[tor-commits] [torspec/master] Have Directory Authorities expose bandwidth files

[nickm at torproject.org]

commit 58d3cb9cc2e7d3e2600365eed34f7b2ad7c8813f
Author: juga0 <juga at riseup.net>
Date:   Tue Jul 10 12:05:50 2018 +0000

    Have Directory Authorities expose bandwidth files
    
    Proposal sent to tor-dev maling list by Tom Ritter.
    (https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2017-December/012677.html)
---
 proposals/xxx-expose-bwauth_votes.txt | 78 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 78 insertions(+)

diff --git a/proposals/xxx-expose-bwauth_votes.txt b/proposals/xxx-expose-bwauth_votes.txt
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+Filename: xxx-expose-bwauth_votes.txt
+Title: Have Directory Authorities expose raw bwauth vote documents
+Author: Tom Ritter
+Created: 11-December-2017
+Status: Open
+Ticket: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21377
+
+1. Introduction
+
+Bandwidth Authorities (bwauths) perform scanning of the Tor Network
+and calculate observed speeds for each relay. They produce a 'bwauth
+vote file' that is given to a Directory Authority. The Directory
+Authority uses the speed value from this file in its vote file
+denoting its view of the speed of the relay.
+
+After collecting all of the votes from other Authorities, a consensus
+is calculated, and the consensus's view of a relay's speed is
+determined by choosing the low-median value of all the authorities'
+values for each relay.
+
+Only a single metric from the bwauth vote file is exposed by a 
+Directory Authority's vote, however the original file contains
+considerably more diagnostic information about how the bwauth arrives
+at that measurement for that relay.
+
+2. Motivation
+
+The bwauth vote file contains more information than is exposed in the
+overall vote file. This information is useful to debug anomalies in
+relays' utilization and suspected bugs in the (decrepit) bwauth code.
+
+Currently, all bwauths expose the raw vote file through various (non-
+standard) means, and that file is downloaded (hourly) by a single person
+(as long as his home internet connection and home server is working)
+and archived (with a small amount of robustness.)  
+
+It would be preferable to have this exposed in a standard manner.
+Doing so would no longer require bwauths to run HTTP servers to expose
+the file, no longer require them to take additional manual steps to
+provide it, and would enable public consumption by any interested
+parties.  We hope that Collector will begin archiving the files.
+
+3. Specification
+
+An authority SHOULD publish the bwauth vote used to calculate its
+current vote. It SHOULD make the bwauth vote file available at all
+times, and provide the file that it has most recently used for its
+vote (even if the vote is not currently published.) It SHOULD make
+the file available at
+  http://<hostname>/tor/status-vote/now/bwauth-legacy.z
+
+It MUST NOT attempt to send its bwauth vote file in a HTTP POST to
+other authorities and it SHOULD NOT make bwauth vote files from other
+authorities available.
+
+Clients interested in consuming the document should download it when
+votes are created. (For the existing Tor network, this is at HH:50,
+or 50 minutes after each hour.)
+
+4. Security Implications
+
+The raw bwauth vote file does not [really: is not believed to] expose
+any sensitive information.  All authorities currently make this
+document public already, an example is at
+  https://bwauth.ritter.vg/bwauth/bwscan.V3BandwidthsFile
+
+5. Compatibility
+
+Exposing the document presents no compatibility concerns.
+
+The compatibility concern is with applications that want to consume
+the document. The bwauth vote file has no specification, and has been
+extended in ad-hoc ways. Applications that merely wish to archive the
+document (e.g. Collector) won't have a problems. Applications that
+want to parse it may encounter errors if a new (unexpected) field is
+added, if a new format is specified and fields are removed, or
+assumptions are made about the text encoding or formatting of the
+document. 
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