[tor-dev] Is PublishServerDescriptor needed to collect metrics?

[Roger Dingledine]

On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 09:44:24PM -0700, David Fifield wrote:
> If a bridge has
> 	PublishServerDescriptor 0
> does that prevent it from counting in metrics?

Correct. If it's set to 0, it never goes to the bridge authority, so
none of the metrics databases ever see it.

> If so, what's the right
> setting to enable metrics (0|1|v3|bridge,...)?

The man page says:

The default is "1", which means "if running as a server, publish the
appropriate descriptors to the authorities".

So if you leave it at "1", it will know that you meant "bridge".

> Is there a way to send
> metrics data without also ending up in BridgeDB?

Alas, not currently. That's because the metrics data is a side effect
of the bridge authority / bridgedb data flow.

Your best bet at a short-term hack might be to add a line to the
descriptor which politely asks bridgedb not to give its address out.

--Roger