Filename: 141-jit-sd-downloads.txt Title: Download server descriptors on demand Version: $Revision$ Last-Modified: $Date$ Author: Peter Palfrader Created: 15-Jun-2008 Status: Draft 1. Overview Downloading all server descriptors is the most expensive part of bootstrapping a Tor client. These server descriptors currently amount to about 1.5 Megabytes of data, and this size will grow linearly with network size. Fetching all these server descriptors takes a long while for people behind slow network connections. It is also a considerable load on our network of directory mirrors. This document describes proposed changes to the Tor network and directory protocol so that clients will no longer need to download all server descriptors. These changes consist of moving load balancing information into network status documents, implementing a means to download server descriptors on demand in an anonymity-preserving way, and dealing with exit node selection. 2. What is in a server descriptor When a Tor client starts the first thing it will try to get is a current network status document, a consensus signed by a majority of directory authorities. This document is currently about 100 Kilobytes in size, tho it will grow linearly with network size. This document lists all servers currently running on the network. The Tor client will then try to get a server descriptor for each of the running servers. All server descriptors currently amount to about 1.5 Metabytes of downloads. A Tor client learns several things about a server from its descriptor. Some of these it already learned from the network status document published by the authorities, but the server descriptor contains it again in a single statement signed by the server itself, not just by the directory authorities. Tor clients use the information from server descriptors for different purposes, which are considered in the following sections. #three ways: One, to determine if a server will be able to handle #this client's request; two, to actually communicate or use the server; #three, for load balancing decisions. # #These three points are considered in the following subsections. 2.1 Load balancing The Tor load balancing mechanism is quite complex in its details, but it has a simple goal: The more traffic a server can handle the more traffic it should get. That means the more traffic a server can handle the more likely a client will use it. For this purpose each server descriptor has bandwidth information which tries to convey a server's capacity to clients. Currently we weigh servers differently for different purposes. There is a weigh for when we use a server as a guard node (our entry to the Tor network), there is one weigh we assign servers for exit duties, and a third for when we need intermediate (middle) nodes. 2.2 Exit information When a Tor wants to exit to some resource on the internet it will build a circuit to an exit node that allows access to that resource's IP address and TCP Port. When building that circuit the client can make sure that the circuit ends at a server that will be able to fulfill the request because the client already learned of all the servers' exit policies from their descriptors. 2.3 Capability information Server descriptors contain information about the specific version or the Tor protocol they understand [proposal 105]. Furthermore the server descriptor also contains the exact version of the Tor software that the server is running and some decisions are made based on the server version number (for instance a Tor client will only make conditional consensus requests [proposal from 13 Apr 2008 that never got a number] when talking to Tor servers version 0.2.1.1-alpha or later). 2.4 Contact/key information A server descriptor lists a server's IP address and TCP ports on which it accepts onion and directory connections. Furthermore it contains the onion key, a short lived RSA key to which clients encrypt CREATE cells. 2.5 Identity information A Tor client learns the digest of a server's key from the network status document. Once it has a server descriptor this descriptor contains the full RSA identity key of the server. Clients verify that 1) the digest of the identity key matches the expected digest it got from the consensus, and 2) that the signature on the descriptor from that key is valid. 3. Doing away with the need for all SDs 3.1 Load balancing info in consensus documents One of the reasons why clients download all server descriptors is for doing load proper load balancing as described in 2.1. In order for clients to not require all server descriptors this information will have to move into the network status document. [XXX Two open questions here: a) how do we arrive at a consensus weight? b) how to represent weights in the consensus? Maybe "s Guard=0.13 Exit=0.02 Middle=0.00 Stable.." ] 3.2 Fetching descriptors on demand As described in 2.4 a descriptor lists IP address, OR- and Dir-Port, and the onion key for a server. A client already knows the IP address and the ports from the consensus documents, but without the onion key it will not be able to send CREATE/EXTEND cells for that server. Since the client needs the onion key it needs the descriptor. If a client only downloaded a few descriptors in an observable manner then that would leak which nodes it was going to use. This proposal suggests the following: 1) when connecting to a guard node for which the client does not yet have a cached descriptor it requests the descriptor it expects by hash. (The consensus document that the client holds has a hash for the descriptor of this server. We want exactly that descriptor, not a different one.) [XXX: How? We could either come up with a new cell type, RELAY_REQUEST_SD that takes only a hash (of the SD), or use RELAY_BEGIN_DIR. The former is probably smarter since we will want to use it later on as well, and there we will require padding.] A client MAY cache the descriptor of the guard node so that it does not need to request it every single time it contacts the guard. 2) when a client wants to extend a circuit that currently ends in server B to a new next server C, the client will send a RELAY_REQUEST_SD cell to server B. This cell contains in its payload the hash of a server descriptor the client would like to obtain (C's server descriptor). The server sends back the descriptor and the client can now form a valid EXTEND/CREATE cell encrypted to C's onion key. Clients MUST NOT cache such descriptors. If they did they might leak that they already extended to that server at least once before. Replies to RELAY_REQUEST_SD requests need to be padded to some constant upper limit in order to conceal a client's destination from anybody who might be counting cells/bytes. [XXX: detailed spec of RELAY_REQUEST_SD cell and its reply] [XXX: figure out a decent padding size] 3.3 Protocol versions [XXX: find out where we need "opt protocols Link 1 2 Circuit 1" information described in 2.3 above. If we need it, it might have to go into the consensus document.] [XXX: Similarly find out where we need the version number of a remote tor server. This information is in the consensus, but maybe we use it in some place where having it signed by the server in question is really important?] 3.4 Exit selection Currently finding an appropriate exit node for a user's request is easy for a client because it has complete knowledge of all the exit policies of all servers on the network. [XXX: I have no finished ideas here yet. - if clients only rely on the current exit flag they will a) never use servers for exit purposes that don't have it, b) will have a hard time finding a suitable exit node for their weird port that only a few servers allow. - the authorities could create a new summary document that lists all the exit policies and their nodes (by fingerprint). I need to find out how large that document would be. - can we make the "Exit" flag more useful? can we come up with some "standard policies" and have operators pick one of the standards? ] 4. Future possibilities This proposal still requires that all servers have the descriptors of every other node in the network in order to answer RELAY_REQUEST_SD cells. These cells are sent when a circuit is extended from ending at node B to a new node C. In that case B would have to answer a RELAY_REQUEST_SD cell that asks for C's server descriptor (by SD digest). In order to answer that request B obviously needs a copy of C's server descriptor. In the future we might amend RELAY_REQUEST_SD cells to contain also the expected IP address and OR-port of the server C (the client learns them from the network status document), so that B no longer needs to know all the descriptors of the entire network but instead can simply go and ask C for its descriptor before passing it back to the client.