Fast and Furious: Nym Mixnet Performance Test

---

Join to discover just how well your node can handle the pressure…

Languages: 中文 // Русский // Türkçe // 日本 // Française // Português // Bahasa Indonesia // українська мова

Nym mixnet operators are invited to participate in a series of mainnet performance tests. The first one will take place on Wednesday the 20th of March.

• Ready? Bring your mainnet Nym nodes (mixnode or gateway) to the test, by providing the node identity key here.

Node operators should join in one or more of these tests, allowing Nym Core team to gain insights into the load mainnet can currently sustain. 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. It is mandatory for all gateway Service Grantees and participants in the Delegations Program and to join the test.

Come test the mixnet

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 of lots of mixnet clients using the mainnet and enable the team to assess 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 simultaneously? We have done a lot of benchmarking internally. However, we want to see how community operated gateways on mainnet perform with mixnet clients requesting large amounts of IP traffic from 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 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).

When are we testing?

Wednesday 20 Mar 2024 from 1:00:00 PM GMT+0 until 5:00:00 PM GMT+0

How do I join the test?

Bring your mainnet Nym nodes (mixnode or gateway) to the test, by providing the node identity key here.

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.

We are very interested in real user’s feedback on the experience of using the mixnet alongside the noisy automated fleet of test clients.

• Join Nym matrix channels to tell us about your experience.

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

It is important that you only connect nodes that you operate in your own node family to metrics and monitoring infrastructure. Join Nym Operator matrix channel for advice.

Connecting all nodes in the Nym network to a single centralised monitoring and metrics service undermines the effort to run the Nym network as decentralised infrastructure.

What metrics will Nym collect on my node?

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?

Nym Core team 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

Another test will then be scheduled as if more insights are needed.

Be fast. Be furious. Be ready on Wednesday the 20th of March, 2024.

X

Nym Core Team

We don’t mean that — if you run a Nym node you are already winning of course!