I am trying to create minimal bandwidth usage for my OpenBalena server as well as the BalenaOS device and hoping to clarify my understanding (benefited from https://www.balena.io/docs/reference/supervisor/bandwidth-reduction/#side-effect-warning).
Disable VPN
Disabling VPN reduces bandwidth by 43 Bytes / second and will reduce OpenBalena server upload use?
Disabling VPN doesn’t prevent any updates happening from OpenBalena, it merely means they will only occur when the RESIN_SUPERVISOR_POLL_INTERVAL activates and then use HTTPS for transfer instead?
Disabling VPN isn’t actually an advantage for reducing BalenaOS bandwidth, as the “TCP check cost” is used instead, which has slightly higher bandwidth usages (47.36 Bytes / second). It will however reduce OpenBalena server upload bandwidth (https://www.balena.io/docs/reference/supervisor/bandwidth-reduction/#data-usage-impact).
RESIN_SUPERVISOR_CONNECTIVITY_CHECK is the same as TCP check cost and therefore this can be disabled too?
VPN cannot be re-enabled later remotely, because it cannot be controlled through a container and Supervisor?
Disable CONNECTIVITY CHECK
Disable CONNECTIVITY CHECK reduces BalenaOS use but does not impact the OpenBalena server data use?
The only advantage of keeping CONNECTIVITY CHECK enable is it provides the “device’s ability to test and indicate (via an LED when available) that it has issues with connectivity”; it does not have any other detrimental impacts?
Change POLL interval to 24 hours
There is no way to disable RESIN_SUPERVISOR_POLL_INTERVAL, the best you can do is set it to its maximum which is 24 hours?
You can force a RESIN_SUPERVISOR_POLL earlier than 24 hours if you manually use the Supervisor update feature (https://www.balena.io/docs/reference/supervisor/supervisor-api/#post-v1update)?
Is a 24 hour poll setting apply from when last polled. I.e. if a device is rebooted, does the timer start again, ultimately resulting in no updates for devices that are not on for more than 24 hours, or is it 24 hours since the last successful poll?
Disable LOGS
If VPN is enabled, you can still access logs by using SSH to the device or re-enable RESIN_SUPERVISOR_LOG_CONTROL. But without VPN, there is no other way to access logs?
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RESIN_SUPERVISOR_INSTANT_UPDATE_TRIGGER only applies to VPN enabled devices? Although effectively this is the same as disabling VPN, other than you retain the ability to ssh into the devices and retrieve logs?
RESIN_SUPERVISOR_CONNECTIVITY_CHECK only applies to VPN enabled devices?
“balena supervisor update poll is not configurable” (https://www.balena.io/docs/reference/supervisor/bandwidth-reduction/#data-usage-impact)?
These controls should all be RESIN_ and not BALENA_?