On 19 Aug 2014, at 11:30, Nick Mathewson nickm@freehaven.net wrote:
Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 14:17:28 -0400 From: Nick Mathewson nickm@freehaven.net To: tor-dev@lists.torproject.org Subject: Re: [tor-dev] Proposal: All Relays are Directory Servers
On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 11:53 AM, Matthew Finkel matthew.finkel@gmail.com wrote: Hi All,
Below is the proposal for #12538 [0], with some changes after George's review and some other revisions.
Feedback welcome!
Thanks, Matt
Thanks! This is now proposal 237. Any revisions should be sent in as patches against the one in the torspec repository.
Filename: xxx-directory-servers-for-all.txt Title: All relays are directory servers Author: Matthew Finkel Created: 29-Jul-2014 Status: Target: 0.2.6.x
Overview:
This proposal aims at removing part of the distinction between the relay and the directory server. Currently operators have the options of being one of: a relay, a directory server, or both. With the acceptance of this proposal the options will be simplified to being either only a directory server or a combined relay and directory server. All relays will serve directory requests.
FWIW, we don't support being only a directory server right now, do we?
I've recently configured a tor instance [for HTTP fuzzing] that does nothing but cache the entire directory - all that is required is setting the DirPort non-zero, and the ORPort to 0.
No warnings are emitted, and the instance stays stable, up to date with the consensus and descriptors, and answers [local] directory requests [as configured].
Because it's a local/test instance, I have specifically disabled external access. I have also disabled the default relay/directory server behaviour of submitting its own descriptor to the authorities. So I don't actually know if it would submit a descriptor if I enabled that option. However, the man page says that either one of a directory or a router port is sufficient for a server to submit its descriptor to the consensus.
I also don't know if clients would connect to a directory server that didn't have an ORPort. Do clients select directory guards based on flags that it's impossible for a directory-only Tor instance to obtain? What about HSDirs?
Nick, which of these things did you mean by "support"? Does the consensus include directory-only Tor servers? Do tor clients connect to directory-only Tor servers? Will a directory-only Tor server ever get the flags needed to become a "directory guard"? Will a directory-only Tor server ever get the flags needed to become a HSDir?
(I think we agree that a directory-only server is a far less useful configuration of an instance than a router would be.)
Tim