number of such bridges.
I would not go below 512MB RAM for a relay that is going to handle more than 2Mbps (about 200KB/sec) - you will eventually run out of RAM and Tor will be killed, and that's not great for the network.
My source for the above is a lot of blood, sweat and tears with Tor on the Raspberry Pi model B. :)
Best, - -Gordon M.
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I:
To see if it was possible just now I set up an obfsproxy bridge as best I could but it failed to download properly.
Can you be more specific about what this means? What exactly happened?
The instructions say set up Tor then the obfsproxy software which seemed to use up the ram. (I've reinstalled the OS from Ubuntu 11.. to Quantal)
I generally use Debian for very low-end servers as it's pretty easy to have a pared-down install that uses very little RAM for the OS.
When you first boot your VPS and don't have *anything* else running - no Tor, no obfsproxy - what is the output of 'free -m'?
Have I misunderstood something? Is there an easier way to set up a bridge like the Amazon ECC ones on a 256mB VPS that ab initio Linux people can try?
Not yet, although it's a worthy project - the difference is that bridges need to be long-lived - you want it to be up for months or years, which AFAIK is not the case with the "free" Amazon EC2 instances, they're temporary relays unless you decide to pay for EC2. (The free usage amount on EC2 does not allow you to operate even for a whole month, fine for relays in some sense, sort of, not good for bridges).
If the Tor Project wants to be really big it would seem to be better to be easier to provide resources such as your idea of a box anyone can plug in.
Well, they only have a few really smart people working on the core anonymity and crypto problems that people like me could never hope to understand, so it's up to me and you and other people who understand the importance of Tor to help provide those solutions. :)
A plug-and-forget bridge package with a list of "known good" microVPS providers would be a great thing, though.
My Raspberry Pi/single-board-computer project will definitely end up in more bridges if I complete it, because it will urge the user to be a bridge if they're really too slow to be a relay (and automatically reconfigure itself if their link becomes too slow and stays that way for a long time - at least, that's the plan).
Best, - -Gordon M.
Robert
-----Original Message----- From: gordon@morehouse.me Sent: Sun, 20 Oct 2013 19:37:11 -0700 To: tor-relays@lists.torproject.org Subject: Re: [tor-relays] minimum ram
I:
Gordon,
It seems useful to run obfsproxy bridges on $1 a month VPSs then. Can weather.torproject.org be used to monitor whether they're running or not?
That's a very good question - I hadn't tried monitoring my bridges with it because I had other means. Fortunately, a reboot to a bridge doesn't set it back like it would a relay. Users of the bridge are inconvenienced (maybe) while it's offline, but cheap VPSes are *great* for dedicated bridges, and 128MB RAM is currently enough.
Best, -Gordon M.
> Is there any utility in the very cheap VPSs with 128mb > of ram?
I did some testing quite a while ago and found that 256MB was the minimum amount of RAM for a relay. It works for some time with 128MB, but it then runs out of memory, and it is not very good to have it restart all the time.
I say "was" because currently, with more than 3 million clients in the network, a relay might even run out of memory with 256MB RAM. I don't have any current data on that though.
A 128MB VPS can comfortably support an obfsproxy bridge - just get a provider that doesn't reboot you a ton. I've run a number of such bridges.
I would not go below 512MB RAM for a relay that is going to handle more than 2Mbps (about 200KB/sec) - you will eventually run out of RAM and Tor will be killed, and that's not great for the network.
My source for the above is a lot of blood, sweat and tears with Tor on the Raspberry Pi model B. :)
Best, - -Gordon M.
Gordon,
Thanks.
To see if it was possible just now I set up an obfsproxy bridge as best I could but it failed to download properly.
I reinstalled Ubuntu 11.10 64 and free -m brought this.. total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 256 38 217 0 0 26 -/+ buffers/cache: 12 243 Swap: 0 0 0
Again following the instructions https://www.torproject.org/docs/debian.html.en#development apt-get install tor deb.torproject.org-keyring brought this...
Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric/main libevent-2.0-5 amd64 2.0.12-stable-1 [132 kB] Err http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/ experimental-oneiric/main tor amd64 0.2.4.17-rc-1~oneiric+1 404 Not Found [IP: 82.195.75.101 80] Get:2 http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/ oneiric/main deb.torproject.org-keyring all 2012.08.29 [4138 B] Err http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/ experimental-oneiric/main tor-geoipdb all 0.2.4.17-rc-1~oneiric+1 404 Not Found [IP: 82.195.75.101 80] Get:3 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric/universe torsocks amd64 1.1-4 [69.7 kB] Fetched 206 kB in 0s (290 kB/s) Failed to fetch http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/pool/main/t/tor/tor_0.2.4.17-rc-1~o... 404 Not Found [IP: 82.195.75.101 80] Failed to fetch http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/pool/main/t/tor/tor-geoipdb_0.2.4.1... 404 Not Found [IP: 82.195.75.101 80] E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fix-missing?
I am a Linux newboy so any help is welcome, Gordon.
Of the Tor Cloud project using Amazon's free year I have only had a $3 charge for one of three in six months. The versions of Obfsproxy are set not to break Amazon's free limit, as I understood Tor to say. If there are $12USD a year servers available can't a package be set-up to utilise them. I'm burrowing through the Linux lingo as well as I can but it's a real test of mettle!
Have you looked at the Cubie 2 board? To seek finance to distribute a devoted board with the best balance of components and cost would lead to more Tor network I reckon.
Robert
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I would recommend the BeagleBone Black. It's only $10 more than the Pi and it runs actual Debian and the tor development debs work out of the box. It's also has a 1GHz processor and 512MB RAM. My uptime is 45 days right now.
My bandwidth settings (below) allows for an always-on relay that doesn't detract from my home network. Gordon is doing some great work getting the Pi setup, but the BBB has basically worked out of the box for me. (I'm limited to 5Mbps upload).
Josh
MaxAdvertisedBandwidth 200 KB RelayBandwidthRate 520 KB RelayBandwidthBurst 640 KB
On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 10:20 PM, I beatthebastards@inbox.com wrote:
Gordon,
Thanks.
To see if it was possible just now I set up an obfsproxy bridge as best I could but it failed to download properly.
I reinstalled Ubuntu 11.10 64 and free -m brought this.. total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 256 38 217 0 0 26 -/+ buffers/cache: 12 243 Swap: 0 0 0
Again following the instructions https://www.torproject.org/docs/debian.html.en#development apt-get install tor deb.torproject.org-keyring brought this...
Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric/main libevent-2.0-5 amd64 2.0.12-stable-1 [132 kB] Err http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/ experimental-oneiric/main tor amd64 0.2.4.17-rc-1~oneiric+1 404 Not Found [IP: 82.195.75.101 80] Get:2 http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/ oneiric/main deb.torproject.org-keyring all 2012.08.29 [4138 B] Err http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/ experimental-oneiric/main tor-geoipdb all 0.2.4.17-rc-1~oneiric+1 404 Not Found [IP: 82.195.75.101 80] Get:3 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric/universe torsocks amd64 1.1-4 [69.7 kB] Fetched 206 kB in 0s (290 kB/s) Failed to fetch http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/pool/main/t/tor/tor_0.2.4.17-rc-1~o... 404 Not Found [IP: 82.195.75.101 80] Failed to fetch http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/pool/main/t/tor/tor-geoipdb_0.2.4.1... 404 Not Found [IP: 82.195.75.101 80] E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fix-missing?
I am a Linux newboy so any help is welcome, Gordon.
Of the Tor Cloud project using Amazon's free year I have only had a $3 charge for one of three in six months. The versions of Obfsproxy are set not to break Amazon's free limit, as I understood Tor to say. If there are $12USD a year servers available can't a package be set-up to utilise them. I'm burrowing through the Linux lingo as well as I can but it's a real test of mettle!
Have you looked at the Cubie 2 board? To seek finance to distribute a devoted board with the best balance of components and cost would lead to more Tor network I reckon.
Robert
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I:
Gordon,
Thanks.
To see if it was possible just now I set up an obfsproxy bridge as best I could but it failed to download properly.
I reinstalled Ubuntu 11.10 64 and free -m brought this.. total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 256 38 217 0 0 26 -/+ buffers/cache: 12 243 Swap: 0 0 0
That looks good for the RAM - a bridge should be fine with that, and that's actually a darn good set of numbers for Ubuntu!
Again following the instructions https://www.torproject.org/docs/debian.html.en#development apt-get install tor deb.torproject.org-keyring brought this...
Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric/main libevent-2.0-5 amd64 2.0.12-stable-1 [132 kB] Err http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/ experimental-oneiric/main tor amd64 0.2.4.17-rc-1~oneiric+1 404 Not Found [IP: 82.195.75.101 80] Get:2 http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/ oneiric/main deb.torproject.org-keyring all 2012.08.29 [4138 B] Err http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/ experimental-oneiric/main tor-geoipdb all 0.2.4.17-rc-1~oneiric+1 404 Not Found [IP: 82.195.75.101 80] Get:3 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric/universe torsocks amd64 1.1-4 [69.7 kB] Fetched 206 kB in 0s (290 kB/s) Failed to fetch http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/pool/main/t/tor/tor_0.2.4.17-rc-1~o... 404 Not Found [IP: 82.195.75.101 80] Failed to fetch http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/pool/main/t/tor/tor-geoipdb_0.2.4.1... 404 Not Found [IP: 82.195.75.101 80] E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fix-missing?
This appears to happen because nobody has put a binary package 0.2.4.17-rc-1~oneiric+1_amd64.deb into http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/pool/main/t/tor/ - this is a problem on the Tor Project's repo, not with how you are attempting to install.
You could attempt to build the package from source, the instructions are at https://www.torproject.org/docs/debian.html.en#source - this is how I install Tor onto the Raspberry Pi, for example.
Any tor .deb repo-master reading: has there been a discussion of a package autobuilder? Is there such a thing? Missing packages like this - not good :(
If there are $12USD a year servers available can't a package be set-up to utilise them.
Yes, this is merely an unexpected (and fixable) problem :)
I'm burrowing through the Linux lingo as well as I can but it's a real test of mettle!
Having used Linux since the mid-1990s, I agree. ;)
Have you looked at the Cubie 2 board?
I own two of them, and my project to make the Raspberry Pi into a super-reliable Tor relay has expanded to have a goal of supporting BeagleBone boards (as Josh Dakto mentions) and Cubieboards. The Cubieboard 2 is very, very new and there are still a large number of bugs and many firmware releases, but it's a very capable machine - more than double the Pi (and with 1024MB of RAM and SATA!) for less than double the cost.
To seek finance to distribute a devoted board with the best balance of components and cost would lead to more Tor network I reckon.
The goal of my project[1] (which is very very pre-alpha right now) is to make it really easy for people to run reliable, trouble-free relays and bridges on these inexpensive machines, and then maybe some angel will come along and buy $10,000 worth of them and give them away :)
1. https://github.com/gordon-morehouse/cipollini
Best, - -Gordon M.
Gordon,
Thank you. I may have a go at building the package from source, now.
Robert
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