Path Selection

[Jason Cooper]

Hi,
  I am trying to get my head round the basics of the path selection for circuits.  I am putting together a simple simulator for tor networks to help me understand it and see what effects changing OR values has on the circuits built.  I have read http://gitweb.torproject.org/tor/tor.git/blob/HEAD:/doc/spec/path-spec.txt but I have a few questions.

  Are the choices of the ORs in the path all based on the advertised bandwidth (Is that the average bandwidth value or the observed)?

  Do the directory servers select which nodes can be Guards (Is there a criteria for this)?

  Does the individual client select a few Guards from the valid list of Guards and then only use them as the entry nodes?

  An OR being marked as Stable is really just a matter of it staying up and connected to the tor network for long enough?

Regards,
  Jason.
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