It is my understanding that a sponsored project is coming up to work a pluggable transport 2.0 specification and implementation. I've also heard that the first step for this is to have a meeting where we get together with people that either use pluggable transports or implement them, for the purpose of soliciting feedback on the existing specification and gathering design requirements for 2.0. So perhaps the drafting of a new specification should be deferred until this is organized. Although of course any feedback gathered in this email thread can also be presented at the meeting.

On Mon, Sep 7, 2015 at 6:45 PM, Yawning Angel <yawning@schwanenlied.me> wrote:

So, we currently have a Pluggable Transport (PT) spec, and it kind-of
sort-of works (The documentation is a mess that I'm working on
cleaning up, but it's an orthogonal issue for how well it works).

There are a number of problems with the current PT spec that require
breaking backward compatibility to fix, so eventually I would like to
do so.

I'm soliciting input on what people would also like to see in a
(currently hypothetical) PT spec 2.0 beyond what I already have in mind:

MUST haves:
* Support dual stack Bridges correctly (Multiple server endpoints per
transport)
* Increase the argument space beyond 510 bytes (Prop. #227).
* Mandatory ExtORPort support (currently optional, but metrics are
good).
* Centralized logging by the calling process (Probably via stderr).
* AF_UNIX support where sensible for better sandboxing.

MIGHT haves:
* Rename the env vars to not start with "TOR_PT". Some people claim
that this is a good idea (I think it is stupid and cosmetic).
* Ability to force at least clients to stop network activity without
tearing the PT down.
* Deprecate SOCKS4a, and make SOCKS5 mandatory for clients.

UNLIKELY:
* Specify an interface for where fork()/exec() isn't possible (iOS).
I don't think this is makes sense because it is probably too
platform/caller specific.
* Allow operating both as a client and a server simultaneously. I
don't see a problem with running 2 copies of something for this
use case.

I probably missed some things. If people have strong opinions about
this, do reply, otherwise I *will* design something that I like, which
will not include what other people want.

Regards,

--
Yawning Angel

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