[tor-dev] Next version of the algorithm

[George Kadianakis]

Ola Bini <obini at thoughtworks.com> writes:

> Hey,
>
>>
>> Returning to this for a bit. I think it would be good to decide whether we
>> should keep the unreachable status of guards on permannet disk state or
>> not. The
>> very latest prop259 basically forgets the unreachable guard status as soon as
>> the algorithm terminates. I wonder if we actually want this. Hopefully guardsim
>> has a simulation scenario that will illustrate whether that's a good idea or
>> not.
> Agreed. I don't know if you saw it, but in the new proposal I have an
> XXX for exactly that.
>

Hello,

yes I noticed. I'm looking forward to the simulation results to see if that XXX
should actually be implemented.

Note that if we decide to go with keeping the unreachable state, there might be
multiple parts of the algorithm that will need to change.

>> Maybe an equivalent heuristic would be that if we are in STATE_RETRY_ONLY and
>> we manage to connect to a non-primary guard, we hang up the connection, and go
>> back into STATE_PRIMARY_GUARDS.
> Maybe. Should we do this only in STATE_RETRY_ONLY or for the UTOPIC
> and DYSTOPIC states as well?
>

Hmmm, I could see how it could be useful in the DYSTOPIC state, as well as
maybe in the UTOPIC case as well.

Ideally, the simulator would tell us which design is best here.