On Thu, Nov 27, 2003 at 01:01:53AM -0600, Hermes Admin wrote: [lines wrapped] > I ran mixminion list-servers and noticed that hermes (my box) was listed as > (not recommended). I looked at the stats on > http://outel.org/mix/minion/nlist2.html and hermes appears as 100% > uptime. Anyone have any ideas why it's not recommended? It's running 0.0.5.3. The current directory server's code for deciding which servers are good is really simplistic. It just checks whether it can connect to the server in question and send a dummy packet. If it can, the server is recommended in the next directory. If not, not. It has no memory whatsoever; only the most recent attempt counts. If a mix is down when the dirserver pings it, it doesn't get recommended in the next directory. The outel pinger, on the other hand, checks whether packets sent through the server eventually get delivered. Even if a mix is down from time to time, it can still have 100% reliability if it comes up for long enough to receive and relay pending packets. In the future, directory servers will need to be come far more clever. The current approach is only good for eliminating never-up servers, not for converging on stable results for usually-up servers. Correct pinging is an endlessly complex topic, fortunately, and should keep us busy for quite a while. (Looking at the last few directories, it seems that hermes hasn't been accepting pings from the dirserver on the 26th, but is now accepting pings again.) -- Nick
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