I2P and hardware
Introduction
This page is about the hardware used to run a I2P node.
Users may give theirs recommendations and reviews.
I2P on desktop computers
The ultimate home PC as a I2P router 24/7 would have the following features: DIY (do it yourself), upgrade kit, quiet, energy-efficient …
Examples of recommended hardwares for running a 24/7 I2P node
Please use a section 'year(s)' in order to give more information about the accuracy of the review.
2014-2015
AMD Athlon 5350
AMD Athlon 5350 (+ motherboard as a Asus AM1M-A) is a APU (mean CPU+GPU) that has all the features of a ideal I2P node router and also of a desktop computer (for a user not playing games). One issue with Linux is the AMD proprietary driver required for good performance. Even if the 28 nm is outdated for 2014 (Intel CPUs sells 22 nm die shrinks), the 4 cores makes it energy efficient (because the unused cores are "switched off" automatically).
- √ DIY (motherboard is a mini ATX, CPU fan is provided with the CPU box)
- √ Quiet (AMD CPU cooler fan is very small but very quiet. Motherboard can slower the CPU fan and the desktop fan)
- √ Energy efficient (for 2014) for the price (<= 25 W). This CPU (28 nm) will be outdated with the next AMD CPU microarchitecture design (Zen, 14 nm, end 2016)
- √ Computing power (I2P use less that 25% of the CPU (this mean 1 core of the 4))
- X Comfort use : some times in the day it is a bit slow when using some applications mono-core (not designed for
multi core). Prefer the web browser Chromium (until Firefox is improved for multi cores)
- X Upgradable : no upgrade possible to a faster CPU (AMD Athlon 5350 is the fastest and the last for AMD socket AM1)
External link: "Low Power Processor Comparison April 2014 Round-up" http://www.servethehome.com/low-power-processor-comparison-april-2014-roundup/
I2P on single board computers
Wikipedia has a article describing what are single board computers.
About SoC based on ARM (2014)
Even though having FAR less ressources than usual Intel or AMD x86 or x86_64 systems, ARM devices like Raspberry Pi, better Cubieboards (suggestion: Cubietruck aka Cubieboard 3) or comparable prototyping boards have a very low power consumption and are therefore a very cheap and electricity-saving alternative in comparison to a full Mini-ITX or ATX server.
2012
- Odroid-U2 (Wikipedia)
Raspberry Pi 1
- Heavy CPU load with I2P : edit your "/.i2p/router.config" file by appending following lines: "router.floodfillParticipant=false" and "router.maxParticipatingTunnels=200" (or even lower).
- (2015) OpenJDK is slower than Oracle Java 7.
- You can safely overclock the Raspberry Pi[1].
- To free some RAM memory (RPi 1 has 256 MB), you may disable the GPU in order to minimize the usage of RAM by the GPU (minimum is 32 MB).
- I2Pd (if compiled) may use less CPU than the official Java I2P.
2014
- Odroid-U3 (Wikipedia)
2014
2015
Raspberry Pi 2
Known issues :
- (2016) "I2P will suddenly crash, obviously due to running out of memory or simply a Java process getting hung. Also, the job lag increases to seconds (!) when running I2PSnark, using nload one can see that outgoing traffic suddenly stops for up to half a minute, as if something gets cached or stalled, and then the data gets fired out again. Workaround: I had i2psnark storing its files directly to the sdcard - and this was what made the pi nearly unusable sometimes. So I mounted a Samba share and told i2psnark to use that share as its data directory - et voilà: everything's fine now."[3]
- (2016) OpenJDK is slower than Oracle Java 8.
2016
2024
- Most SBC's can run Docker. If it can do that, it can easily run I2P.
Pine64
Pine64 Rock64 (Pine64). You can easily run i2pd via a Docker container. Images are available on Docker Hub. The performance is good. It is possible to run multiple programs without issue, both the CPU and RAM have plenty of resources.
Allowing external local connections to the SBC can be set in the config files.
I2PSnark can be downloaded and configured with Docker Compose as a standalone container.
Recommended OS: Dietpi OS (Dietpi) - a lightweight Debian-based OS with available preconfigured apps like Pi-hole.
Known issues:
- (2024) Running I2P or I2P+ on bare metal is untested.
Libre Computer
- Le Potato (LibreComputer).
I2P on Android devices (ie: a TV box)
Main article: I2P Android
References
External links
- http://forum.i2p does host many talks about hardware (ie: Raspberry)
About single board computers :