Fast and Furious: Nym Mixnet Performance Test — Part I

Nym mixnet operators are invited to participate in a series of mainnet performance tests.

The first one will take place on Wednesday 20 March 2024. Node operators should join in one or more of these tests, allowing Nym Core team to gain insights into the load the network can currently operate under. The test does not require additional NYM tokens, does not impact mainnet uptime and will provide you with valuable insights into how to improve your nodes.

Why are we doing a performance test?

Nym is about to release the NymVPN Alpha on mainnet. This is the first commercial application to run on the mixnet, so before launch we need to gain more insights into the current capacity of the live mixnet.

The Fast and Furious performance test will show what the effect on the mainnet Nym network is when lots of mixnet clients use the network and the effects of recent changes. Over the last few months new features have been added to gateways such as the Internet Packet Router (IPR) that NATs and reverse-NATs IP packet streams from mixnet clients. Also, the basic allow/deny list has been replaced with a more sophisticated deny list or port allow list.

Specifically, the performance tests will provide insights into the following questions:

• 1

  How many mixnet client users can all active set entry gateways handle simulatenously?

  We have done a lot of benchmarking internally, however, we want to see how community operated gateways on mainnet perform with traffic from mixnet clients requesting large amounts of IP traffic to hosts all over the Internet

• 2

  How much sustained IP traffic can a subset of mainnet nodes sustain?

  Using the nym-vpn-cli we want to generate lots of TCP/IP and UDP traffic wrapped in mixnet packets. This will affect entry gateways, mixnodes and exit gateways. We want to see how the network performs!

• 3

  How can we make improvements to the mixnode and gateway binaries to improve the throughput on mainnet?

  We are always looking for ways to improve the Nym network and with your help, we can see where we need to make improvements when there is a large sustained user traffic load.

The performance test will provide a better understanding of optimal machine spec and configuration for Nym node operators and a better understanding of associated costs of operating under high volumes of traffic.

What are we testing?

We are testing mixnodes and gateways. Bring as many of your mainnet nodes as you can to our dedicated test environment (and don’t worry - the nodes under test will still remain part of mainnet while the test is in progress).

Nym will generate a large amount of IP traffic using a fleet of instances of the nym-vpn-cli running in 5-hop mixnet mode. Each instance will request a variety of traffic from common internet sites including text, images, streaming video and large files.

Anyone is free to join in the test by running the nym-vpn-cli with the performance test environment and use the Internet over the mixnet while the test is in progress. We are very interested in real user's feedback on the experience of using the mixnet alongside the noisy automated fleet of test clients.

How do I join the test?

We would like you to bring your mainnet Nym nodes (mixnode or gateway) to the test, by providing the identity key:

I joined the test and I've changed my mind, how do I unregister?

What happens during the test?

Your node will be added to the directory of a temporary performance test environment. And yes, this does mean your node will simultaneously be both in mainnet and the performance test directories.

Once the test starts, we will ramp up test agents that will connect to all the nodes that have signed up and are in the performance test directory and start sending 5-hop mixnet IP traffic.

Nym will generate a large amount of IP traffic using a fleet of instances of the nym-vpn-cli running in 5-hop mixnet mode. Each instance will request a variety of traffic from common internet sites including text, images, streaming video and large files.

This traffic will leave the performance test network and be routed to the public internet. Any responses will be routed back across the performance test network to the client.

Anyone is free to join in and add further load to the test by running the nym-vpn-cli with the performance test environment and use the Internet over the mixnet while the test is in progress.

Monitor your node during the test

We encourage you to add monitoring to your own node, using your own metrics infrastructure. This will allow you to capture metrics about how your node is running, including:

• simple metrics such as CPU, memory and disk usage
• Nym network metrics, such as the number of mixnet packets processed by your node
• if you are running an exit gateway, statistics about IP packet routing

Information on how to configure metrics for your node can be found here in the Operators Guide.

Metrics that Nym will collect on test agents

We will be collecting metrics from our test agents to monitor the real performance as experienced by a client.

They will be made public after the test. It will take a few days to get them together in a sensible format so have patience!

What about metrics I collect, can I share them?

Yes please! Any metrics you collect during the test would be most valuable to Nym and others. Please share in the Nym Operator matrix channel.

What happens after the test?

We will analyze the results from the test and share with the operator community in one of the subsequent weekly Operator AMAs.

The results will then inform:

• guidance on machine specs
• improvements to mixnode and gateway binaries
• Project Smoosh timeline
• improvements to Nym token economics

More tests will then be scheduled as if more insights are needed.

Be fast. Be furious. Be ready on Wednesday 20 March 2024.

Who is already taking part?