Monitoring I2P network performance

Before going into speed details you should know a bit about packet loss because that directly influences possible transfer rates. TCP packet loss is gathered by our CPU monitoring. UDP packet loss is recorded on the application level, inside I2P it is listed on the SSU peers page, last two columns or for outbound only you compare the event counts at the end of the stats page.

When comparing I2Speed to other installs, you will find we bring down inbound packet dups to near zero. On outbound results are lower than with TCP but they are not always below 1% depending on connection quality. We use a technique borrowed from TCP called fast retransmission, keeping speed higher but possibly sometimes sending out unnecessary dups, because with stock I2P on the other end we in part get random acknowledgements. Story here.

Now onto our raw speed:
Output from iptraf-ng over more than 3 minutes shows much higher UDP traffic compared to TCP, especially inbound. This is a bit more costly on CPU (we have optimized that anyway), but rewards you with higher speed, less packet loss and less burden on the entire network equipment. Compare to your current install.

               Total      Total    Incoming   Incoming    Outgoing   Outgoing

             Packets      Bytes     Packets      Bytes     Packets      Bytes

 Total:      1546246      1219M      705145    521113k      841101    698049k

 IPv4:       1148219    892414k      502455    352008k      645764    540405k

 IPv6:        398027    326549k      202690    168905k      195337    157644k

 TCP:         561171    400808k      268035    141748k      293136    259060k

 UDP:         980513    814896k      434137    377111k      546376    437785k

 ICMP:           690     279896         661     277952          29       1944

 Other IP:      3872    2979283        2312    1776812        1560    1202471

 Total rates:       5391.05 kBps            Broadcast packets:           56

                       7017 pps             Broadcast bytes:           2688

 Incoming rates:    2389.92 kBps

                       3231 pps

 Outgoing rates:    3001.13 kBps

                       3785 pps

This also translates into higher speeds of individual UDP connections that on average clearly outperform TCP connections. TCP connections retransmit more frequently and that stalls them. Output from pktstat sampled for 180 seconds:

   Bps    % desc

160.5k   3% udp localmachine:12345 <-> 82.220.88.142:61151

118.2k   2% udp6 localmachine,12345 <-> 2a01:4f8:c0c:2e8:0:b00b:dead:beef,54567

113.5k   2% udp6 2001:41d0:8:bdd3::1,24478 <-> localmachine,12345

 99.0k   1% udp6 localmachine,12345 <-> 2a02:1205:34c4:bcc0::1,32167

 95.8k   1% tcp6 localmachine,54176 <-> 2a01:e0a:3d1:1070:192c:e7d2:5871:f4d8,20646

 76.2k   1% udp localmachine:12345 <-> 66.251.253.78:13324

 75.0k   1% udp localmachine:12345 <-> 198.91.54.178:11328

 72.0k   1% udp localmachine:12345 <-> 91.207.174.228:24480

 71.4k   1% udp localmachine:12345 <-> 54.37.216.193:14749

 68.7k   1% udp 136.50.59.125:25789 <-> localmachine:12345

 63.8k   1% udp6 2001:19f0:5:5b08:5400:1ff:fea9:ca14,28807 <-> localmachine,12345

 61.7k   1% udp localmachine:12345 <-> 192.241.165.222:26217

 61.6k   1% udp 188.167.137.25:9364 <-> localmachine:12345

 57.5k   1% udp localmachine:12345 <-> 81.156.232.22:28486

 56.5k   1% udp localmachine:12345 <-> 84.17.51.114:21946

 52.7k   1% tcp6 localmachine,12345 <-> 2a01:e0a:26a:3830:f8cb:a9ff:eadf:6398,54969

 52.3k   1% udp6 localmachine,12345 <-> 240f:78:8073:1:a998:abe5:8474:def8,36818

 51.0k   0% udp6 localmachine,12345 <-> 2a00:7b80:452:4000::6,25003

 46.3k   0% udp 144.91.106.71:22719 <-> localmachine:12345

 41.8k   0% udp 104.176.43.65:14933 <-> localmachine:12345

 41.0k   0% tcp 176.95.191.188:30402 <-> localmachine:43156

 40.7k   0% udp6 localmachine,12345 <-> 2a01:4f8:191:1066::2,27718

 39.4k   0% udp6 2001:41d0:8:d9c9::1,17911 <-> localmachine,12345

 39.2k   0% udp 185.25.48.168:25960 <-> localmachine:12345

 38.5k   0% udp6 localmachine,12345 <-> 2601:2c7:4400:4f40:95ce:fbc4:568:39b4,26348

 38.0k   0% udp6 localmachine,12345 <-> 2a03:4000:33:556:1812:cff:fefe:9efd,15195

 36.2k   0% udp6 localmachine,12345 <-> 2a02:2168:a0f:a116::1,9520

 35.8k   0% udp 162.221.207.227:22823 <-> localmachine:12345

 35.5k   0% udp localmachine:12345 <-> 76.109.45.83:20332

 35.2k   0% tcp localmachine:33646 <-> 45.78.129.145:23867

 34.9k   0% udp 188.60.77.133:16610 <-> localmachine:12345

 33.8k   0% tcp6 2001:19f0:6401:47f:5400:2ff:fe76:ebf0,12983 <-> localmachine,49666

 32.6k   0% udp6 localmachine,12345 <-> 2a00:23c3:2182:1f01:edf4:71c7:ae68:c516,34569

 32.4k   0% tcp localmachine:34212 <-> 91.171.187.16:55919

 31.7k   0% udp localmachine:12345 <-> 24.146.159.45:21174

 30.4k   0% udp localmachine:12345 <-> 5.164.215.131:28287

 29.5k   0% tcp6 localmachine,51326 <-> 2a02:180:2:92:feed:beef:32ad:affe,20556

 28.8k   0% udp 181.56.197.233:12024 <-> localmachine:12345

Questions welcome.

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