External Relay Control [maintaining 'uptime' perception]

[Flamsmark]

Tor currently has an accounting system for allowing data quota limitations
to be applied. This allows a relay to enter 'hibernation', maintaining it's
'up' status, and directory-perceived uptime, without actually relaying
traffic. However, it is feasible that an operator might want to control Tor
for bandwidth reasons, but not use the built-in accounting system. The relay
might share a connection with other applications, and have to change it
connection profile relative to them.
Possible actions that might be desired include:- changing bandwidth limits,
- changing between an exit and a relay,
- switching the relay on or off, or
- suspending dirport operation.

Possible conditions giving rise to such needs include:
- a periodic quota is reached (since other applications are sharing the
connection, Tor can't be aware of when this limit might be reached), or
- another application requires a greater share of the connection
temporarily.

Most of these behaviors are scriptable without difficulty by editing the
torrc and sending Tor a sighup. In most cases, this is not a problem.
However, when relaying must be suspended - and this suspension is not
conducted via the built-in accounting system - the relay is unlisted from
directories. Since uptime is used as an index for many of the
classifications applied to relays (naming &c), this has a notable effect on
the relay's 'profile' in the network, and the way that clients perceive it.
Presumably, this is not a desirable situation.


Is there a good workaround for this?
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/attachments/20090809/44933bbf/attachment.htm>