Re: [tor-relays] Flags gone after restart

[Scott Bennett <bennett@xxxxxxx>]

andrew reid <reidandrew91@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hey there, I am running a tor relay off an old samsung phone. When I first
> started the relay, my observed bandwidth was around 4.5MB/s. It was running
> for around 7 days and had the stable and HSdir flag. After a few problems
> with IP6 and being overloaded (thought this was a problem on my end, not a
> DDoS attack) I restarted the phone and edited the config file to take away
> IPv6. It has now been running for 7 days again but my observed bandwidth is
> only 1.6MB/s now and I still haven't gotten the stable and HSdir flag back.
> How long would this take or is it just a problem on my end ? and for the
> bandwidth, my connection is still the same and hasn't changed. Is this just
> something that takes time to come back like the flags. This is my first
> relay so I would like to understand a bit more. Thank you

     Stable, AFAIK, still depends upon something like the average uptime of
the current instance and the previous instance relative to the corresponding
averages among all other relays.  Assignment of the Stable flag is made to
relays above a certain percentile rank of those averages.
     Fast used to depend upon the maximum throughput speed allowed by the
Bandwidth* and RelayBandwith* entries in the torrc file.  More than some
minimum bandwidth was required for assignment of the flag to a relay.
     HSDir used to depend upon its torrc option not being set to 0.  That
option was removed some time ago and is now apparently solely under the
control of the Authority relays.
     *HOWEVER*, both a randomization factor appears to have been added three
or four years ago to the Authority relays' algorithm used to decide whether to
award Fast and to award HSDir.  Now either flag comes and goes like birds
landing on tree limbs and later departing, often for no reason obvious to
humans.  My relay has many times been up for one or more months.  During those
times Fast and HSDir have been repeatedly assigned to it and lifted from it
and perhaps reassigned to it, often only a few hours apart.  The only
consistencies I have seen are that 1) the first time a tor relay is assigned
the HSDir flag is after at least 96 hours of uptime in the current instance,
though it may not happen until much later than 96 hours and 2) HSDir does not
appear ever to be assigned unless Fast is also assigned.  AFAIK, the tor
project has never offered an explanation for the addition/intrusion of this
randomization factor.  Frankly, I think it is a destabilizing factor to the
tor relay network and doubly so for hidden services activities, and it must
add to overall tor traffic to have to restock the hidden service directory
servers so often.


                                  Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
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