[tor-dev] Number of directory connections

[George Kadianakis]

tordev123 at Safe-mail.net writes:

> -------- Original Message --------
> From: Mike Perry <mikeperry at torproject.org>
> Subject: [tor-dev] Proposal: Padding for netflow record resolution reduction
> Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2015 21:12:54 -0700
>
>> Tor clients currently maintain one TLS connection to their Guard node to
>> carry actual application traffic, and make up to 3 additional connections to
>> other nodes to retrieve directory information.
>
> That doesn't seem to be the case. Tor from TBB 5.0 startup (directory info was a couple of days old):
>
> [GUARD]     xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:443  received: 17967   sent: 12865
> [dizum]     194.109.206.212:443  received: 564549  sent: 19078
> [Faravahar] 154.35.175.225:443   received: 253909  sent: 55616
> [maatuska]  171.25.193.9:80      received: 132954  sent: 28519
> [tor26]     86.59.21.38:443      received: 370630  sent: 80132
>

Fun data :)

You are lucky because your guard is also a directory cache, so you have the
option of asking your guard directly for directory documents.

There are many unlucky people whose guard is not a directory cache, so they have
to reach out to additional guards to get directory documents :x

I think most powerful guards are directory caches, so most people are lucky in
the end. All people will be lucky when we finally implement and deploy #12538.

Take care!