Re: [tor-bugs] #10461 [Tor]: tor seems to ignore "DirServer" option

["Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki" <blackhole@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

#10461: tor seems to ignore "DirServer" option
------------------------+------------------------------
     Reporter:  mr-4    |      Owner:
         Type:  defect  |     Status:  new
     Priority:  normal  |  Milestone:
    Component:  Tor     |    Version:  Tor: 0.2.4.18-rc
   Resolution:          |   Keywords:
Actual Points:          |  Parent ID:
       Points:          |
------------------------+------------------------------

Comment (by nickm):

 So, my advice still stands: you should use FallbackDir instead, because
 [Alternative]DirAuthority doesn't actually work that way.  Setting a
 different set of DirAuthorities while staying on the main network will get
 you weird results.  "You probably shouldn't use it unless you're running
 your own private Tor network."

 I ''would'' like to track down what ''is'' going on here, but the thing
 is, using DirAuthorities to pick a set of directory authorities other than
 the entire set for the network is not a well-defined or recommended thing
 at all.  So I'm not sure what kind of semantics I should be aiming for.
 It's normal, for instance, that a Tor node will pick a directory authority
 _as a regular directory_ if that authority is listed in the consensus.
 And it's normal for Tor to use any cached guards it has as initial contact
 points for the network.

 And it's also expected that if you have less than the full set of
 authorities configured, Tor will reject some of the signed consensuses too
 many of those particular authorities miss a vote.  So there are ''lots''
 of weird things that could be going on right here and actually figuring
 out this twisted situation is going to be a bit complicated.  The
 "DirAuthority" option does a lot of stuff.


 I do know that that, whatever is happening, the DirAuthority/DirServer
 option is not actually ignored in the general case: all of our testing
 network scripts use it to prevent testing networks and clients to talk to
 the real network.  It definitely works there; I use it all the time.  So
 it can't be a matter of stuff getting "ignored".  If these options were
 simply ignored, the "chutney" tool wouldn't work, for example.


 So, let's think.  How can we actually track this down?  I think the best
 bet at this point would be if you could paste an example torrc that should
 work, but doesn't.  Right now,  I know ''some'' of the options that are
 breaking here, but I'm not able to reproduce the failing cases above when
 I try to make the same behavior happen on my computer.

 Is that something you're able to do?

--
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/10461#comment:5>
Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki <https://trac.torproject.org/>
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