Hi,
Fallback directory mirrors help Tor clients find the tor network, and take load off Tor directory authorities. [0]
Since Tor 0.2.8, I've generated a fallback directory mirror list every 6 months or so. I'd like to minimise the amount of effort I put into this in future. (But I think it's valuable, so I won't abandon it.)
I'm happy to spend half a day every 6 months to update the input lists and run automated checks on a bunch of relays [1]. But contacting relay operators to agree to go on the list (opt-in), or check their relay details, is a time-consuming process.
Here's what you can do to help:
* We ask relay operators to opt-in. We could ask them to opt-out (contact us to be taken off the list) instead. The opt-in list hasn't been updated for about a year, so we will have to switch to opt-outs soon to get enough good fallbacks. - If we do opt-ins, who is going to contact relay operators? - If we do opt-outs, how do we make sure operators know they can opt-out? - (And how do we make sure we get stable relays?)
* I wrote down the opt-in process in [1]. Maybe it's too complicated. - Can you design a better process?
* If you're good at mail merges or scripting mail, that's one way we could contact a bunch of relay operators without it being time-consuming and error-prone. - Can you do mail merges? (I can't!)
* We can improve the fallback script to make it easier to use. (See [1] and [2].) - Can you write python?
If anyone wants to help out with any of these things, let me know.
I'm going to do a fallback directory mirror refresh some time in the next few weeks. About 12% of fallbacks have failed, and it looks like this is placing extra load on the directory authorities. [3]
There's already a ticket for it [4], and I'm happy to do a minimal refresh. If we don't get 150 fallbacks from a minimal refresh, I'll switch to opt-out and see how that goes.
[0]: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/FallbackDirectoryMirrors [1]: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/UpdatingFallbackDirectoryM... [2]: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/query?status=accepted&status=as... [3]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2017-August/012886.html [4]: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/22271
T -- Tim Wilson-Brown (teor)
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