[tor-relays] Reducing ContactInfo to the family ID level

[nusenu via tor-relays <tor-relays@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

since we have a significantly less
cumbersome and much less error prone way for tor relay operators
to self-declare their relay groups using the Happy Family design
I was thinking about whether we actually need ContactInfo
at the relay fingerprint level or if we only need it at family ID level?

The idea:
- only a single relay in a family publishes a ContactInfo that is valid for the entire family

benefits:
- easiers ContactInfo management for relay operatos not using configuration management, since they only need to update a single config
- less redundant information in relay metadata that gets received and distributed by tor directory authority
- significantly smaller onionoo details files

downsides:
- no "backup channel" in case software has Happy Family related issues - like we saw in collector/onionoo
- less flexibility you want to have different contacts for different servers


I do not expect that rust-based tor relays - that hopefully significantly reduce the number of tor daemons an operator
has to run to make use of multi-core CPUs will take over the tor network soon.
So this will remain a relevant question for the time being.

This topic is limited to relays and not bridges until bridges fully support Happy Family.

If there are no strong reasons for relay level ContactInfos I might implement the idea in a minor variation in ansible-relayor:
only a single tor instance per server will get a ContactInfo torrc entry.
The CIISS spec would also be updated to reflect that.

kind regards,
nusenu

--
https://nusenu.github.io

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