Hello! First post, so go easy on me.
I’ve set up Umbrel using the equipment the website recommends with the LED read/write lights from the hard drive case blinking here and there with each synced transaction until it reached 100%.
Now that it’s fully synced, the lights are blinking a whole lot more. It’s ALIVE.
But it made me wonder how much network traffic will the node use now that it’s caught up.
Is there a good way on the Pi to check how much traffic it’s using?
What should the general ballpark of monthly network traffic be from the node?
Thanks!
Calculate yourself: 1 block every 10 min of max 2MB + some more small traffic for LN node.
That’s all.
Check in the app BTC RPC explorer - node details and will show you how much the node is making traffic.
If you really want a more detailed stats, you will need to install a network monitor on your node, but no worth it.
BTC RPC Explorer app from your Umbrel also have a lot of stats tools, very good ones.
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Thanks for the quick reply! Initially I thought it would just be the traffic for the next block, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
The tip for the BTC RPC explorer really helps and the data there matches what I can see when I ssh into the box and view stats there.
I restarted the node to get clean start on the stats, and after watching a few minutes the BTC RPC explorer shows traffic 20.1MB down and 8.2GB up.
The download is pretty steady at 20, but the upload is racing higher every time I refresh.
Is this because another node is connected to mine and is downloading for the first time?
How often does that happen if that’s the case?
Yes, the upload means other new nodes (but no more than 10) are connected to your node and sync from you.
It will slow down in time, no worry
Thanks! It has slowed down a lot.
I was curious how much traffic the node would use after the final sync and saw the uploads from my node jump GBs in just minutes and continue at the same rate without stopping.
I’m happy to contribute to other nodes syncing but wondered if that rate of traffic would be like that all the time.
Our ISP does have a data cap where speeds slow down. It’s quite high, but if the node was always running that amount of traffic as a constant thing, we’d probably reach our cap.
Running ifconfig listed a bunch of veth (virtual ethernet?) connections. I’m not versed in veth connections, but my guess is that those are the peers connected to my node. It shows the traffic since uptime for each interface, and the total traffic corresponds with the traffic being sent out.
So, good news, it has stabilized. It’s been at the 64GB level for a while since the last restart (counter resets after a restart).
So for any overly inquisitive amateurs (like me), be prepared for traffic to keep going at a good clip after the full sync, but it does seem to have leveled off.
Thanks, @DarthCoin for the help!
Normally ISPs are putting a cap to download not to upload.
But anyway, youi can calculate yourself how much will be the download per month: every 10 min you download a max 2MB block.
Now, for the upload, you can’t know for sure how many other nodes will sync from you. But you can make an average after 1st month passing online all the time.
You can also see this in your router, if it have some kind of management stats.