Tor 0.2.2.7-alpha is out

[Roger Dingledine]

Tor 0.2.2.7-alpha fixes a huge client-side performance bug, as well
as laying the groundwork for further relay-side performance fixes. It
also starts cleaning up client behavior with respect to the EntryNodes,
ExitNodes, and StrictNodes config options.

This release also rotates two directory authority keys, due to a security
breach of some of the Torproject servers:
http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Jan-2010/msg00161.html

Everybody should upgrade:
https://www.torproject.org/download.html.en

Changes in version 0.2.2.7-alpha - 2010-01-19
  o Directory authority changes:
    - Rotate keys (both v3 identity and relay identity) for moria1
      and gabelmoo.

  o Major features (performance):
    - We were selecting our guards uniformly at random, and then weighting
      which of our guards we'd use uniformly at random. This imbalance
      meant that Tor clients were severely limited on throughput (and
      probably latency too) by the first hop in their circuit. Now we
      select guards weighted by currently advertised bandwidth. We also
      automatically discard guards picked using the old algorithm. Fixes
      bug 1217; bugfix on 0.2.1.3-alpha. Found by Mike Perry.
    - When choosing which cells to relay first, relays can now favor
      circuits that have been quiet recently, to provide lower latency
      for low-volume circuits. By default, relays enable or disable this
      feature based on a setting in the consensus. You can override
      this default by using the new "CircuitPriorityHalflife" config
      option. Design and code by Ian Goldberg, Can Tang, and Chris
      Alexander.
    - Add separate per-conn write limiting to go with the per-conn read
      limiting. We added a global write limit in Tor 0.1.2.5-alpha,
      but never per-conn write limits.
    - New consensus params "bwconnrate" and "bwconnburst" to let us
      rate-limit client connections as they enter the network. It's
      controlled in the consensus so we can turn it on and off for
      experiments. It's starting out off. Based on proposal 163.

  o Major features (relay selection options):
    - Switch to a StrictNodes config option, rather than the previous
      "StrictEntryNodes" / "StrictExitNodes" separation that was missing a
      "StrictExcludeNodes" option.
    - If EntryNodes, ExitNodes, ExcludeNodes, or ExcludeExitNodes
      change during a config reload, mark and discard all our origin
      circuits. This fix should address edge cases where we change the
      config options and but then choose a circuit that we created before
      the change.
    - If EntryNodes or ExitNodes are set, be more willing to use an
      unsuitable (e.g. slow or unstable) circuit. The user asked for it,
      they get it.
    - Make EntryNodes config option much more aggressive even when
      StrictNodes is not set. Before it would prepend your requested
      entrynodes to your list of guard nodes, but feel free to use others
      after that. Now it chooses only from your EntryNodes if any of
      those are available, and only falls back to others if a) they're
      all down and b) StrictNodes is not set.
    - Now we refresh your entry guards from EntryNodes at each consensus
      fetch -- rather than just at startup and then they slowly rot as
      the network changes.

  o Major bugfixes:
    - Stop bridge directory authorities from answering dbg-stability.txt
      directory queries, which would let people fetch a list of all
      bridge identities they track. Bugfix on 0.2.1.6-alpha.

  o Minor features:
    - Log a notice when we get a new control connection. Now it's easier
      for security-conscious users to recognize when a local application
      is knocking on their controller door. Suggested by bug 1196.
    - New config option "CircuitStreamTimeout" to override our internal
      timeout schedule for how many seconds until we detach a stream from
      a circuit and try a new circuit. If your network is particularly
      slow, you might want to set this to a number like 60.
    - New controller command "getinfo config-text". It returns the
      contents that Tor would write if you send it a SAVECONF command,
      so the controller can write the file to disk itself.
    - New options for SafeLogging to allow scrubbing only log messages
      generated while acting as a relay.
    - Ship the bridges spec file in the tarball too.
    - Avoid a mad rush at the beginning of each month when each client
      rotates half of its guards. Instead we spread the rotation out
      throughout the month, but we still avoid leaving a precise timestamp
      in the state file about when we first picked the guard. Improves
      over the behavior introduced in 0.1.2.17.

  o Minor bugfixes (compiling):
    - Fix compilation on OS X 10.3, which has a stub mlockall() but
      hides it. Bugfix on 0.2.2.6-alpha.
    - Fix compilation on Solaris by removing support for the
      DisableAllSwap config option. Solaris doesn't have an rlimit for
      mlockall, so we cannot use it safely. Fixes bug 1198; bugfix on
      0.2.2.6-alpha.

  o Minor bugfixes (crashes):
    - Do not segfault when writing buffer stats when we haven't observed
      a single circuit to report about. Found by Fabian Lanze. Bugfix on
      0.2.2.1-alpha.
    - If we're in the pathological case where there's no exit bandwidth
      but there is non-exit bandwidth, or no guard bandwidth but there
      is non-guard bandwidth, don't crash during path selection. Bugfix
      on 0.2.0.3-alpha.
    - Fix an impossible-to-actually-trigger buffer overflow in relay
      descriptor generation. Bugfix on 0.1.0.15.

  o Minor bugfixes (privacy):
    - Fix an instance where a Tor directory mirror might accidentally
      log the IP address of a misbehaving Tor client. Bugfix on
      0.1.0.1-rc.
    - Don't list Windows capabilities in relay descriptors. We never made
      use of them, and maybe it's a bad idea to publish them. Bugfix
      on 0.1.1.8-alpha.

  o Minor bugfixes (other):
    - Resolve an edge case in path weighting that could make us misweight
      our relay selection. Fixes bug 1203; bugfix on 0.0.8rc1.
    - Fix statistics on client numbers by country as seen by bridges that
      were broken in 0.2.2.1-alpha. Also switch to reporting full 24-hour
      intervals instead of variable 12-to-48-hour intervals.
    - After we free an internal connection structure, overwrite it
      with a different memory value than we use for overwriting a freed
      internal circuit structure. Should help with debugging. Suggested
      by bug 1055.
    - Update our OpenSSL 0.9.8l fix so that it works with OpenSSL 0.9.8m
      too.

  o Removed features:
    - Remove the HSAuthorityRecordStats option that version 0 hidden
      service authorities could have used to track statistics of overall
      hidden service usage.

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