<html><head></head><body><div class="ydpf452ee10yahoo-style-wrap" style="font-family:Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:16px;"><div>David,</div><div><br></div><div><span style="color: rgb(38, 40, 42); font-size: 13px;">> Making secret_onion_key and secret_onion_key_ntor read-only does not quite work, because tor first renames them to secret_onion_key.old and secret_onion_key_ntor.old before writing new files. (Making the *.old files read-only does not work either, because the `tor_rename` function first unlinks the destination.)</span><br clear="none" style="color: rgb(38, 40, 42); font-size: 13px;"><a shape="rect" href="https://gitweb.torproject.org/tor.git/tree/src/feature/relay/router.c?h=tor-0.4.6.9#n497" style="font-size: 13px;" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://gitweb.torproject.org/tor.git/tree/src/feature/relay/router.c?h=tor-0.4.6.9#n497</a><br clear="none" style="color: rgb(38, 40, 42); font-size: 13px;"><br clear="none" style="color: rgb(38, 40, 42); font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: rgb(38, 40, 42); font-size: 13px;">> But a slight variation does work: make secret_onion_key.old and secret_onion_key_ntor.old *directories*, so that tor_rename cannot rename a file over them. It does result in an hourly `BUG` stack trace, but otherwise it seems effective.</span><br></div><div><br></div><div><span>Directories instead of read-only files.</span><span> </span><span>Nice Out-Of-The-Box Thinking!</span><span><br></span></div><div><span><br></span></div><div><span>Now, the question becomes whether there are any adverse side-effects, with the DirectoryAuthorities, from the secret_onion_keys not being updated over time?</span><br></div><div><span><br></span></div><div><span>Excellent Work!</span></div><div><span><br></span></div><div><span>Much Respect.</span></div><div><span><br></span></div><div><span><br></span></div><div>Gary</div><div class="ydpf452ee10signature">—<br>This Message Originated by the Sun.<br>iBigBlue 63W Solar Array (~12 Hour Charge)<br>+ 2 x Charmast 26800mAh Power Banks<br>= iPhone XS Max 512GB (~2 Weeks Charged)</div></div></body></html>