[tor-bugs] #1368 [Tor Client]: Implement a heartbeat log message

[Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki]

#1368: Implement a heartbeat log message
--------------------------------+-------------------------------------------
 Reporter:  Sebastian           |         Type:  enhancement
   Status:  new                 |     Priority:  major      
Milestone:  Tor: 0.2.3.x-final  |    Component:  Tor Client 
  Version:  0.2.1.25            |   Resolution:  None       
 Keywords:                      |       Parent:             
--------------------------------+-------------------------------------------

Comment(by atagar):

 Hi asn, here's my thoughts:

 - The transfer rates should be human friendly values (5.3 MB, 7.4 GB,
 etc).

 - There's an extra space between the uptime and comma.

 - Will the uptime be human friendly values as well (ex, "4 days")? What is
 it going to look like once it's in the realm of months? The uptime stat
 (in seconds since starting tor) would be nice to have via the control port
 but this is part of another proposal, so don't worry about it.

 - The indicator for if you're in the consensus is both verbose and, imho,
 unnecessary. That status isn't likely to change (so saying
 "Congratulations, you're in the consensus!" every day would be pointless)
 and it's kinda obvious based on the throughput attribute (you're reachable
 if you're pushing traffic). Maybe just give this status (with the user
 friendly advice "something seems to be wrong") once, when it's first
 detected? This could be separate from the heartbeat (maybe at the warning
 runlevel).

 - The heartbeat message is three notice level events? That would be pretty
 noisy. My preference would be something short and sweet like:
 Heartbeat [185]: Tor's uptime is 3 days, with 57 circuits. Since the last
 heartbeat 87 MB has been pushed.

 Trying to turn the heartbeat into a controller substitute packed with
 every interesting stat there is (including the consensus status, flags,
 both upload/download rates, etc) goes pretty deeply into the territory of
 what controllers provide and also risks making this more of an annoyance
 than help (particularly for controller users who already have this
 information).

 We default to logging at the NOTICE runlevel so doing a daily event that's
 more than a short sentence means that after a couple weeks the log will be
 full of these events (drowning out any interesting alerts for things that
 happened - not so helpful). If we're intent on doing that then I think
 this should be muted by default (enabled via a flag in the torrc).

 If we really want this to be both highly verbose and on by default then
 I'd prefer if the heartbeat defaults to being muted when users have a
 ControlPort set (unless overwritten in the torrc) so it avoids bothering
 controller users.

 Cheers! -Damian

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/1368#comment:7>
Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki <https://trac.torproject.org/>
The Tor Project: anonymity online