Performance Monitoring & Testing
As Nym developers constantly improve the software, the role of Node Operators is to keep their nodes up to date, monitor their performance and share feedback with the rest of the community and Nym team. Node performance measurements and server monitoring are an essential pillar of our common work.
Nym Network is routed either through the Mixnet (5-hop) or through Wireguard (2-hop). In all cases Nym node operators always employ only one binary called nym-node. Through provided arguments (or changes in the config file), nym-node can be utilised for different functionalities. However, once it's registered to Nym Network it's by default available for Nym Mixnet not for Wireguard routing. Only nodes with Wireguard enabled, are also available for Wireguard routing. This creates a situation where every Wireguard enabled nym-node is required to have a solid performance score in Mixnet to begin with, but not every Mixnet routing nym-node must have Wireguard enabled.
Given this complexity, we divided the part below about perfromance calculation logic and node selection into two parallel tabs: Mixnet and Wireguard.
Functionality & Performance Check
If you want to check your nodes performance, connectivity and much more, see some of the dashobards:
- Node Status dashboard (opens in a new tab): Shows latest probe results on one board
- Nym Node Status Observatory (opens in a new tab): New version of a good old Nym Harbourmaster, allowing operators preview stats of each node
For more information about available endpoints and their status, you can refer to nymvpn.com/api/public/v1/directory/gateways (opens in a new tab) or see directly self described endpoints of your node:
# sustitude <IPv4_ADDRESS> or <HOSTNAME> with the one corresponding to your node
# for http
http://<IPv4_ADDRESS>:8080/api/v1/swagger/#/
# or
http://<IPv4_ADDRESS>/api/v1/swagger/#/
# for reversed proxy/WSS
https://<HOSTNAME>/api/v1/swagger/#/For example to determine which mode your node is running, you can check the :8080/api/v1/roles endpoint:
# sustitude <IPv4_ADDRESS> or <HOSTNAME> with the one corresponding to your node
# for http
http://<IPv4_ADDRESS>:8080/api/v1/roles
# or
http://<IPv4_ADDRESS>/api/v1/roles
# for reversed proxy/WSS
https://<HOSTNAME>/api/v1/rolesMonitoring
There are multiple ways to monitor performance of nodes and the machines on which they run. For the purpose of maximal privacy and decentralisation of the data - preventing Nym Mixnet from any global adversary takeover - we created these pages as a source of mutual empowerment, a place where operators can share and learn new skills to setup metrics monitors on their own infrastructure.
Guides to Setup Own Metrics
A list of different scripts, templates and guides for easier navigation:
nym-gateway-probe- a useful tool used under the hood of Node Status Observatory (opens in a new tab)- Prometheus and Grafana self-hosted setup
- Nym-node CPU cron service (opens in a new tab) - an easy bash script by Nym core developer @tommy1987 (opens in a new tab), designed to monitor a CPU usage of your node, running locally
- Nym's script
prom_targets.py(opens in a new tab) - a useful python program to request data from API and can be run on its own or plugged to more sophisticated flows
Collecting Testing Metrics
For the purpose of the performance testing Nym core developers plan to run instances of Prometheus and Grafana connected to Node explorer in the house. The network overall key insights we seek from these tests are primarily internal. We're focused on pinpointing bottlenecks, capacity loads, and monitoring cpu usage on the nodes' machines.