even simpler solution [was: Re: script to magically restart tor [was: Re: disappearing nodes]]

[Nick Mathewson]

On Wed, Apr 06, 2005 at 09:34:11PM +0200, ssc at server1.h07.org wrote:
> I just realized that there is an even simpler solution to that.
> just run the following command with ksh (or bash):
> until tor;do true;done

Watch out!  In the past, people doing things like this have wound up
hosing the Tor network pretty badly: Suppose that, for some reason,
your configuration becomes broken or your software becomes obsolete.
Suppose that this brokenness or obsolescence is only apparent after
your software has connected to another Tor server.  If this happens,
then the tight loop you give above will create a tool that hammers the
Tor network in a tight loop---and hopefully, that's not what you
intended.

(One case that comes to mind: somebody was doing the above with an
obsolete version of Tor.  But when Tor realized it was obsolete, it
downloaded a directory to make sure it was *really* obsolete before
shutting down.  Ouch!  The directory servers were overloaded.  To
solve it, we had to block the badly-behaved servers, and make newer
versions of the code download directories slightly less
enthusiastically.)

-- 
Nick Mathewson
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