Transmission High CPU (Debian via Optware)

[vertigo888]

Hi

I recently upgraded my RT-AC3200 with merlin firmware Transmission to 2.92 by following TeHashX tutorial installing transmission via debian on a optware install.

Transmission is up but I get extremely high CPU usage (near 100%) and the 250MB RAM is pretty much maxed out. I have also seen suggestions about using a swap file but this is already created by optware installation.

I also added the following to /etc/sysctl.conf within Debian as I was having poor transmission performance

vm.min_free_kbytes = 16384

How can I solve this?

Thanks in advance

 

[Fitz Mutch]

How to tweak the kernel. Example:

/jffs/scripts/init-start

#!/bin/sh
/bin/echo 16384 >/proc/sys/vm/min_free_kbytes

 

[vertigo888]

How to tweak the kernel. Example:

/jffs/scripts/init-start

#!/bin/sh
/bin/echo 16384 >/proc/sys/vm/min_free_kbytes

Thanks Fitch. Would this solve both the CPU and performance of transmission? And should I remove the existing /etc/sysctl.conf entry I made?

 

[Fitz Mutch]

Thanks Fitch. Would this solve both the CPU and performance of transmission? And should I remove the existing /etc/sysctl.conf entry I made?

Just re-read your post. So you are running a chrooted Debian on the router? That could be your problem. I'm using the Transmission package installed from the Entware-ng repo.

Here's my kernel tweak for Transmission:
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/h...-net-core-rmem_max-4194304.21550/#post-341814

OR

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/specific-tcp-ip-settings-for-torrents.41531/#post-351182

 

[vertigo888]

That's right. I used the tutorial at https://www.hqt.ro/compile-and-install-latest-transmissionbt-through-debian/

I did install transmission with optware previously but wanted to upgrade and used the article. Is there a way to upgrade transmission using optware?

On a separate issue.. Any need to use entware instead of optware?

Thanks

 

[Fitz Mutch]

... Is there a way to upgrade transmission using optware? Any need to use entware instead of optware?

The Optware repo is no supported anymore. And you don't need to chroot Debian on the router, just to run Transmission.

This forum would recommend using Entware-ng because it's actively supported and maintained. It's like the OpenWRT package repo.

 

[joegreat]

Transmission is up but I get extremely high CPU usage (near 100%) and the 250MB RAM is pretty much maxed out. I have also seen suggestions about using a swap file but this is already created by optware installation.

How can I solve this?

Simple question gives simple solutions: You have to live with the high CPU usage!
And yes, you need a swap file otherwise you will run out of memory soon and Linux goes ballistic if it happens!

Remember: your poor, small router CPU (with only 256 MB of memory) need to do a big job with Transmission running: Transmission protocol is complicated (many connections to handle - should be limited to ~200), File handling of the torrents (read/write), Disk handling, I/O waits and all this without any help of DMA, SATA controller or Intel CPU power - all need to be done by the poor small ARM CPU with very limited amount of memory!

Mine was also always 100% loaded, but I have limited the network bandwidth to have room for other usage and this also limited the CPU usage - now it's only around 75% - where one core is always 100% and the other one below 50%.

Some optimization of memory usage in correlation with Transmission was discussed long time ago here (but still valid and used in my setup).

 

[sfx2000]

transmission - watch out for too many concurrent connections - with 256mb RAM, between the app, and the NAT state tables, one can get into a situation where stability can be impacted.

Rpi 3 is relatively cheap, and makes for a great torrent client... attach a USB drive to it, and a simple samba configuration to move files around..

 

[vertigo888]

Thank you all for the suggestions