two unseemly tor behaviors

[Scott Bennett <bennett@xxxxxxxxxx>]

     I just subscribed to this list, so if the matters I bring up in this
message have already been discussed and settled, please just let me know
the results.
     There are two behaviors of tor running as a server that have been
bothering me.  The first is the response to SIGINT w.r.t. the ShutdownDelay
value set in torrc.  (I currently run 0.1.2.14, in case it matters, but the
bahaviors I'm complaining about here have been unchanged for at least several
releases of tor.)  After SIGINT is received, tor refuses to allow the creation
on new circuits through it, so the number of circuits begins to decrease by
attrition.  However, even if all circuits have been closed and traffic has
decreased to zero, tor does not exit until ShutdownDelay seconds have passed
since receipt of SIGINT.  Is there some legitimate reason for this?  I mean,
if I need to shut down a server, I usually want to take care of that reason
and then get the server back up again ASAP.  I usually keep ShutdownDelay set
to about 20 minutes in hopes that most/all activity through the server will
cease, so that the shutdown will not break circuits belonging to other people
elsewhere.
     The ShutdownDelay behavior is a nuisance, but the other behavior that
has been irritating me is really unforgiveable.  When SIGHUP is received to
cause tor to reread torrc, if any errors are found, tor exits very
gracelessly, leaving circuits broken and users around the world disgusted
with tor as being unreliable software.  I cannot think of any excuse for this.
If an error occurs during the parsing of torrc, the error messages should be
logged, but either the offending line(s) of torrc should be ignored or the
updated torrc as a whole should be ignored and the configuration left unchanged
until the next time SIGHUP is received or until tor is next started.
     A few days ago, I fetched the page at torstat.xenobite.eu.  To my surprise,
it listed not a single tor server as stable.  A document recently appearing at
tor.eff.org (I think the one on the v3 directory protocol may have been it)
said that from now forward tor servers will have to be up and running for 30
days to be considered stable.  Having the tor servers crash from typos in the
updates to torrc can make it difficult to have "stable" servers.  Can this be
easily fixed?


                                  Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
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