[tor-relays] recently saw 4 tor relays in row on tails. bug in tor?

[Roger Dingledine]

On Thu, Oct 22, 2020 at 04:19:35AM +0000, BRBfGWMz wrote:
> I recently saw a series of 4 relays connected to each other:  
>   
> itomori, MediumSlesmn, hotbrownie, pellidos  
> itomori, docto, Geheimschreiber, 420isGay  
>   
> Dont most relays in the network of length 3? Bug in tor?

Your Tor picks three hops that it controls, and if it needs to build a
circuit that involves a relay that it didn't pick, it uses that other
relay as a fourth hop.

So you didn't tell us what you were doing, but this is normal behavior
for example when you're loading an onion service, because the rendezvous
process involves building circuits to relays that the onion service
picked. Your first three relays are for protecting you, and the later
relays in the path are there for other goals.

--Roger