[tor-dev] Dealing with frequent suspends on Android

[Michael Rogers]

On 26/11/2018 21:46, Nick Mathewson wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 21, 2018 at 5:10 PM Michael Rogers <michael at briarproject.org> wrote:
>>
>> On 20/11/2018 19:28, Nick Mathewson wrote:
>>> Hi!  I don't know if this will be useful or not, but I'm wondering if
>>> you've seen this ticket:
>>>   https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/28335
>>>
>>> The goal of this branch is to create a "dormant mode" where Tor does
>>> not run any but the most delay- and rescheduling-tolerant of its
>>> periodic events.  Tor enters this mode if a controller tells it to, or
>>> if (as a client) it passes long enough without user activity.  When in
>>> dormant mode, it doesn't disconnect from the network, and it will wake
>>> up again if the controller tells it to, or it receives a new client
>>> connection.
>>>
>>> Would this be at all helpful for any of this?
>>
>> This looks really useful for mobile clients, thank you!
> 
> Glad to hear it -- it's now merged into Tor's master branch.

Fantastic.

>> The comments on the pull request
>> (https://github.com/torproject/tor/pull/502) suggest that Tor won't
>> enter dormant mode if it's running a hidden service. Are there any plans
>> to support that in future?
> 
> I want to support this for hidden services.  Here's the ticket to
> track that: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/28424
> 
> This is going to be harder than the other cases, though, so we decided
> to defer it for now and see if we have time later.

Makes sense. I added some simulation results to the ticket that support
dgoulet's assessment that the descriptor may become unreachable within a
few hours if not republished, due to HSDir churn.

However, even one hour in dormant mode would be a huge improvement over
what we can do now. What are the other blockers for running a hidden
service in dormant mode?

Would it be possible/easier to keep an ordinary client circuit alive in
dormant mode? That would allow us to keep a connection to a mailbox*
while dormant.

Cheers,
Michael

* Briar term for a device connected to power and internet that runs a
hidden service on behalf of the owner's main device.
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