[tor-talk] The Tor network doesn't support Named relays anymore

[s7r]

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On 8/13/2014 5:51 PM, Sebastian Hahn wrote:
> Dear Tor users,
> 
> the system for naming relays has been an issue for a long time. 
> Referring to a relay by the operator-chosen nickname in your Tor 
> configuration file was never a great idea if you wanted to rely on
> Tor using that specific relay. As a band-aid, the Tor directory
> authorities implemented a naming system, where one of the flags
> they gave to relays which picked a unique nickname, stuck with it
> for a while, and didn't go offline for more than half a year, was
> the "Named" flag. This meant relying on the dirauths for one more
> thing, and added complexity for the dirauth operators.
> 
> To rectify the situation, proposal 235[0] was written to evaluate
> the possibility of stopping the naming system. The tor-dev thread
> that followed lead to a code review to ensure currently running
> versions of Tor won't be adversely affected by consensuses without
> any Named flags. The result of the analysis is that no such issue
> could be found, and we're proceeding with disabling Naming. Please
> note that this does not mean you cannot use the "Nickname" field
> anymore when setting up a relay.
> 
> If you - in your Tor configuration file - refer to any relay by
> name and not by identity hash, please change that immediately.
> Future versions of Tor will not support using names in the
> configuration at all.
> 
> Please report any issues that you might find, so we can react 
> accordingly.
> 
> Thanks & Cheers Sebastian
> 
> [0]:
> https://gitweb.torproject.org/torspec.git/blob_plain/master:/proposals/235-kill-named-flag.txt
>
> 
> 
> 

That is a good thing as the Named/Unnamed flags were pretty useless
anyway. I have opened a ticket on trac notifying that I've tried to
list MyFamily via nicknames instead of fingerprints, and for the
relays which had the "Named" flag Tor mapped nickname to fingerprint
just fine and proper fingerprints where showing in atlas/globe, but
for relays with Unnamed flag, Tor wouldn't map nickname to fingerprint
and output error.

Looks like Named/Unnamed flags disappeared from the consensus, checked
all relays all working just fine, the same like before.
- -- 
s7r
PGP Fingerprint: 7C36 9232 5ABD FB0B 3021 03F1 837F A52C 8126 5B11
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