[tor-dev] RFC: Ephemeral Hidden Services via the Control Port

[meejah]

carlo von lynX <lynX at time.to.get.psyced.org> writes:

I like your suggestion, and while we're bikeshedding ;) what if we use
the recently-proposed naming system and call it "ADD_ONION"?

> Concerning the "ephemerality" of it, I can imagine services
> being configured en passant by a cat >> socket from a shell
> script or so,  [..]

You still need to authenticate. I do like the simplicity, but it will be
a little more complex than that. I guess it's a bit of extra work to
keep such a connection around. But really, it's just storing a PID and
killing it when you're done.

It's still, I think, worth distinguishing somehow between an onion
service added via SETCONF (which will get written to disc, and written
to the torrc potentially) and the API Yawning has added that will vanish
if the tor instance is re-started (and has no "hidden service dir" at all).

Another option could always be added in the future, like
"lifetime={controller,tor}" or something if the "goes away with
process" makes it harder than necessary to use. My instincts still say
that "controller connection lifetime" is a good API, but that's not a
super compelling argument ;)

-- 
meejah