[tor-talk] [tor-consensus-health] Consensus issues

[Sebastian Hahn]

Hi Sebastian,

thanks for looking after the network!

On 16 Aug 2014, at 22:56, Sebastian G. <bastik.tor> wrote:
> On Sat, 16 Aug 2014 19:46:15 +0000 (UTC) the doctor said:
>> NOTICE: Consensus belonging to maatuska was missing the following authority signatures: tor26
>> NOTICE: Consensus belonging to tor26 was missing the following authority signatures: tor26
>> NOTICE: Consensus belonging to urras was missing the following authority signatures: tor26
>> NOTICE: Consensus belonging to dizum was missing the following authority signatures: tor26
>> NOTICE: Consensus belonging to gabelmoo was missing the following authority signatures: tor26
>> NOTICE: Consensus belonging to moria1 was missing the following authority signatures: tor26
>> NOTICE: Consensus belonging to dannenberg was missing the following authority signatures: tor26
>> NOTICE: Consensus belonging to Faravahar was missing the following authority signatures: tor26
> 
> If I understand this messages correctly tor26 didn't sign the consensus
> of any other authority. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)
> 
> How is it possible that tor26 doesn't sign its own consensus?

Here's an easy theory on what might have happened: When it was time to
vote, tor26 made a vote, and distributed it to the other dirauths. When
it was done doing so, it went offline. The other dirauths made a
consensus, and signed it. tor26 came back online, learned that there was
a consensus it didn't know about, fetched it from the other dirauths,
but didn't sign it - because the time to sign it was in the past. This
does not constitute an error condition for tor26, because enough other
dirauths signed it for it to be considered valid.

I'd argue against increasing the complexity of the voting process to
handle this rare edge case. I do think maybe the wording is confusing:
What does "Consensus belonging to" mean? A consensus doesn't belong to
any individual dirauth. I don't have a quick suggestion for what to
name the notice instead, tho.

> A similar message was send on the 15th for gabelmoo, but gabelmoo had no
> notice line. There were two warning, first gabelmoo did not publish a
> fresh consensus and secondly it did not report bandwidth scanner
> results. Nothing I would have worried about. Nor would I have found strange.

Yes, gabelmoo was down as I was fixing its bw auth. Nothing to worry
about indeed.

> However an authority handing out a consensus it didn't sign might be
> something that isn't quite right.

I think it's OK, considering the above.

Cheers
Sebastian
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