dir-spec.txt
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- $Id$
- Tor directory protocol, version 3
- 0. Scope and preliminaries
- This directory protocol is used by Tor version 0.2.0.x-alpha and later.
- See dir-spec-v1.txt for information on the protocol used up to the
- 0.1.0.x series, and dir-spec-v2.txt for information on the protocol
- used by the 0.1.1.x and 0.1.2.x series.
- Caches and authorities must still support older versions of the
- directory protocols, until the versions of Tor that require them are
- finally out of commission. See Section XXXX on backward compatibility.
- This document merges and supersedes the following proposals:
- 101 Voting on the Tor Directory System
- 103 Splitting identity key from regularly used signing key
- 104 Long and Short Router Descriptors
- AS OF 14 JUNE 2007, THIS SPECIFICATION HAS NOT YET BEEN COMPLETELY
- IMPLEMENTED, OR COMPLETELY COMPLETED.
- XXX when to download certificates.
- XXX timeline
- XXX fill in XXXXs
- 0.1. History
- The earliest versions of Onion Routing shipped with a list of known
- routers and their keys. When the set of routers changed, users needed to
- fetch a new list.
- The Version 1 Directory protocol
- --------------------------------
- Early versions of Tor (0.0.2) introduced "Directory authorities": servers
- that served signed "directory" documents containing a list of signed
- "router descriptors", along with short summary of the status of each
- router. Thus, clients could get up-to-date information on the state of
- the network automatically, and be certain that the list they were getting
- was attested by a trusted directory authority.
- Later versions (0.0.8) added directory caches, which download
- directories from the authorities and serve them to clients. Non-caches
- fetch from the caches in preference to fetching from the authorities, thus
- distributing bandwidth requirements.
- Also added during the version 1 directory protocol were "router status"
- documents: short documents that listed only the up/down status of the
- routers on the network, rather than a complete list of all the
- descriptors. Clients and caches would fetch these documents far more
- frequently than they would fetch full directories.
- The Version 2 Directory Protocol
- --------------------------------
- During the Tor 0.1.1.x series, Tor revised its handling of directory
- documents in order to address two major problems:
- * Directories had grown quite large (over 1MB), and most directory
- downloads consisted mainly of router descriptors that clients
- already had.
- * Every directory authority was a trust bottleneck: if a single
- directory authority lied, it could make clients believe for a time
- an arbitrarily distorted view of the Tor network. (Clients
- trusted the most recent signed document they downloaded.) Thus,
- adding more authorities would make the system less secure, not
- more.
- To address these, we extended the directory protocol so that
- authorities now published signed "network status" documents. Each
- network status listed, for every router in the network: a hash of its
- identity key, a hash of its most recent descriptor, and a summary of
- what the authority believed about its status. Clients would download
- the authorities' network status documents in turn, and believe
- statements about routers iff they were attested to by more than half of
- the authorities.
- Instead of downloading all router descriptors at once, clients
- downloaded only the descriptors that they did not have. Descriptors
- were indexed by their digests, in order to prevent malicious caches
- from giving different versions of a router descriptor to different
- clients.
- Routers began working harder to upload new descriptors only when their
- contents were substantially changed.
- 0.2. Goals of the version 3 protocol
- Version 3 of the Tor directory protocol tries to solve the following
- issues:
- * A great deal of bandwidth used to transmit router descriptors was
- used by two fields that are not actually used by Tor routers
- (namely read-history and write-history). We save about 60% by
- moving them into a separate document that most clients do not
- fetch or use.
- * It was possible under certain perverse circumstances for clients
- to download an unusual set of network status documents, thus
- partitioning themselves from clients who have a more recent and/or
- typical set of documents. Even under the best of circumstances,
- clients were sensitive to the ages of the network status documents
- they downloaded. Therefore, instead of having the clients
- correlate multiple network status documents, we have the
- authorities collectively vote on a single consensus network status
- document.
- * The most sensitive data in the entire network (the identity keys
- of the directory authorities) needed to be stored unencrypted so
- that the authorities can sign network-status documents on the fly.
- Now, the authorities' identity keys are stored offline, and used
- to certify medium-term signing keys that can be rotated.
- 0.3. Some Remaining questions
- Things we could solve on a v3 timeframe:
- The SHA-1 hash is showing its age. We should do something about our
- dependency on it. We could probably future-proof ourselves here in
- this revision, at least so far as documents from the authorities are
- concerned.
- Too many things about the authorities are hardcoded by IP.
- Perhaps we should start accepting longer identity keys for routers
- too.
- Things to solve eventually:
- Requiring every client to know about every router won't scale forever.
- Requiring every directory cache to know every router won't scale
- forever.
- 1. Outline
- There is a small set (say, around 5-10) of semi-trusted directory
- authorities. A default list of authorities is shipped with the Tor
- software. Users can change this list, but are encouraged not to do so,
- in order to avoid partitioning attacks.
- Every authority has a very-secret, long-term "Authority Identity Key".
- This is stored encrypted and/or offline, and is used to sign "key
- certificate" documents. Every key certificate contains a medium-term
- (3-12 months) "authority signing key", that is used by the authority to
- sign other directory information. (Note that the authority identity
- key is distinct from the router identity key that the authority uses
- in its role as an ordinary router.)
- Routers periodically upload signed "routers descriptors" to the
- directory authorities describing their keys, capabilities, and other
- information. Routers may also upload signed "extra info documents"
- containing information that is not required for the Tor protocol.
- Directory authorities serve router descriptors indexed by router
- identity, or by hash of the descriptor.
- Routers may act as directory caches to reduce load on the directory
- authorities. They announce this in their descriptors.
- Periodically, each directory authority generates a view of
- the current descriptors and status for known routers. They send a
- signed summary of this view (a "status vote") to the other
- authorities. The authorities compute the result of this vote, and sign
- a "consensus status" document containing the result of the vote.
- Directory caches download, cache, and re-serve consensus documents.
- Clients, directory caches, and directory authorities all use consensus
- documents to find out when their list of routers is out-of-date.
- (Directory authorities also use vote statuses.) If it is, they download
- any missing router descriptors. Clients download missing descriptors
- from caches; caches and authorities download from authorities.
- Descriptors are downloaded by the hash of the descriptor, not by the
- server's identity key: this prevents servers from attacking clients by
- giving them descriptors nobody else uses.
- All directory information is uploaded and downloaded with HTTP.
- [Authorities also generate and caches also cache documents produced and
- used by earlier versions of this protocol; see section XXX for notes.]
- 1.1. What's different from version 2?
- Clients used to download multiple network status documents,
- corresponding roughly to "status votes" above. They would compute the
- result of the vote on the client side.
- Authorities used to sign documents using the same private keys they used
- for their roles as routers. This forced them to keep these extremely
- sensitive keys in memory unencrypted.
- All of the information in extra-info documents used to be kept in the
- main descriptors.
- 1.2. Document meta-format
- Router descriptors, directories, and running-routers documents all obey the
- following lightweight extensible information format.
- The highest level object is a Document, which consists of one or more
- Items. Every Item begins with a KeywordLine, followed by zero or more
- Objects. A KeywordLine begins with a Keyword, optionally followed by
- whitespace and more non-newline characters, and ends with a newline. A
- Keyword is a sequence of one or more characters in the set [A-Za-z0-9-].
- An Object is a block of encoded data in pseudo-Open-PGP-style
- armor. (cf. RFC 2440)
- More formally:
- NL = The ascii LF character (hex value 0x0a).
- Document ::= (Item | NL)+
- Item ::= KeywordLine Object*
- KeywordLine ::= Keyword NL | Keyword WS ArgumentChar+ NL
- Keyword = KeywordChar+
- KeywordChar ::= 'A' ... 'Z' | 'a' ... 'z' | '0' ... '9' | '-'
- ArgumentChar ::= any printing ASCII character except NL.
- WS = (SP | TAB)+
- Object ::= BeginLine Base-64-encoded-data EndLine
- BeginLine ::= "-----BEGIN " Keyword "-----" NL
- EndLine ::= "-----END " Keyword "-----" NL
- The BeginLine and EndLine of an Object must use the same keyword.
- When interpreting a Document, software MUST ignore any KeywordLine that
- starts with a keyword it doesn't recognize; future implementations MUST NOT
- require current clients to understand any KeywordLine not currently
- described.
- The "opt" keyword was used until Tor 0.1.2.5-alpha for non-critical future
- extensions. All implementations MUST ignore any item of the form "opt
- keyword ....." when they would not recognize "keyword ....."; and MUST
- treat "opt keyword ....." as synonymous with "keyword ......" when keyword
- is recognized.
- Implementations before 0.1.2.5-alpha rejected any document with a
- KeywordLine that started with a keyword that they didn't recognize.
- When generating documents that need to be read by older versions of Tor,
- implementations MUST prefix items not recognized by older versions of
- Tor with an "opt" until those versions of Tor are obsolete. [Note that
- key certificates, status vote documents, extra info documents, and
- status consensus documents will never be read by older versions of Tor.]
- Other implementations that want to extend Tor's directory format MAY
- introduce their own items. The keywords for extension items SHOULD start
- with the characters "x-" or "X-", to guarantee that they will not conflict
- with keywords used by future versions of Tor.
- In our document descriptions below, we tag Items with a multiplicity in
- brackets. Possible tags are:
- "At start, exactly once": These items MUST occur in every instance of
- the document type, and MUST appear exactly once, and MUST be the
- first item in their documents.
- "Exactly once": These items MUST occur exactly one time in every
- instance of the document type.
- "At end, exactly once": These items MUST occur in every instance of
- the document type, and MUST appear exactly once, and MUST be the
- last item in their documents.
- "At most once": These items MAY occur zero or one times in any
- instance of the document type, but MUST NOT occur more than once.
- "Any number": These items MAY occur zero, one, or more times in any
- instance of the document type.
- "Once or more": These items MUST occur at least once in any instance
- of the document type, and MAY occur more.
- 1.3. Signing documents
- Every signable document below is signed in a similar manner, using a
- given "Initial Item", a final "Signature Item", a digest algorithm, and
- a signing key.
- The Initial Item must be the first item in the document.
- The Signature Item has the following format:
- <signature item keyword> [arguments] NL SIGNATURE NL
- The "SIGNATURE" Object contains a signature (using the signing key) of
- the PKCS1-padded digest of the entire document, taken from the
- beginning of the Initial item, through the newline after the Signature
- Item's keyword and its arguments.
- Unless otherwise, the digest algorithm is SHA-1.
- All documents are invalid unless signed with the correct signing key.
- The "Digest" of a document, unless stated otherwise, is its digest *as
- signed by this signature scheme*.
- 1.4. Voting timeline
- Every consensus document has a "valid-after" (VA) time, a "fresh-until"
- (FU) time and a "valid-until" (VU) time. VA MUST precede FU, which MUST
- in turn precede VU. Times are chosen so that every consensus will be
- "fresh" until the next consensus becomes valid, and "valid" for a while
- after. At least 3 consensuses should be valid at any given time.
- The timeline for a given consensus is as follows:
- VA-DistSeconds-VoteSeconds: The authorities exchange votes.
- VA-DistSeconds-VoteSeconds/2: The authorities try to download any
- votes they don't have.
- VA-DistSeconds: The authorities calculate the consensus and exchange
- signatures.
- VA-DistSeconds/2: The authorities try to download any signatures
- they don't have.
- VA: All authorities have a multiply signed consensus.
- VA ... FU: Caches download the consensus. (Note that since caches have
- no way of telling what VA and FU are until they have downloaded
- the consensus, they assume that the present consensus's VA is
- equal to the previous one's FU, and that its FU is one interval after
- that.)
- FU: The consensus is no longer the freshest consensus.
- FU ... (the current consensus's VU): Clients download the consensus.
- (See note above: clients guess that the next consensus's FU will be
- two intervals after the current VA.)
- VU: The consensus is no longer valid.
- VoteSeconds and DistSeconds MUST each be at least 20 seconds; FU-VA and
- VU-FU MUST each be at least 5 minutes.
- 2. Router operation and formats
- ORs SHOULD generate a new router descriptor and a new extra-info
- document whenever any of the following events have occurred:
- - A period of time (18 hrs by default) has passed since the last
- time a descriptor was generated.
- - A descriptor field other than bandwidth or uptime has changed.
- - Bandwidth has changed by a factor of 2 from the last time a
- descriptor was generated, and at least a given interval of time
- (20 mins by default) has passed since then.
- - Its uptime has been reset (by restarting).
- [XXX this list is incomplete; see router_differences_are_cosmetic()
- in routerlist.c for others]
- ORs SHOULD NOT publish a new router descriptor or extra-info document
- if none of the above events have occurred and not much time has passed
- (12 hours by default).
- After generating a descriptor, ORs upload them to every directory
- authority they know, by posting them (in order) to the URL
- http://<hostname:port>/tor/
- 2.1. Router descriptor format
- Router descriptors consist of the following items. For backward
- compatibility, there should be an extra NL at the end of each router
- descriptor.
- In lines that take multiple arguments, extra arguments SHOULD be
- accepted and ignored. Many of the nonterminals below are defined in
- section 2.3.
- "router" nickname address ORPort SOCKSPort DirPort NL
- [At start, exactly once.]
- Indicates the beginning of a router descriptor. "nickname" must be a
- valid router nickname as specified in 2.3. "address" must be an IPv4
- address in dotted-quad format. The last three numbers indicate the
- TCP ports at which this OR exposes functionality. ORPort is a port at
- which this OR accepts TLS connections for the main OR protocol;
- SOCKSPort is deprecated and should always be 0; and DirPort is the
- port at which this OR accepts directory-related HTTP connections. If
- any port is not supported, the value 0 is given instead of a port
- number. (At least one of DirPort and ORPort SHOULD be set;
- authorities MAY reject any descriptor with both DirPort and ORPort of
- 0.)
- "bandwidth" bandwidth-avg bandwidth-burst bandwidth-observed NL
- [Exactly once]
- Estimated bandwidth for this router, in bytes per second. The
- "average" bandwidth is the volume per second that the OR is willing to
- sustain over long periods; the "burst" bandwidth is the volume that
- the OR is willing to sustain in very short intervals. The "observed"
- value is an estimate of the capacity this server can handle. The
- server remembers the max bandwidth sustained output over any ten
- second period in the past day, and another sustained input. The
- "observed" value is the lesser of these two numbers.
- "platform" string NL
- [At most once]
- A human-readable string describing the system on which this OR is
- running. This MAY include the operating system, and SHOULD include
- the name and version of the software implementing the Tor protocol.
- "published" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS NL
- [Exactly once]
- The time, in GMT, when this descriptor (and its corresponding
- extra-info document if any) was generated.
- "fingerprint" fingerprint NL
- [At most once]
- A fingerprint (a HASH_LEN-byte of asn1 encoded public key, encoded in
- hex, with a single space after every 4 characters) for this router's
- identity key. A descriptor is considered invalid (and MUST be
- rejected) if the fingerprint line does not match the public key.
- [We didn't start parsing this line until Tor 0.1.0.6-rc; it should
- be marked with "opt" until earlier versions of Tor are obsolete.]
- "hibernating" bool NL
- [At most once]
- If the value is 1, then the Tor server was hibernating when the
- descriptor was published, and shouldn't be used to build circuits.
- [We didn't start parsing this line until Tor 0.1.0.6-rc; it should be
- marked with "opt" until earlier versions of Tor are obsolete.]
- "uptime" number NL
- [At most once]
- The number of seconds that this OR process has been running.
- "onion-key" NL a public key in PEM format
- [Exactly once]
- This key is used to encrypt EXTEND cells for this OR. The key MUST be
- accepted for at least 1 week after any new key is published in a
- subsequent descriptor. It MUST be 1024 bits.
- "signing-key" NL a public key in PEM format
- [Exactly once]
- The OR's long-term identity key. It MUST be 1024 bits.
- "accept" exitpattern NL
- "reject" exitpattern NL
- [Any number]
- These lines describe an "exit policy": the rules that an OR follows
- when deciding whether to allow a new stream to a given address. The
- 'exitpattern' syntax is described below. There MUST be at least one
- such entry. The rules are considered in order; if no rule matches,
- the address will be accepted. For clarity, the last such entry SHOULD
- be accept *:* or reject *:*.
- "router-signature" NL Signature NL
- [At end, exactly once]
- The "SIGNATURE" object contains a signature of the PKCS1-padded
- hash of the entire router descriptor, taken from the beginning of the
- "router" line, through the newline after the "router-signature" line.
- The router descriptor is invalid unless the signature is performed
- with the router's identity key.
- "contact" info NL
- [At most once]
- Describes a way to contact the server's administrator, preferably
- including an email address and a PGP key fingerprint.
- "family" names NL
- [At most once]
- 'Names' is a space-separated list of server nicknames or
- hexdigests. If two ORs list one another in their "family" entries,
- then OPs should treat them as a single OR for the purpose of path
- selection.
- For example, if node A's descriptor contains "family B", and node B's
- descriptor contains "family A", then node A and node B should never
- be used on the same circuit.
- "read-history" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS (NSEC s) NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM... NL
- [At most once]
- "write-history" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS (NSEC s) NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM... NL
- [At most once]
- Declare how much bandwidth the OR has used recently. Usage is divided
- into intervals of NSEC seconds. The YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS field
- defines the end of the most recent interval. The numbers are the
- number of bytes used in the most recent intervals, ordered from
- oldest to newest.
- [We didn't start parsing these lines until Tor 0.1.0.6-rc; they should
- be marked with "opt" until earlier versions of Tor are obsolete.]
- [See also migration notes in section 2.2.1.]
- "eventdns" bool NL
- [At most once]
- Declare whether this version of Tor is using the newer enhanced
- dns logic. Versions of Tor with this field set to false SHOULD NOT
- be used for reverse hostname lookups.
- [All versions of Tor before 0.1.2.2-alpha should be assumed to have
- this option set to 0 if it is not present. All Tor versions at
- 0.1.2.2-alpha or later should be assumed to have this option set to
- 1 if it is not present. Until 0.1.2.1-alpha-dev, this option was
- not generated, even when the new DNS code was in use. Versions of Tor
- before 0.1.2.1-alpha-dev did not parse this option, so it should be
- marked "opt". The dnsworker logic has been removed, so this option
- should not be used by new server code. However, it can still be
- used, and should still be recognized by new code until Tor 0.1.2.x
- is obsolete.]
- "caches-extra-info" NL
- [At most once.]
- Present only if this router is a directory cache that provides
- extra-info documents.
- [Versions before 0.2.0.1-alpha don't recognize this, and versions
- before 0.1.2.5-alpha will reject descriptors containing it unless
- it is prefixed with "opt"; it should be so prefixed until these
- versions are obsolete.]
- "extra-info-digest" digest NL
- [At most once]
- "Digest" is a hex-encoded digest (using upper-case characters) of the
- router's extra-info document, as signed in the router's extra-info
- (that is, not including the signature). (If this field is absent, the
- router is not uploading a corresponding extra-info document.)
- [Versions before 0.2.0.1-alpha don't recognize this, and versions
- before 0.1.2.5-alpha will reject descriptors containing it unless
- it is prefixed with "opt"; it should be so prefixed until these
- versions are obsolete.]
- "hidden-service-dir" *(SP VersionNum) NL
- [At most once.]
- Present only if this router stores and serves hidden service
- descriptors. If any VersionNum(s) are specified, this router
- supports those descriptor versions. If none are specified, it
- defaults to version 2 descriptors.
- [Versions of Tor before 0.1.2.5-alpha rejected router descriptors
- with unrecognized items; the protocols line should be preceded with
- an "opt" until these Tors are obsolete.]
- "protocols" SP "Link" SP LINK-VERSION-LIST SP "Circuit" SP
- CIRCUIT-VERSION-LIST NL
- [At most once.]
- Both lists are space-separated sequences of numbers, to indicate which
- protocols the server supports. As of 30 Mar 2008, specified
- protocols are "Link 1 2 Circuit 1". See section 4.1 of tor-spec.txt
- for more information about link protocol versions.
- [Versions of Tor before 0.1.2.5-alpha rejected router descriptors
- with unrecognized items; the protocols line should be preceded with
- an "opt" until these Tors are obsolete.]
- "allow-single-hop-exits"
- [At most one.]
- Present only if the router allows single-hop circuits to make exit
- connections. Most Tor servers do not support this: this is
- included for specialized controllers designed to support perspective
- access and such.
- 2.2. Extra-info documents
- Extra-info documents consist of the following items:
- "extra-info" Nickname Fingerprint NL
- [At start, exactly once.]
- Identifies what router this is an extra info descriptor for.
- Fingerprint is encoded in hex (using upper-case letters), with
- no spaces.
- "published"
- [Exactly once.]
- The time, in GMT, when this document (and its corresponding router
- descriptor if any) was generated. It MUST match the published time
- in the corresponding router descriptor.
- "read-history" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS (NSEC s) NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM... NL
- [At most once.]
- "write-history" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS (NSEC s) NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM... NL
- [At most once.]
- As documented in 2.1 above. See migration notes in section 2.2.1.
- "geoip-start" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS NL
- "geoip-client-origins" CC=N,CC=N,... NL
- Only generated by bridge routers (see blocking.pdf), and only
- when they have been configured with a geoip database.
- Non-bridges SHOULD NOT generate these fields. Contains a list
- of mappings from two-letter country codes (CC) to the number
- of clients that have connected to that bridge from that
- country (approximate, and rounded up to the nearest multiple of 8
- in order to hamper traffic analysis). A country is included
- only if it has at least one address. The time in
- "geoip-start" is the time at which we began collecting geoip
- statistics.
- "router-signature" NL Signature NL
- [At end, exactly once.]
- A document signature as documented in section 1.3, using the
- initial item "extra-info" and the final item "router-signature",
- signed with the router's identity key.
- 2.2.1. Moving history fields to extra-info documents.
- Tools that want to use the read-history and write-history values SHOULD
- download extra-info documents as well as router descriptors. Such
- tools SHOULD accept history values from both sources; if they appear in
- both documents, the values in the extra-info documents are authoritative.
- New versions of Tor no longer generate router descriptors
- containing read-history or write-history. Tools should continue to
- accept read-history and write-history values in router descriptors
- produced by older versions of Tor until all Tor versions earlier
- than 0.2.0.x are obsolete.
- 2.3. Nonterminals in router descriptors
- nickname ::= between 1 and 19 alphanumeric characters ([A-Za-z0-9]),
- case-insensitive.
- hexdigest ::= a '$', followed by 40 hexadecimal characters
- ([A-Fa-f0-9]). [Represents a server by the digest of its identity
- key.]
- exitpattern ::= addrspec ":" portspec
- portspec ::= "*" | port | port "-" port
- port ::= an integer between 1 and 65535, inclusive.
- [Some implementations incorrectly generate ports with value 0.
- Implementations SHOULD accept this, and SHOULD NOT generate it.
- Connections to port 0 are never permitted.]
- addrspec ::= "*" | ip4spec | ip6spec
- ipv4spec ::= ip4 | ip4 "/" num_ip4_bits | ip4 "/" ip4mask
- ip4 ::= an IPv4 address in dotted-quad format
- ip4mask ::= an IPv4 mask in dotted-quad format
- num_ip4_bits ::= an integer between 0 and 32
- ip6spec ::= ip6 | ip6 "/" num_ip6_bits
- ip6 ::= an IPv6 address, surrounded by square brackets.
- num_ip6_bits ::= an integer between 0 and 128
- bool ::= "0" | "1"
- 3. Formats produced by directory authorities.
- Every authority has two keys used in this protocol: a signing key, and
- an authority identity key. (Authorities also have a router identity
- key used in their role as a router and by earlier versions of the
- directory protocol.) The identity key is used from time to time to
- sign new key certificates using new signing keys; it is very sensitive.
- The signing key is used to sign key certificates and status documents.
- There are three kinds of documents generated by directory authorities:
- Key certificates
- Status votes
- Status consensuses
- Each is discussed below.
- 3.1. Key certificates
- Key certificates consist of the following items:
- "dir-key-certificate-version" version NL
- [At start, exactly once.]
- Determines the version of the key certificate. MUST be "3" for
- the protocol described in this document. Implementations MUST
- reject formats they don't understand.
- "dir-address" IPPort NL
- [At most once]
- An IP:Port for this authority's directory port.
- "fingerprint" fingerprint NL
- [Exactly once.]
- Hexadecimal encoding without spaces based on the authority's
- identity key.
- "dir-identity-key" NL a public key in PEM format
- [Exactly once.]
- The long-term authority identity key for this authority. This key
- SHOULD be at least 2048 bits long; it MUST NOT be shorter than
- 1024 bits.
- "dir-key-published" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS NL
- [Exactly once.]
- The time (in GMT) when this document and corresponding key were
- last generated.
- "dir-key-expires" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS NL
- [Exactly once.]
- A time (in GMT) after which this key is no longer valid.
- "dir-signing-key" NL a key in PEM format
- [Exactly once.]
- The directory server's public signing key. This key MUST be at
- least 1024 bits, and MAY be longer.
- "dir-key-crosscert" NL CrossSignature NL
- [At most once.]
- NOTE: Authorities MUST include this field in all newly generated
- certificates. A future version of this specification will make
- the field required.
- CrossSignature is a signature, made using the certificate's signing
- key, of the digest of the PKCS1-padded hash of the certificate's
- identity key. For backward compatibility with broken versions of the
- parser, we wrap the base64-encoded signature in -----BEGIN ID
- SIGNATURE---- and -----END ID SIGNATURE----- tags. Implementations
- MUST allow the "ID " portion to be omitted, however.
- When encountering a certificate with a dir-key-crosscert entry,
- implementations MUST verify that the signature is a correct signature
- of the hash of the identity key using the signing key.
- "dir-key-certification" NL Signature NL
- [At end, exactly once.]
- A document signature as documented in section 1.3, using the
- initial item "dir-key-certificate-version" and the final item
- "dir-key-certification", signed with the authority identity key.
- Authorities MUST generate a new signing key and corresponding
- certificate before the key expires.
- 3.2. Vote and consensus status documents
- Votes and consensuses are more strictly formatted then other documents
- in this specification, since different authorities must be able to
- generate exactly the same consensus given the same set of votes.
- The procedure for deciding when to generate vote and consensus status
- documents are described in section XXX below.
- Status documents contain a preamble, an authority section, a list of
- router status entries, and one more footers signature, in that order.
- Unlike other formats described above, a SP in these documents must be a
- single space character (hex 20).
- Some items appear only in votes, and some items appear only in
- consensuses. Unless specified, items occur in both.
- The preamble contains the following items. They MUST occur in the
- order given here:
- "network-status-version" SP version NL.
- [At start, exactly once.]
- A document format version. For this specification, the version is
- "3".
- "vote-status" SP type NL
- [Exactly once.]
- The status MUST be "vote" or "consensus", depending on the type of
- the document.
- "consensus-methods" SP IntegerList NL
- [Exactly once for votes; does not occur in consensuses.]
- A space-separated list of supported methods for generating
- consensuses from votes. See section 3.4.1 for details. Method "1"
- MUST be included.
- "consensus-method" SP Integer NL
- [Exactly once for consensuses; does not occur in votes.]
- See section 3.4.1 for details.
- (Only included when the vote is generated with consensus-method 2 or
- later.)
- "published" SP YYYY-MM-DD SP HH:MM:SS NL
- [Exactly once for votes; does not occur in consensuses.]
- The publication time for this status document (if a vote).
- "valid-after" SP YYYY-MM-DD SP HH:MM:SS NL
- [Exactly once.]
- The start of the Interval for this vote. Before this time, the
- consensus document produced from this vote should not be used.
- See 1.4 for voting timeline information.
- "fresh-until" SP YYYY-MM-DD SP HH:MM:SS NL
- [Exactly once.]
- The time at which the next consensus should be produced; before this
- time, there is no point in downloading another consensus, since there
- won't be a new one. See 1.4 for voting timeline information.
- "valid-until" SP YYYY-MM-DD SP HH:MM:SS NL
- [Exactly once.]
- The end of the Interval for this vote. After this time, the
- consensus produced by this vote should not be used. See 1.4 for
- voting timeline information.
- "voting-delay" SP VoteSeconds SP DistSeconds NL
- [Exactly once.]
- VoteSeconds is the number of seconds that we will allow to collect
- votes from all authorities; DistSeconds is the number of seconds
- we'll allow to collect signatures from all authorities. See 1.4 for
- voting timeline information.
- "client-versions" SP VersionList NL
- [At most once.]
- A comma-separated list of recommended client versions, in
- ascending order. If absent, no opinion is held about client
- versions.
- "server-versions" SP VersionList NL
- [At most once.]
- A comma-separated list of recommended server versions, in
- ascending order. If absent, no opinion is held about server
- versions.
- "known-flags" SP FlagList NL
- [Exactly once.]
- A space-separated list of all of the flags that this document
- might contain. A flag is "known" either because the authority
- knows about them and might set them (if in a vote), or because
- enough votes were counted for the consensus for an authoritative
- opinion to have been formed about their status.
- The authority section of a vote contains the following items, followed
- in turn by the authority's current key certificate:
- "dir-source" SP nickname SP identity SP address SP IP SP dirport SP
- orport NL
- [Exactly once, at start]
- Describes this authority. The nickname is a convenient identifier
- for the authority. The identity is an uppercase hex fingerprint of
- the authority's current (v3 authority) identity key. The address is
- the server's hostname. The IP is the server's current IP address,
- and dirport is its current directory port. XXXXorport
- "contact" SP string NL
- [At most once.]
- An arbitrary string describing how to contact the directory
- server's administrator. Administrators should include at least an
- email address and a PGP fingerprint.
- "legacy-key" SP FINGERPRINT NL
- [At most once]
- Lists a fingerprint for an obsolete _identity_ key still used
- by this authority to keep older clients working. This option
- is used to keep key around for a little while in case the
- authorities need to migrate many identity keys at once.
- (Generally, this would only happen because of a security
- vulnerability that affected multiple authorities, like the
- Debian OpenSSL RNG bug of May 2008.)
- The authority section of a consensus contains groups the following items,
- in the order given, with one group for each authority that contributed to
- the consensus, with groups sorted by authority identity digest:
- "dir-source" SP nickname SP identity SP address SP IP SP dirport SP
- orport NL
- [Exactly once, at start]
- As in the authority section of a vote.
- "contact" SP string NL
- [At most once.]
- As in the authority section of a vote.
- "vote-digest" SP digest NL
- [Exactly once.]
- A digest of the vote from the authority that contributed to this
- consensus, as signed (that is, not including the signature).
- (Hex, upper-case.)
- Each router status entry contains the following items. Router status
- entries are sorted in ascending order by identity digest.
- "r" SP nickname SP identity SP digest SP publication SP IP SP ORPort
- SP DirPort NL
- [At start, exactly once.]
- "Nickname" is the OR's nickname. "Identity" is a hash of its
- identity key, encoded in base64, with trailing equals sign(s)
- removed. "Digest" is a hash of its most recent descriptor as
- signed (that is, not including the signature), encoded in base64.
- "Publication" is the
- publication time of its most recent descriptor, in the form
- YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS, in GMT. "IP" is its current IP address;
- ORPort is its current OR port, "DirPort" is it's current directory
- port, or "0" for "none".
- "s" SP Flags NL
- [At most once.]
- A series of space-separated status flags, in alphabetical order.
- Currently documented flags are:
- "Authority" if the router is a directory authority.
- "BadExit" if the router is believed to be useless as an exit node
- (because its ISP censors it, because it is behind a restrictive
- proxy, or for some similar reason).
- "BadDirectory" if the router is believed to be useless as a
- directory cache (because its directory port isn't working,
- its bandwidth is always throttled, or for some similar
- reason).
- "Exit" if the router is more useful for building
- general-purpose exit circuits than for relay circuits. The
- path building algorithm uses this flag; see path-spec.txt.
- "Fast" if the router is suitable for high-bandwidth circuits.
- "Guard" if the router is suitable for use as an entry guard.
- "HSDir" if the router is considered a v2 hidden service directory.
- "Named" if the router's identity-nickname mapping is canonical,
- and this authority binds names.
- "Stable" if the router is suitable for long-lived circuits.
- "Running" if the router is currently usable.
- "Unnamed" if another router has bound the name used by this
- router, and this authority binds names.
- "Valid" if the router has been 'validated'.
- "V2Dir" if the router implements the v2 directory protocol.
- "V3Dir" if the router implements this protocol.
- "v" SP version NL
- [At most once.]
- The version of the Tor protocol that this server is running. If
- the value begins with "Tor" SP, the rest of the string is a Tor
- version number, and the protocol is "The Tor protocol as supported
- by the given version of Tor." Otherwise, if the value begins with
- some other string, Tor has upgraded to a more sophisticated
- protocol versioning system, and the protocol is "a version of the
- Tor protocol more recent than any we recognize."
- Directory authorities SHOULD omit version strings they receive from
- descriptors if they would cause "v" lines to be over 128 characters
- long.
- "w" SP "Bandwidth=" INT NL
- [At most once.]
- An estimate of the bandwidth of this server, in an arbitrary
- unit (currently kilobytes per second). Used to weight router
- selection. Other weighting keywords may be added later.
- Clients MUST ignore keywords they do not recognize.
- "p" SP ("accept" / "reject") SP PortList NL
- [At most once.]
- PortList = PortOrRange
- PortList = PortList "," PortOrRange
- PortOrRange = INT "-" INT / INT
- A list of those ports that this router supports (if 'accept')
- or does not support (if 'reject') for exit to "most
- addresses".
- The signature section contains the following item, which appears
- Exactly Once for a vote, and At Least Once for a consensus.
- "directory-signature" SP identity SP signing-key-digest NL Signature
- This is a signature of the status document, with the initial item
- "network-status-version", and the signature item
- "directory-signature", using the signing key. (In this case, we take
- the hash through the _space_ after directory-signature, not the
- newline: this ensures that all authorities sign the same thing.)
- "identity" is the hex-encoded digest of the authority identity key of
- the signing authority, and "signing-key-digest" is the hex-encoded
- digest of the current authority signing key of the signing authority.
- 3.3. Deciding how to vote.
- (This section describes how directory authorities choose which status
- flags to apply to routers, as of Tor 0.2.0.0-alpha-dev. Later directory
- authorities MAY do things differently, so long as clients keep working
- well. Clients MUST NOT depend on the exact behaviors in this section.)
- In the below definitions, a router is considered "active" if it is
- running, valid, and not hibernating.
- "Valid" -- a router is 'Valid' if it is running a version of Tor not
- known to be broken, and the directory authority has not blacklisted
- it as suspicious.
- "Named" -- Directory authority administrators may decide to support name
- binding. If they do, then they must maintain a file of
- nickname-to-identity-key mappings, and try to keep this file consistent
- with other directory authorities. If they don't, they act as clients, and
- report bindings made by other directory authorities (name X is bound to
- identity Y if at least one binding directory lists it, and no directory
- binds X to some other Y'.) A router is called 'Named' if the router
- believes the given name should be bound to the given key.
- Two strategies exist on the current network for deciding on
- values for the Named flag. In the original version, server
- operators were asked to send nickname-identity pairs to a
- mailing list of Naming directory authorities operators. The
- operators were then supposed to add the pairs to their
- mapping files; in practice, they didn't get to this often.
- Newer Naming authorities run a script that registers routers
- in their mapping files once the routers have been online at
- least two weeks, no other router has that nickname, and no
- other router has wanted the nickname for a month. If a router
- has not been online for six months, the router is removed.
- "Unnamed" -- Directory authorities that support naming should vote for a
- router to be 'Unnamed' if its given nickname is mapped to a different
- identity.
- "Running" -- A router is 'Running' if the authority managed to connect to
- it successfully within the last 30 minutes.
- "Stable" -- A router is 'Stable' if it is active, and either its Weighted
- MTBF is at least the median for known active routers or its Weighted MTBF
- corresponds to at least 7 days. Routers are never called Stable if they are
- running a version of Tor known to drop circuits stupidly. (0.1.1.10-alpha
- through 0.1.1.16-rc are stupid this way.)
- To calculate weighted MTBF, compute the weighted mean of the lengths
- of all intervals when the router was observed to be up, weighting
- intervals by $alpha^n$, where $n$ is the amount of time that has
- passed since the interval ended, and $alpha$ is chosen so that
- measurements over approximately one month old no longer influence the
- weighted MTBF much.
- [XXXX what happens when we have less than 4 days of MTBF info.]
- "Exit" -- A router is called an 'Exit' iff it allows exits to at
- least two of the ports 80, 443, and 6667 and allows exits to at
- least one /8 address space.
- "Fast" -- A router is 'Fast' if it is active, and its bandwidth is
- either in the top 7/8ths for known active routers or at least 100KB/s.
- "Guard" -- A router is a possible 'Guard' if its Weighted Fractional
- Uptime is at least the median for "familiar" active routers, and if
- its bandwidth is at least median or at least 250KB/s.
- If the total bandwidth of active non-BadExit Exit servers is less
- than one third of the total bandwidth of all active servers, no Exit is
- listed as a Guard.
- To calculate weighted fractional uptime, compute the fraction
- of time that the router is up in any given day, weighting so that
- downtime and uptime in the past counts less.
- A node is 'familiar' if 1/8 of all active nodes have appeared more
- recently than it, OR it has been around for a few weeks.
- "Authority" -- A router is called an 'Authority' if the authority
- generating the network-status document believes it is an authority.
- "V2Dir" -- A router supports the v2 directory protocol if it has an open
- directory port, and it is running a version of the directory protocol that
- supports the functionality clients need. (Currently, this is
- 0.1.1.9-alpha or later.)
- "V3Dir" -- A router supports the v3 directory protocol if it has an open
- directory port, and it is running a version of the directory protocol that
- supports the functionality clients need. (Currently, this is
- 0.2.0.?????-alpha or later.)
- "HSDir" -- A router is a v2 hidden service directory if it stores and
- serves v2 hidden service descriptors and the authority managed to connect
- to it successfully within the last 24 hours.
- Directory server administrators may label some servers or IPs as
- blacklisted, and elect not to include them in their network-status lists.
- Authorities SHOULD 'disable' any servers in excess of 3 on any single IP.
- When there are more than 3 to choose from, authorities should first prefer
- authorities to non-authorities, then prefer Running to non-Running, and
- then prefer high-bandwidth to low-bandwidth. To 'disable' a server, the
- authority *should* advertise it without the Running or Valid flag.
- Thus, the network-status vote includes all non-blacklisted,
- non-expired, non-superseded descriptors.
- The bandwidth in a "w" line should be taken as the best estimate
- of the router's actual capacity that the authority has. For now,
- this should be the lesser of the observed bandwidth and bandwidth
- rate limit from the router descriptor. It is given in kilobytes
- per second, and capped at some arbitrary value (currently 10 MB/s).
- The ports listed in a "p" line should be taken as those ports for
- which the router's exit policy permits 'most' addresses, ignoring any
- accept not for all addresses, ignoring all rejects for private
- netblocks. "Most" addresses are permitted if no more than 2^25
- IPv4 addresses (two /8 networks) were blocked. The list is encoded
- as described in 3.4.2.
- 3.4. Computing a consensus from a set of votes
- Given a set of votes, authorities compute the contents of the consensus
- document as follows:
- The "valid-after", "valid-until", and "fresh-until" times are taken as
- the median of the respective values from all the votes.
- The times in the "voting-delay" line are taken as the median of the
- VoteSeconds and DistSeconds times in the votes.
- Known-flags is the union of all flags known by any voter.
- "client-versions" and "server-versions" are sorted in ascending
- order; A version is recommended in the consensus if it is recommended
- by more than half of the voting authorities that included a
- client-versions or server-versions lines in their votes.
- The authority item groups (dir-source, contact, fingerprint,
- vote-digest) are taken from the votes of the voting
- authorities. These groups are sorted by the digests of the
- authorities identity keys, in ascending order. If the consensus
- method is 3 or later, a dir-source line must be included for
- every vote with legacy-key entry, using the legacy-key's
- fingerprint, the voter's ordinary nickname with the string
- "-legacy" appended, and all other fields as from the original
- vote's dir-source line.
- A router status entry:
- * is included in the result if some router status entry with the same
- identity is included by more than half of the authorities (total
- authorities, not just those whose votes we have).
- * For any given identity, we include at most one router status entry.
- * A router entry has a flag set if that is included by more than half
- of the authorities who care about that flag.
- * Two router entries are "the same" if they have the same
- <descriptor digest, published time, nickname, IP, ports> tuple.
- We choose the tuple for a given router as whichever tuple appears
- for that router in the most votes. We break ties first in favor of
- the more recently published, then in favor of smaller server
- descriptor digest.
- * The Named flag appears if it is included for this routerstatus by
- _any_ authority, and if all authorities that list it list the same
- nickname. However, if consensus-method 2 or later is in use, and
- any authority calls this identity/nickname pair Unnamed, then
- this routerstatus does not get the Named flag.
- * If consensus-method 2 or later is in use, the Unnamed flag is
- set for a routerstatus if any authorities have voted for a different
- identities to be Named with that nickname, or if any authority
- lists that nickname/ID pair as Unnamed.
- (With consensus-method 1, Unnamed is set like any other flag.)
- * The version is given as whichever version is listed by the most
- voters, with ties decided in favor of more recent versions.
- * If consensus-method 4 or later is in use, then routers that
- do not have the Running flag are not listed at all.
- * If consensus-method 5 or later is in use, then the "w" line
- is generated using a low-median of the bandwidth values from
- the votes that included "w" lines for this router.
- * If consensus-method 5 or later is in use, then the "p" line
- is taken from the votes that have the same policy summary
- for the descriptor we are listing. (They should all be the
- same. If they are not, we pick the most commonly listed
- one, breaking ties in favor of the lexicographically larger
- vote.) The port list is encoded as specified in 3.4.2.
- The signatures at the end of a consensus document are sorted in
- ascending order by identity digest.
- All ties in computing medians are broken in favor of the smaller or
- earlier item.
- 3.4.1. Forward compatibility
- Future versions of Tor will need to include new information in the
- consensus documents, but it is important that all authorities (or at least
- half) generate and sign the same signed consensus.
- To achieve this, authorities list in their votes their supported methods
- for generating consensuses from votes. Later methods will be assigned
- higher numbers. Currently recognized methods:
- "1" -- The first implemented version.
- "2" -- Added support for the Unnamed flag.
- "3" -- Added legacy ID key support to aid in authority ID key rollovers
- "4" -- No longer list routers that are not running in the consensus
- "5" -- adds support for "w" and "p" lines.
- Before generating a consensus, an authority must decide which consensus
- method to use. To do this, it looks for the highest version number
- supported by more than 2/3 of the authorities voting. If it supports this
- method, then it uses it. Otherwise, it falls back to method 1.
- (The consensuses generated by new methods must be parsable by
- implementations that only understand the old methods, and must not cause
- those implementations to compromise their anonymity. This is a means for
- making changes in the contents of consensus; not for making
- backward-incompatible changes in their format.)
- 3.4.2. Encoding port lists
- Whether the summary shows the list of accepted ports or the list of
- rejected ports depends on which list is shorter (has a shorter string
- representation). In case of ties we choose the list of accepted
- ports. As an exception to this rule an allow-all policy is
- represented as "accept 1-65535" instead of "reject " and a reject-all
- policy is similarly given as "reject 1-65535".
- Summary items are compressed, that is instead of "80-88,89-100" there
- only is a single item of "80-100", similarly instead of "20,21" a
- summary will say "20-21".
- Port lists are sorted in ascending order.
- The maximum allowed length of a policy summary (including the "accept "
- or "reject ") is 1000 characters. If a summary exceeds that length we
- use an accept-style summary and list as much of the port list as is
- possible within these 1000 bytes. [XXXX be more specific.]
- 3.5. Detached signatures
- Assuming full connectivity, every authority should compute and sign the
- same consensus directory in each period. Therefore, it isn't necessary to
- download the consensus computed by each authority; instead, the
- authorities only push/fetch each others' signatures. A "detached
- signature" document contains items as follows:
- "consensus-digest" SP Digest NL
- [At start, at most once.]
- The digest of the consensus being signed.
- "valid-after" SP YYYY-MM-DD SP HH:MM:SS NL
- "fresh-until" SP YYYY-MM-DD SP HH:MM:SS NL
- "valid-until" SP YYYY-MM-DD SP HH:MM:SS NL
- [As in the consensus]
- "directory-signature"
- [As in the consensus; the signature object is the same as in the
- consensus document.]
- 4. Directory server operation
- All directory authorities and directory caches ("directory servers")
- implement this section, except as noted.
- 4.1. Accepting uploads (authorities only)
- When a router posts a signed descriptor to a directory authority, the
- authority first checks whether it is well-formed and correctly
- self-signed. If it is, the authority next verifies that the nickname
- in question is not already assigned to a router with a different
- public key.
- Finally, the authority MAY check that the router is not blacklisted
- because of its key, IP, or another reason.
- If the descriptor passes these tests, and the authority does not already
- have a descriptor for a router with this public key, it accepts the
- descriptor and remembers it.
- If the authority _does_ have a descriptor with the same public key, the
- newly uploaded descriptor is remembered if its publication time is more
- recent than the most recent old descriptor for that router, and either:
- - There are non-cosmetic differences between the old descriptor and the
- new one.
- - Enough time has passed between the descriptors' publication times.
- (Currently, 12 hours.)
- Differences between router descriptors are "non-cosmetic" if they would be
- sufficient to force an upload as described in section 2 above.
- Note that the "cosmetic difference" test only applies to uploaded
- descriptors, not to descriptors that the authority downloads from other
- authorities.
- When a router posts a signed extra-info document to a directory authority,
- the authority again checks it for well-formedness and correct signature,
- and checks that its matches the extra-info-digest in some router
- descriptor that it believes is currently useful. If so, it accepts it and
- stores it and serves it as requested. If not, it drops it.
- 4.2. Voting (authorities only)
- Authorities divide time into Intervals. Authority administrators SHOULD
- try to all pick the same interval length, and SHOULD pick intervals that
- are commonly used divisions of time (e.g., 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 30
- minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes). Voting intervals SHOULD be chosen to
- divide evenly into a 24-hour day.
- Authorities SHOULD act according to interval and delays in the
- latest consensus. Lacking a latest consensus, they SHOULD default to a
- 30-minute Interval, a 5 minute VotingDelay, and a 5 minute DistDelay.
- Authorities MUST take pains to ensure that their clocks remain accurate
- within a few seconds. (Running NTP is usually sufficient.)
- The first voting period of each day begins at 00:00 (midnight) GMT. If
- the last period of the day would be truncated by one-half or more, it is
- merged with the second-to-last period.
- An authority SHOULD publish its vote immediately at the start of each voting
- period (minus VoteSeconds+DistSeconds). It does this by making it
- available at
- http://<hostname>/tor/status-vote/next/authority.z
- and sending it in an HTTP POST request to each other authority at the URL
- http://<hostname>/tor/post/vote
- If, at the start of the voting period, minus DistSeconds, an authority
- does not have a current statement from another authority, the first
- authority downloads the other's statement.
- Once an authority has a vote from another authority, it makes it available
- at
- http://<hostname>/tor/status-vote/next/<fp>.z
- where <fp> is the fingerprint of the other authority's identity key.
- And at
- http://<hostname>/tor/status-vote/next/d/<d>.z
- where <d> is the digest of the vote document.
- The consensus status, along with as many signatures as the server
- currently knows, should be available at
- http://<hostname>/tor/status-vote/next/consensus.z
- All of the detached signatures it knows for consensus status should be
- available at:
- http://<hostname>/tor/status-vote/next/consensus-signatures.z
- Once there are enough signatures, or once the voting period starts,
- these documents are available at
- http://<hostname>/tor/status-vote/current/consensus.z
- and
- http://<hostname>/tor/status-vote/current/consensus-signatures.z
- [XXX current/consensus-signatures is not currently implemented, as it
- is not used in the voting protocol.]
- The other vote documents are analogously made available under
- http://<hostname>/tor/status-vote/current/authority.z
- http://<hostname>/tor/status-vote/current/<fp>.z
- http://<hostname>/tor/status-vote/current/d/<d>.z
- once the consensus is complete.
- Once an authority has computed and signed a consensus network status, it
- should send its detached signature to each other authority in an HTTP POST
- request to the URL:
- http://<hostname>/tor/post/consensus-signature
- [XXX Note why we support push-and-then-pull.]
- [XXX possible future features include support for downloading old
- consensuses.]
- 4.3. Downloading consensus status documents (caches only)
- All directory servers (authorities and caches) try to keep a recent
- network-status consensus document to serve to clients. A cache ALWAYS
- downloads a network-status consensus if any of the following are true:
- - The cache has no consensus document.
- - The cache's consensus document is no longer valid.
- Otherwise, the cache downloads a new consensus document at a randomly
- chosen time in the first half-interval after its current consensus
- stops being fresh. (This time is chosen at random to avoid swarming
- the authorities at the start of each period. The interval size is
- inferred from the difference between the valid-after time and the
- fresh-until time on the consensus.)
- [For example, if a cache has a consensus that became valid at 1:00,
- and is fresh until 2:00, that cache will fetch a new consensus at
- a random time between 2:00 and 2:30.]
- 4.4. Downloading and storing router descriptors (authorities and caches)
- Periodically (currently, every 10 seconds), directory servers check
- whether there are any specific descriptors that they do not have and that
- they are not currently trying to download. Caches identify these
- descriptors by hash in the recent network-status consensus documents;
- authorities identify them by hash in vote (if publication date is more
- recent than the descriptor we currently have).
- [XXXX need a way to fetch descriptors ahead of the vote? v2 status docs can
- do that for now.]
- If so, the directory server launches requests to the authorities for these
- descriptors, such that each authority is only asked for descriptors listed
- in its most recent vote (if the requester is an authority) or in the
- consensus (if the requester is a cache). If we're an authority, and more
- than one authority lists the descriptor, we choose which to ask at random.
- If one of these downloads fails, we do not try to download that descriptor
- from the authority that failed to serve it again unless we receive a newer
- network-status (consensus or vote) from that authority that lists the same
- descriptor.
- Directory servers must potentially cache multiple descriptors for each
- router. Servers must not discard any descriptor listed by any recent
- consensus. If there is enough space to store additional descriptors,
- servers SHOULD try to hold those which clients are likely to download the
- most. (Currently, this is judged based on the interval for which each
- descriptor seemed newest.)
- [XXXX define recent]
- Authorities SHOULD NOT download descriptors for routers that they would
- immediately reject for reasons listed in 3.1.
- 4.5. Downloading and storing extra-info documents
- All authorities, and any cache that chooses to cache extra-info documents,
- and any client that uses extra-info documents, should implement this
- section.
- Note that generally, clients don't need extra-info documents.
- Periodically, the Tor instance checks whether it is missing any extra-info
- documents: in other words, if it has any router descriptors with an
- extra-info-digest field that does not match any of the extra-info
- documents currently held. If so, it downloads whatever extra-info
- documents are missing. Caches download from authorities; non-caches try
- to download from caches. We follow the same splitting and back-off rules
- as in 4.4 (if a cache) or 5.3 (if a client).
- 4.6. General-use HTTP URLs
- "Fingerprints" in these URLs are base-16-encoded SHA1 hashes.
- The most recent v3 consensus should be available at:
- http://<hostname>/tor/status-vote/current/consensus.z
- Starting with Tor version 0.2.1.1-alpha is also available at:
- http://<hostname>/tor/status-vote/current/consensus/<F1>+<F2>+<F3>.z
- Where F1, F2, etc. are authority identity fingerprints the client trusts.
- Servers will only return a consensus if more than half of the requested
- authorities have signed the document, otherwise a 404 error will be sent
- back. The fingerprints can be shortened to a length of any multiple of
- two, using only the leftmost part of the encoded fingerprint. Tor uses
- 3 bytes (6 hex characters) of the fingerprint.
- Clients SHOULD sort the fingerprints in ascending order. Server MUST
- accept any order.
- Clients SHOULD use this format when requesting consensus documents from
- directory authority servers and from caches running a version of Tor
- that is known to support this URL format.
- A concatenated set of all the current key certificates should be available
- at:
- http://<hostname>/tor/keys/all.z
- The key certificate for this server (if it is an authority) should be
- available at:
- http://<hostname>/tor/keys/authority.z
- The key certificate for an authority whose authority identity fingerprint
- is <F> should be available at:
- http://<hostname>/tor/keys/fp/<F>.z
- The key certificate whose signing key fingerprint is <F> should be
- available at:
- http://<hostname>/tor/keys/sk/<F>.z
- The key certificate whose identity key fingerprint is <F> and whose signing
- key fingerprint is <S> should be available at:
- http://<hostname>/tor/keys/fp-sk/<F>-<S>.z
- (As usual, clients may request multiple certificates using:
- http://<hostname>/tor/keys/fp-sk/<F1>-<S1>+<F2>-<S2>.z )
- [The above fp-sk format was not supported before Tor 0.2.1.9-alpha.]
- The most recent descriptor for a server whose identity key has a
- fingerprint of <F> should be available at:
- http://<hostname>/tor/server/fp/<F>.z
- The most recent descriptors for servers with identity fingerprints
- <F1>,<F2>,<F3> should be available at:
- http://<hostname>/tor/server/fp/<F1>+<F2>+<F3>.z
- (NOTE: Implementations SHOULD NOT download descriptors by identity key
- fingerprint. This allows a corrupted server (in collusion with a cache) to
- provide a unique descriptor to a client, and thereby partition that client
- from the rest of the network.)
- The server descriptor with (descriptor) digest <D> (in hex) should be
- available at:
- http://<hostname>/tor/server/d/<D>.z
- The most recent descriptors with digests <D1>,<D2>,<D3> should be
- available at:
- http://<hostname>/tor/server/d/<D1>+<D2>+<D3>.z
- The most recent descriptor for this server should be at:
- http://<hostname>/tor/server/authority.z
- [Nothing in the Tor protocol uses this resource yet, but it is useful
- for debugging purposes. Also, the official Tor implementations
- (starting at 0.1.1.x) use this resource to test whether a server's
- own DirPort is reachable.]
- A concatenated set of the most recent descriptors for all known servers
- should be available at:
- http://<hostname>/tor/server/all.z
- Extra-info documents are available at the URLS
- http://<hostname>/tor/extra/d/...
- http://<hostname>/tor/extra/fp/...
- http://<hostname>/tor/extra/all[.z]
- http://<hostname>/tor/extra/authority[.z]
- (As for /tor/server/ URLs: supports fetching extra-info
- documents by their digest, by the fingerprint of their servers,
- or all at once. When serving by fingerprint, we serve the
- extra-info that corresponds to the descriptor we would serve by
- that fingerprint. Only directory authorities of version
- 0.2.0.1-alpha or later are guaranteed to support the first
- three classes of URLs. Caches may support them, and MUST
- support them if they have advertised "caches-extra-info".)
- For debugging, directories SHOULD expose non-compressed objects at URLs like
- the above, but without the final ".z".
- Clients MUST handle compressed concatenated information in two forms:
- - A concatenated list of zlib-compressed objects.
- - A zlib-compressed concatenated list of objects.
- Directory servers MAY generate either format: the former requires less
- CPU, but the latter requires less bandwidth.
- Clients SHOULD use upper case letters (A-F) when base16-encoding
- fingerprints. Servers MUST accept both upper and lower case fingerprints
- in requests.
- 5. Client operation: downloading information
- Every Tor that is not a directory server (that is, those that do
- not have a DirPort set) implements this section.
- 5.1. Downloading network-status documents
- Each client maintains a list of directory authorities. Insofar as
- possible, clients SHOULD all use the same list.
- Clients try to have a live consensus network-status document at all times.
- A network-status document is "live" if the time in its valid-until field
- has not passed.
- If a client is missing a live network-status document, it tries to fetch
- it from a directory cache (or from an authority if it knows no caches).
- On failure, the client waits briefly, then tries that network-status
- document again from another cache. The client does not build circuits
- until it has a live network-status consensus document, and it has
- descriptors for more than 1/4 of the routers that it believes are running.
- (Note: clients can and should pick caches based on the network-status
- information they have: once they have first fetched network-status info
- from an authority, they should not need to go to the authority directly
- again.)
- To avoid swarming the caches whenever a consensus expires, the
- clients download new consensuses at a randomly chosen time after the
- caches are expected to have a fresh consensus, but before their
- consensus will expire. (This time is chosen uniformly at random from
- the interval between the time 3/4 into the first interval after the
- consensus is no longer fresh, and 7/8 of the time remaining after
- that before the consensus is invalid.)
- [For example, if a cache has a consensus that became valid at 1:00,
- and is fresh until 2:00, and expires at 4:00, that cache will fetch
- a new consensus at a random time between 2:45 and 3:50, since 3/4
- of the one-hour interval is 45 minutes, and 7/8 of the remaining 75
- minutes is 65 minutes.]
- 5.2. Downloading and storing router descriptors
- Clients try to have the best descriptor for each router. A descriptor is
- "best" if:
- * It is listed in the consensus network-status document.
- Periodically (currently every 10 seconds) clients check whether there are
- any "downloadable" descriptors. A descriptor is downloadable if:
- - It is the "best" descriptor for some router.
- - The descriptor was published at least 10 minutes in the past.
- (This prevents clients from trying to fetch descriptors that the
- mirrors have probably not yet retrieved and cached.)
- - The client does not currently have it.
- - The client is not currently trying to download it.
- - The client would not discard it immediately upon receiving it.
- - The client thinks it is running and valid (see 6.1 below).
- If at least 16 known routers have downloadable descriptors, or if
- enough time (currently 10 minutes) has passed since the last time the
- client tried to download descriptors, it launches requests for all
- downloadable descriptors, as described in 5.3 below.
- When a descriptor download fails, the client notes it, and does not
- consider the descriptor downloadable again until a certain amount of time
- has passed. (Currently 0 seconds for the first failure, 60 seconds for the
- second, 5 minutes for the third, 10 minutes for the fourth, and 1 day
- thereafter.) Periodically (currently once an hour) clients reset the
- failure count.
- Clients retain the most recent descriptor they have downloaded for each
- router so long as it is not too old (currently, 48 hours), OR so long as
- no better descriptor has been downloaded for the same router.
- [Versions of Tor before 0.1.2.3-alpha would discard descriptors simply for
- being published too far in the past.] [The code seems to discard
- descriptors in all cases after they're 5 days old. True? -RD]
- 5.3. Managing downloads
- When a client has no consensus network-status document, it downloads it
- from a randomly chosen authority. In all other cases, the client
- downloads from caches randomly chosen from among those believed to be V2
- directory servers. (This information comes from the network-status
- documents; see 6 below.)
- When downloading multiple router descriptors, the client chooses multiple
- mirrors so that:
- - At least 3 different mirrors are used, except when this would result
- in more than one request for under 4 descriptors.
- - No more than 128 descriptors are requested from a single mirror.
- - Otherwise, as few mirrors as possible are used.
- After choosing mirrors, the client divides the descriptors among them
- randomly.
- After receiving any response client MUST discard any network-status
- documents and descriptors that it did not request.
- 6. Using directory information
- Everyone besides directory authorities uses the approaches in this section
- to decide which servers to use and what their keys are likely to be.
- (Directory authorities just believe their own opinions, as in 3.1 above.)
- 6.1. Choosing routers for circuits.
- Circuits SHOULD NOT be built until the client has enough directory
- information: a live consensus network status [XXXX fallback?] and
- descriptors for at least 1/4 of the servers believed to be running.
- A server is "listed" if it is included by the consensus network-status
- document. Clients SHOULD NOT use unlisted servers.
- These flags are used as follows:
- - Clients SHOULD NOT use non-'Valid' or non-'Running' routers unless
- requested to do so.
- - Clients SHOULD NOT use non-'Fast' routers for any purpose other than
- very-low-bandwidth circuits (such as introduction circuits).
- - Clients SHOULD NOT use non-'Stable' routers for circuits that are
- likely to need to be open for a very long time (such as those used for
- IRC or SSH connections).
- - Clients SHOULD NOT choose non-'Guard' nodes when picking entry guard
- nodes.
- - Clients SHOULD NOT download directory information from non-'V2Dir'
- caches.
- See the "path-spec.txt" document for more details.
- 6.2. Managing naming
- In order to provide human-memorable names for individual server
- identities, some directory servers bind names to IDs. Clients handle
- names in two ways:
- When a client encounters a name it has not mapped before:
- If the consensus lists any router with that name as "Named", or if
- consensus-method 2 or later is in use and the consensus lists any
- router with that name as having the "Unnamed" flag, then the name is
- bound. (It's bound to the ID listed in the entry with the Named,
- or to an unknown ID if no name is found.)
- When the user refers to a bound name, the implementation SHOULD provide
- only the router with ID bound to that name, and no other router, even
- if the router with the right ID can't be found.
- When a user tries to refer to a non-bound name, the implementation SHOULD
- warn the user. After warning the user, the implementation MAY use any
- router that advertises the name.
- Not every router needs a nickname. When a router doesn't configure a
- nickname, it publishes with the default nickname "Unnamed". Authorities
- SHOULD NOT ever mark a router with this nickname as Named; client software
- SHOULD NOT ever use a router in response to a user request for a router
- called "Unnamed".
- 6.3. Software versions
- An implementation of Tor SHOULD warn when it has fetched a consensus
- network-status, and it is running a software version not listed.
- 6.4. Warning about a router's status.
- If a router tries to publish its descriptor to a Naming authority
- that has its nickname mapped to another key, the router SHOULD
- warn the operator that it is either using the wrong key or is using
- an already claimed nickname.
- If a router has fetched a consensus document,, and the
- authorities do not publish a binding for the router's nickname, the
- router MAY remind the operator that the chosen nickname is not
- bound to this key at the authorities, and suggest contacting the
- authority operators.
- ...
- 6.5. Router protocol versions
- A client should believe that a router supports a given feature if that
- feature is supported by the router or protocol versions in more than half
- of the live networkstatuses' "v" entries for that router. In other words,
- if the "v" entries for some router are:
- v Tor 0.0.8pre1 (from authority 1)
- v Tor 0.1.2.11 (from authority 2)
- v FutureProtocolDescription 99 (from authority 3)
- then the client should believe that the router supports any feature
- supported by 0.1.2.11.
- This is currently equivalent to believing the median declared version for
- a router in all live networkstatuses.
- 7. Standards compliance
- All clients and servers MUST support HTTP 1.0. Clients and servers MAY
- support later versions of HTTP as well.
- 7.1. HTTP headers
- Servers MAY set the Content-Length: header. Servers SHOULD set
- Content-Encoding to "deflate" or "identity".
- Servers MAY include an X-Your-Address-Is: header, whose value is the
- apparent IP address of the client connecting to them (as a dotted quad).
- For directory connections tunneled over a BEGIN_DIR stream, servers SHOULD
- report the IP from which the circuit carrying the BEGIN_DIR stream reached
- them. [Servers before version 0.1.2.5-alpha reported 127.0.0.1 for all
- BEGIN_DIR-tunneled connections.]
- Servers SHOULD disable caching of multiple network statuses or multiple
- router descriptors. Servers MAY enable caching of single descriptors,
- single network statuses, the list of all router descriptors, a v1
- directory, or a v1 running routers document. XXX mention times.
- 7.2. HTTP status codes
- Tor delivers the following status codes. Some were chosen without much
- thought; other code SHOULD NOT rely on specific status codes yet.
- 200 -- the operation completed successfully
- -- the user requested statuses or serverdescs, and none of the ones we
- requested were found (0.2.0.4-alpha and earlier).
- 304 -- the client specified an if-modified-since time, and none of the
- requested resources have changed since that time.
- 400 -- the request is malformed, or
- -- the URL is for a malformed variation of one of the URLs we support,
- or
- -- the client tried to post to a non-authority, or
- -- the authority rejected a malformed posted document, or
- 404 -- the requested document was not found.
- -- the user requested statuses or serverdescs, and none of the ones
- requested were found (0.2.0.5-alpha and later).
- 503 -- we are declining the request in order to save bandwidth
- -- user requested some items that we ordinarily generate or store,
- but we do not have any available.
- 9. Backward compatibility and migration plans
- Until Tor versions before 0.1.1.x are completely obsolete, directory
- authorities should generate, and mirrors should download and cache, v1
- directories and running-routers lists, and allow old clients to download
- them. These documents and the rules for retrieving, serving, and caching
- them are described in dir-spec-v1.txt.
- Until Tor versions before 0.2.0.x are completely obsolete, directory
- authorities should generate, mirrors should download and cache, v2
- network-status documents, and allow old clients to download them.
- Additionally, all directory servers and caches should download, store, and
- serve any router descriptor that is required because of v2 network-status
- documents. These documents and the rules for retrieving, serving, and
- caching them are described in dir-spec-v1.txt.
- A. Consensus-negotiation timeline.
- Period begins: this is the Published time.
- Everybody sends votes
- Reconciliation: everybody tries to fetch missing votes.
- consensus may exist at this point.
- End of voting period:
- everyone swaps signatures.
- Now it's okay for caches to download
- Now it's okay for clients to download.
- Valid-after/valid-until switchover