Re: [tor-relays] Authorities: what is up?

[Sebastian Hahn <mail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Jan 13, 2012, at 1:40 PM, Andrew Lewis wrote:
> Because alpha tends to be pretty stable with tor, and the latest security fixes are in alpha a lot sooner. 
> 
> On Jan 13, 2012, at 12:21 PM, Steve Snyder <swsnyder@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> On 01/13/2012 05:27 AM, Sebastian Hahn wrote:
>>> Ah, I see. ides not having a current consensus is different from ides
>>> being down. Ides still is running the stable Tor version and needs to be
>>> upgraded to 0.2.3.x to be allowed to vote along with the other dirauths,
>>> so it doesn't immediately know about the new consensus. I don't know
>>> when ides will be upgraded, but I hope the answer is soon.
>> 
>> Why do the authorities run an Alpha version of Tor instead of the (presumably less buggy) latest Stable version?

I wouldn't quite agree with Andrew's statement here. We do make sure to
backport security fixes and release stable versions whenever there's an
issue so that the users of our stable series aren't at risk.

There's a different reason why the directory authorities run alpha
versions of Tor. At some point, new features don't get into stable
anymore (that's why it's called stable), so the risk of introducing new
bugs accidentally is smaller and also so that users of the stable series
don't have to upgrade as often (this is what stable refers to, hopefully
not needing to upgrade very often). This means that new features that
enhance the safety of the Tor network as a whole often don't get into
the current stable version so that development effort can focus on
stabilizing the current alpha version. This time, a new consensus method
has been implemented, and I chose not to base that feature on the stable
branch for the above-mentioned reasons. This consensus method means that
more dirauths need to be malicious to set a certain network parameter in
the consensus. The only relays who need that change are the dirauths,
and the whole network automatically benefits.

Hope that made it clearer, if not, ask away.
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