newbie questions (I've read the FAQ!)

Douglas F.Calvert dfc at anize.org
Sat Dec 25 22:28:35 UTC 2004


Hello Girogos,
The description to your questions can be found in the tor-spec.txt  
file[1]. The file is not listed on the documentation page right now so  
it is not that easy to find. I have answered your questions below:

[1] "Tor Protocol Specification" http://tor.eff.org/cvs/doc/tor-spec.txt

On Dec 25, 2004, at 3:47 PM, Giorgos Pallas wrote:

> Hello to all!
> I have a couple of questions regarding what can be seen about a tor  
> server at http://moria.seul.org:9031/
>
> I cannot understand what represent the three numbers of the bandwidth  
> line. Example: bandwidth 225280 52428800 254474
>
>

These lines describe the bandwidth of the tor server. The first entry  
is the average bandwidth the server is willing to serve in the long  
run. The second number is the bandwidth the server is willing to  
forward in the short-run. And finally the third number is the estimated  
bandwidth capacity of the node.

You can see a graphical representation of the bandwidth served in and  
out as well as the reported capacity for the network as a whole and for  
each router at:

http://www.noreply.org/tor-running-routers/

the following is from section 7.1 of the spec:

    "bandwidth" bandwidth-avg bandwidth-burst bandwidth-observed

       Estimated bandwidth for this router, in bytes per second.  The
       "average" bandwidth is the volume per second that the OR is  
willing
       to sustain over long periods; the "burst" bandwidth is the volume
       that the OR is willing to sustain in very short intervals.  The
       "observed" value is an estimate of the capacity this server can
       handle.  The server remembers the max bandwidth sustained output
       over any ten second period in the past day, and another sustained
       input.  The "observed" value is the lesser of these two numbers.



> I also do not understand that these two fields represent...
>
> opt write-history 2004-12-25 19:51:39 (900 s)  
> 2032061,2583967,12053246,17745468,1728407,2637715,3419985,34065977,6878 
> 6089,53004250,60719610,26509404,18962391,36561686,60055009,50151514,302 
> 26551,71053761,29261090,57016038,20475204,12640861,46654785,27645102,25 
> 849792,56126663,31351523,35347343,78386734,61583210,54196943,46049112,6 
> 2317735,48691721,54804108,48734957,61368196,59056843,41948538,92823096, 
> 53618291,67760226,48022336
> opt read-history  2004-12-25 19:51:39 (900 s)  
> 2736569,2574791,11427790,16730614,1196838,2299991,2359342,33189048,6647 
> 5925,51798733,56984243,25351124,18755483,36196399,58803890,48318232,301 
> 68068,69571548,29027532,55731121,19886249,12058812,45925067,26798544,23 
> 676956,54902035,30431996,38296503,79898916,62609598,56380132,48106769,6 
> 4325297,48641735,55079610,49277566,61104783,57005363,39610809,92380992, 
> 57331257,69435871,51348510
>

These numbers describe the bytes that the machine has sent and received  
in 900 second intervals. The last number is the most recent 900 seconds  
and the first number after (900s) is the oldest period where there is  
data available.


> And last question: On http://moria.seul.org:9031/ one can see in the  
> first lines something like:
>
> running-routers $E68907CAAF5A5E4A950093A47A0233DDA7F415BA !moria4  
> !$7805B76C8AAD86BE5C3B909C4B3A0D76B0073348  
> !$53238B758506FD5F1C7B16F206869AD72AB8007C !puma  
> $57CAAFA59FFC24797A5D1190556DAE82BF754BD3 samson mordor dizum falkon  
> $E46E39D1C3E2EE0EE8B0127DF7A5DEEEEF9C978F UoW utoastria randomtrash  
> dali hellish hullabaloo thetimesareachangin anize !wannabe arsecandle  
> c3po !petra triphop balance rot52 cacophony moria2 moria1 torstusoft02
> ...
> ...
>
> opt router-status $E68907CAAF5A5E4A950093A47A0233DDA7F415BA  
> !moria4=$BA5E1200B4777843616C8864DE0CD1FECB52CE3C  
> !$7805B76C8AAD86BE5C3B909C4B3A0D76B0073348  
> !$53238B758506FD5F1C7B16F206869AD72AB8007C  
> !puma=$7DA009933D72D76EE401DEC984D433DA82305A23  
> $57CAAFA59FFC24797A5D1190556DAE82BF754BD3  
> samson=$6B4DFA347D29C8E9ECEC22732EE50E0D98551445
> ...
> ...
>
> What exactly can be read from these lines?
>

These lines describe which routers are up and whether or not the  
routers have been verified by the tor directory czars.

     "running-routers" space-separated-list

         A description of which routers are currently believed to be up  
or
         down.  Every entry consists of an optional "!", followed by  
either an
         OR's nickname, or "$" followed by a hexadecimal encoding of the  
hash
         of an OR's identity key.  If the "!" is included, the router is
         believed not to be running; otherwise, it is believed to be  
running.
         If a router's nickname is given, exactly one router of that  
nickname
         will appear in the directory, and that router is "approved" by  
the
         directory server.  If a hashed identity key is given, that OR  
is not
         "approved".  [XXXX The 'running-routers' line is only provided  
for
         backward compatibility.  New code should parse 'router-status'
         instead.]

     "router-status" space-separated-list

         A description of which routers are currently believed to be up  
or
         down, and which are verified or unverified.  Contains one entry  
for
         every router that the directory server knows.  Each entry is of  
the
         format:

               !name=$digest  [Verified router, currently not live.]
               name=$digest   [Verified router, currently live.]
               !$digest       [Unverified router, currently not live.]
           or  $digest        [Unverified router, currently live.]

         (where 'name' is the router's nickname and 'digest' is a  
hexadecimal
         encoding of the hash of the routers' identity key).

         When parsing this line, clients should only mark a router as
         'verified' if its nickname AND digest match the one provided.



> Thank you all very much for your attention!
>
> Giorgos Pallas
>
> ps. And Merry Christmas from Greece!
>
Douglas F. Calvert
http://anize.org/dfc/ .::. GPG Key: 0xC9541FB2
A mystic in the sense that I am still mystified by things...



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