What to do at IP number change?

[Roger Dingledine]

On Tue, Jan 08, 2008 at 07:43:06PM +0100, dr._no at cool.ms wrote:
> > Every time the IP changes - or the relay even goes down and up (instead
> > of doing a -SIGHUP) - it breaks all the circuits running through your node.
> 
> i've been killing the tor server via torctl stop before my disconnects and restarting
> via torctl start (i also restarted squid and privoxy).
> Now i'm using killall -s HUP tor and the traffic increases faster after
> an ip change.
> So there should be no problem.

There is still a problem. It's the same one that Peter said in
http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Jan-2008/msg00136.html :

"Don't do that.  It takes several hours before all the clients have your
current descriptor, if you keep changing it every two or so hours you
are only placing a burden on the directory infrastructure and nobody
will use you anyway.

Changing it every now and then, say daily because your ISP disconnects
you and gives you a new IP address, is ok, but the longer you run at the
same address the more useful you are."

Even if you hup your Tor rather than restarting it, you're still killing
all the circuits going through you -- and more importantly, all the
clients will continue for those two hours to look for you at the old IP
address. And once they get a new one, you will have moved again.

Please don't do this.

--Roger