This is for you if you run i2p at your home and want maximum throughput from your machine.

Echelon pointed out that there is is a default limit of 700 TCP connections in order not to overload popular SoHo internet routers. That is important to consider because I found limiting TCP gives a crippling effect for i2p. In fact 700 TCP connections already overload many current models, so you will see TCP connections break down, causing aborted downloads or remote sessions.

First you have to find out what specs your router CPU has. For many popular models you will have to google a lot, routers are marketed for connectivity, not CPU. I tested multiple routers and found that for upload speeds of 1 or 2 Mbit/s the router CPU is no limiting factor. Those with upload speeds of 10 Mbit/s or more have to look carefully if they want to run a high bandwidth i2p router. Popular routers with dual core 500 or 600 Mhz designs can not handle 700 TCP connections. You will have to look for dual core 1Ghz or better. I currently have a dual core 1.6 GHz Intel (ex-Lantiq) CPU in my router and found it to max out at around 2000 TCP connections and 20 Mbit/s i2p upload.

Maybe someone else can point to affordable SoHo routers with more CPU horsepower in the $100-300 range. I did not find any yet.

When buying a new one just look for CPU power, do not pay for Wifi or other features.

How to configure:

SoHo routers usually have multiple ethernet ports and you may be tempted to use them if you have multiple devices. Do not do that. There is no switch inside, traffic will go through the CPU which might do additional filtering and the like. No reason for local LAN traffic to go through the router. So plug in your i2p machine to the router and if you have more then one additional device use a hardware switch for those.

The router may also have Wifi, telephony or NAS features. Do not turn those on. Use a second machine (maybe your previous router) for that. Your wife will thank you for seamless multimedia streaming and fast surfing and this way you take a lot load off the main router.

If you are willing to spend some time on configuring a professional grade router, I would like to point out that the $49 EdgeRouter-X has much more power than you will ever need for i2p. It is like a big Cisco machine in a small box. Even this entry model sports a hardware data pump for NAT and you simply can not bring it beyond 10% CPU usage with i2p. It will not be overloaded with Gbit internet connections. With 5W power requirement and very flexible PoE it is also cost efficent.

If your provider does not provide an ethernet interface you will additionally have to install and configure a DSL or cable modem.

Be warned that the GUI with its wizards does only cover the most basic IPv4 use cases. For necessary system hardening and IPv6 you will need to go to the command line. It is Debian-based and your favorite tool is apt-gettable.

What is a good program to test connection limits on our router?

Do these same issues with connection limits apply if you run your I2P router over VPN? In this scenario it would seem to me that the router only handles a single connection between your computer and the VPN server, with the myriad connections to other I2P peers happening through this single "pipe", so the router shouldn't be remotely close to its connection limits.

Or is my understanding flawed?

Hi!

With VPN you move that limits to the VPN provider, which may have even less open ressources.
Also you do have the drawback of VPN itself, mostly non UDP and IP issues.

echelon

Hi, I just saw a router tp-link Archer AC4000 Mu-MIMO tri-band with a quad core 1.8GHz 64-bit processor for around $250.00US. What do you think?

Thanks nice day to all.