[tor-relays] A general question for relay operators

[teor]

Hi,


> On 28 Jun 2018, at 13:25, Keifer Bly <keifer.bly at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I am not saying that relays that are currently not running should be treated like they are currently running. I am just saying the network conseoucsus could be improved a little in the sense that relays, even very high bandwidth ones, might go offline from time to time due to things like power and internet outages which are things that happen from time to time,

Here's what you can do to fix your issues with relay downtime:
* run a relay on your current unreliable connection, and stop worrying
  about downtime,
* run a relay out of a data centre, and let someone else worry about
  your downtime.

I'm sorry, but if you don't want to follow this advice, I don't think we
can do anything else to help with your downtime.

> whereas with how things are now, relays that are offline for a few hours due to a possible power or internet outage in the area (or similar situation) are immediately (within the hour) treated like they never existed at all by the consensus.

That's not true. Directory authorities keep an uptime history for down
relays.

But the consensus is for clients!
If a relay is down, clients can't use it.
Why tell clients about a relay they can't use?

If you want us to change the consensus behaviour, you have to tell us
how the change helps clients. Adding down relays to the consensus makes
clients slower and wastes bandwidth.

> I just think that it would be friendly to relay operators

But... the consensus is for Tor clients, not relay operators.

> if their was an option to have relays labeled as “this relay is down momentarily, but should be back up again in the near future”

When the relay comes back up, Directory authorities assign flags based
on its uptime history. Short downtimes mean fewer flags are lost.

> unless it is down for two days or so (etc. a long time with no update from the operator).

Relay Search is for relay operators, and it tells operators how long
their relay has been down. ("Uptime" gets replaced with "Downtime".)

After a relay has been down for a while (a week?), it disappears from
Relay Search.

If you want new features for relay operators, they belong in relay
search.

T

--
teor

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