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authorNick Mathewson <nickm@torproject.org>2006-07-20 16:47:35 +0000
committerNick Mathewson <nickm@torproject.org>2006-07-20 16:47:35 +0000
commit39844254d07e94b4418fe9f246374c35f164b334 (patch)
treebba82614510e9285767a9aeb592a0e10a8e50ca4
parent05664ca3d9e6d5dac69b955a7fbc90a47085856c (diff)
downloadtor-39844254d07e94b4418fe9f246374c35f164b334.tar.gz
tor-39844254d07e94b4418fe9f246374c35f164b334.zip
Fork off v0 of the protocol spec; we are going to add versioning soon so we can make backward-incompatible changes without breaking the whole network. Also, fork the v0 directory protocol into its own document, and turn dir-spec.txt into the present tense.
svn:r6792
-rw-r--r--trunk/doc/dir-spec-v0.txt315
-rw-r--r--trunk/doc/dir-spec.txt202
-rw-r--r--trunk/doc/tor-spec-v0.txt734
-rw-r--r--trunk/doc/tor-spec.txt304
4 files changed, 1242 insertions, 313 deletions
diff --git a/trunk/doc/dir-spec-v0.txt b/trunk/doc/dir-spec-v0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..d5381c0cbe
--- /dev/null
+++ b/trunk/doc/dir-spec-v0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,315 @@
+$Id$
+
+ Tor Protocol Specification
+
+ Roger Dingledine
+ Nick Mathewson
+
+0. Prelimaries
+
+ THIS SPECIFICATION IS OBSOLETE.
+
+ This document specifies the Tor directory protocol as used in version
+ 0.1.0.x and earlier. See dir-spec.txt for a current version.
+
+1. Basic operation
+
+ There is a small number of directory authorities, and a larger number of
+ caches. Client and servers know public keys for the directory authorities.
+ Tor servers periodically upload self-signed "router descriptors" to the
+ directory authorities. Each authority publishes a self-signed "directory"
+ (containing all the router descriptors it knows, and a statement on which
+ are running) and a self-signed "running routers" document containing only
+ the statement on which routers are running.
+
+ All Tors periodically download these documents, downloading the directory
+ less frequently than they do the "running routers" document. Clients
+ preferentially download from caches rather than authorities.
+
+1.1. Document format
+
+ Router descriptors, directories, and running-routers documents all obey the
+ following lightweight extensible information format.
+
+ The highest level object is a Document, which consists of one or more
+ Items. Every Item begins with a KeywordLine, followed by one or more
+ Objects. A KeywordLine begins with a Keyword, optionally followed by
+ whitespace and more non-newline characters, and ends with a newline. A
+ Keyword is a sequence of one or more characters in the set [A-Za-z0-9-].
+ An Object is a block of encoded data in pseudo-Open-PGP-style
+ armor. (cf. RFC 2440)
+
+ More formally:
+
+ Document ::= (Item | NL)+
+ Item ::= KeywordLine Object*
+ KeywordLine ::= Keyword NL | Keyword WS ArgumentsChar+ NL
+ Keyword = KeywordChar+
+ KeywordChar ::= 'A' ... 'Z' | 'a' ... 'z' | '0' ... '9' | '-'
+ ArgumentChar ::= any printing ASCII character except NL.
+ WS = (SP | TAB)+
+ Object ::= BeginLine Base-64-encoded-data EndLine
+ BeginLine ::= "-----BEGIN " Keyword "-----" NL
+ EndLine ::= "-----END " Keyword "-----" NL
+
+ The BeginLine and EndLine of an Object must use the same keyword.
+
+ When interpreting a Document, software MUST reject any document containing a
+ KeywordLine that starts with a keyword it doesn't recognize.
+
+ The "opt" keyword is reserved for non-critical future extensions. All
+ implementations MUST ignore any item of the form "opt keyword ....." when
+ they would not recognize "keyword ....."; and MUST treat "opt keyword ....."
+ as synonymous with "keyword ......" when keyword is recognized.
+
+8.2. Router descriptor format.
+
+ Every router descriptor MUST start with a "router" Item; MUST end with a
+ "router-signature" Item and an extra NL; and MUST contain exactly one
+ instance of each of the following Items: "published" "onion-key" "link-key"
+ "signing-key" "bandwidth". Additionally, a router descriptor MAY contain
+ any number of "accept", "reject", "fingerprint", "uptime", and "opt" Items.
+ Other than "router" and "router-signature", the items may appear in any
+ order.
+
+ The items' formats are as follows:
+ "router" nickname address ORPort SocksPort DirPort
+
+ Indicates the beginning of a router descriptor. "address"
+ must be an IPv4 address in dotted-quad format. The last
+ three numbers indicate the TCP ports at which this OR exposes
+ functionality. ORPort is a port at which this OR accepts TLS
+ connections for the main OR protocol; SocksPort is deprecated and
+ should always be 0; and DirPort is the port at which this OR accepts
+ directory-related HTTP connections. If any port is not supported,
+ the value 0 is given instead of a port number.
+
+ "bandwidth" bandwidth-avg bandwidth-burst bandwidth-observed
+
+ Estimated bandwidth for this router, in bytes per second. The
+ "average" bandwidth is the volume per second that the OR is willing
+ to sustain over long periods; the "burst" bandwidth is the volume
+ that the OR is willing to sustain in very short intervals. The
+ "observed" value is an estimate of the capacity this server can
+ handle. The server remembers the max bandwidth sustained output
+ over any ten second period in the past day, and another sustained
+ input. The "observed" value is the lesser of these two numbers.
+
+ "platform" string
+
+ A human-readable string describing the system on which this OR is
+ running. This MAY include the operating system, and SHOULD include
+ the name and version of the software implementing the Tor protocol.
+
+ "published" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
+
+ The time, in GMT, when this descriptor was generated.
+
+ "fingerprint"
+
+ A fingerprint (a HASH_LEN-byte of asn1 encoded public key, encoded
+ in hex, with a single space after every 4 characters) for this router's
+ identity key. A descriptor is considered invalid (and MUST be
+ rejected) if the fingerprint line does not match the public key.
+
+ [We didn't start parsing this line until Tor 0.1.0.6-rc; it should
+ be marked with "opt" until earlier versions of Tor are obsolete.]
+
+ "hibernating" 0|1
+
+ If the value is 1, then the Tor server was hibernating when the
+ descriptor was published, and shouldn't be used to build circuits.
+
+ [We didn't start parsing this line until Tor 0.1.0.6-rc; it should
+ be marked with "opt" until earlier versions of Tor are obsolete.]
+
+ "uptime"
+
+ The number of seconds that this OR process has been running.
+
+ "onion-key" NL a public key in PEM format
+
+ This key is used to encrypt EXTEND cells for this OR. The key MUST
+ be accepted for at least XXXX hours after any new key is published in
+ a subsequent descriptor.
+
+ "signing-key" NL a public key in PEM format
+
+ The OR's long-term identity key.
+
+ "accept" exitpattern
+ "reject" exitpattern
+
+ These lines, in order, describe the rules that an OR follows when
+ deciding whether to allow a new stream to a given address. The
+ 'exitpattern' syntax is described below.
+
+ "router-signature" NL Signature NL
+
+ The "SIGNATURE" object contains a signature of the PKCS1-padded
+ hash of the entire router descriptor, taken from the beginning of the
+ "router" line, through the newline after the "router-signature" line.
+ The router descriptor is invalid unless the signature is performed
+ with the router's identity key.
+
+ "contact" info NL
+
+ Describes a way to contact the server's administrator, preferably
+ including an email address and a PGP key fingerprint.
+
+ "family" names NL
+
+ 'Names' is a whitespace-separated list of server nicknames. If two ORs
+ list one another in their "family" entries, then OPs should treat them
+ as a single OR for the purpose of path selection.
+
+ For example, if node A's descriptor contains "family B", and node B's
+ descriptor contains "family A", then node A and node B should never
+ be used on the same circuit.
+
+ "read-history" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS (NSEC s) NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM... NL
+ "write-history" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS (NSEC s) NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM... NL
+
+ Declare how much bandwidth the OR has used recently. Usage is divided
+ into intervals of NSEC seconds. The YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS field defines
+ the end of the most recent interval. The numbers are the number of
+ bytes used in the most recent intervals, ordered from oldest to newest.
+
+ [We didn't start parsing these lines until Tor 0.1.0.6-rc; they should
+ be marked with "opt" until earlier versions of Tor are obsolete.]
+
+2.1. Nonterminals in routerdescriptors
+
+ nickname ::= between 1 and 19 alphanumeric characters, case-insensitive.
+
+ exitpattern ::= addrspec ":" portspec
+ portspec ::= "*" | port | port "-" port
+ port ::= an integer between 1 and 65535, inclusive.
+ addrspec ::= "*" | ip4spec | ip6spec
+ ipv4spec ::= ip4 | ip4 "/" num_ip4_bits | ip4 "/" ip4mask
+ ip4 ::= an IPv4 address in dotted-quad format
+ ip4mask ::= an IPv4 mask in dotted-quad format
+ num_ip4_bits ::= an integer between 0 and 32
+ ip6spec ::= ip6 | ip6 "/" num_ip6_bits
+ ip6 ::= an IPv6 address, surrounded by square brackets.
+ num_ip6_bits ::= an integer between 0 and 128
+
+ Ports are required; if they are not included in the router
+ line, they must appear in the "ports" lines.
+
+3. Directory format
+
+ A Directory begins with a "signed-directory" item, followed by one each of
+ the following, in any order: "recommended-software", "published",
+ "router-status", "dir-signing-key". It may include any number of "opt"
+ items. After these items, a directory includes any number of router
+ descriptors, and a single "directory-signature" item.
+
+ "signed-directory"
+
+ Indicates the start of a directory.
+
+ "published" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
+
+ The time at which this directory was generated and signed, in GMT.
+
+ "dir-signing-key"
+
+ The key used to sign this directory; see "signing-key" for format.
+
+ "recommended-software" comma-separated-version-list
+
+ A list of which versions of which implementations are currently
+ believed to be secure and compatible with the network.
+
+ "running-routers" whitespace-separated-list
+
+ A description of which routers are currently believed to be up or
+ down. Every entry consists of an optional "!", followed by either an
+ OR's nickname, or "$" followed by a hexadecimal encoding of the hash
+ of an OR's identity key. If the "!" is included, the router is
+ believed not to be running; otherwise, it is believed to be running.
+ If a router's nickname is given, exactly one router of that nickname
+ will appear in the directory, and that router is "approved" by the
+ directory server. If a hashed identity key is given, that OR is not
+ "approved". [XXXX The 'running-routers' line is only provided for
+ backward compatibility. New code should parse 'router-status'
+ instead.]
+
+ "router-status" whitespace-separated-list
+
+ A description of which routers are currently believed to be up or
+ down, and which are verified or unverified. Contains one entry for
+ every router that the directory server knows. Each entry is of the
+ format:
+
+ !name=$digest [Verified router, currently not live.]
+ name=$digest [Verified router, currently live.]
+ !$digest [Unverified router, currently not live.]
+ or $digest [Unverified router, currently live.]
+
+ (where 'name' is the router's nickname and 'digest' is a hexadecimal
+ encoding of the hash of the routers' identity key).
+
+ When parsing this line, clients should only mark a router as
+ 'verified' if its nickname AND digest match the one provided.
+
+ "directory-signature" nickname-of-dirserver NL Signature
+
+ The signature is computed by computing the digest of the
+ directory, from the characters "signed-directory", through the newline
+ after "directory-signature". This digest is then padded with PKCS.1,
+ and signed with the directory server's signing key.
+
+ If software encounters an unrecognized keyword in a single router descriptor,
+ it MUST reject only that router descriptor, and continue using the
+ others. Because this mechanism is used to add 'critical' extensions to
+ future versions of the router descriptor format, implementation should treat
+ it as a normal occurrence and not, for example, report it to the user as an
+ error. [Versions of Tor prior to 0.1.1 did this.]
+
+ If software encounters an unrecognized keyword in the directory header,
+ it SHOULD reject the entire directory.
+
+4. Network-status descriptor
+
+ A "network-status" (a.k.a "running-routers") document is a truncated
+ directory that contains only the current status of a list of nodes, not
+ their actual descriptors. It contains exactly one of each of the following
+ entries.
+
+ "network-status"
+
+ Must appear first.
+
+ "published" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
+
+ (see 8.3 above)
+
+ "router-status" list
+
+ (see 8.3 above)
+
+ "directory-signature" NL signature
+
+ (see 8.3 above)
+
+5. Behavior of a directory server
+
+ lists nodes that are connected currently
+ speaks HTTP on a socket, spits out directory on request
+
+ Directory servers listen on a certain port (the DirPort), and speak a
+ limited version of HTTP 1.0. Clients send either GET or POST commands.
+ The basic interactions are:
+ "%s %s HTTP/1.0\r\nContent-Length: %lu\r\nHost: %s\r\n\r\n",
+ command, url, content-length, host.
+ Get "/tor/" to fetch a full directory.
+ Get "/tor/dir.z" to fetch a compressed full directory.
+ Get "/tor/running-routers" to fetch a network-status descriptor.
+ Post "/tor/" to post a server descriptor, with the body of the
+ request containing the descriptor.
+
+ "host" is used to specify the address:port of the dirserver, so
+ the request can survive going through HTTP proxies.
+
diff --git a/trunk/doc/dir-spec.txt b/trunk/doc/dir-spec.txt
index a4337b84cd..88d8b6be09 100644
--- a/trunk/doc/dir-spec.txt
+++ b/trunk/doc/dir-spec.txt
@@ -1,28 +1,26 @@
$Id$
- Tor directory protocol for 0.1.1.x series
+ Tor directory protocol, version 1
0. Scope and preliminaries
- This document should eventually be merged to replace and supplement the
- existing notes on directories in tor-spec.txt.
+ This directory protocol is used by Tor version 0.1.1.x and later. See
+ dir-spec-v0.txt for information on earlier versions.
- This is not a finalized version; what we actually wind up implementing
- may be different from the system described here.
+0.1. Goals and motivation
-0.1. Goals
-
- There are several problems with the way Tor handles directory information
+ There were several problems with the way Tor handles directory information
in version 0.1.0.x and earlier. Here are the problems we try to fix with
- this new design, already partially implemented in 0.1.1.x:
- 1. Directories are very large and use up a lot of bandwidth: clients
- download descriptors for all router several times an hour.
- 2. Every directory authority is a trust bottleneck: if a single
- directory authority lies, it can make clients believe for a time an
+ this new design, already implemented in 0.1.1.x:
+ 1. Directories were very large and use up a lot of bandwidth: clients
+ downloaded descriptors for all router several times an hour.
+ 2. Every directory authority was a trust bottleneck: if a single
+ directory authority lied, it could make clients believe for a time an
arbitrarily distorted view of the Tor network.
3. Our current "verified server" system is kind of nonsensical.
- 4. Getting more directory authorities adds more points of failure and
- worsens possible partitioning attacks.
+
+ 4. Getting more directory authorities would add more points of failure
+ and worsen possible partitioning attacks.
There are two problems that remain unaddressed by this design.
5. Requiring every client to know about every router won't scale.
@@ -82,9 +80,43 @@ $Id$
Routers used to upload fresh descriptors all the time, whether their keys
and other information had changed or not.
-2. Router operation
+1.2. Document meta-format
+
+ Router descriptors, directories, and running-routers documents all obey the
+ following lightweight extensible information format.
+
+ The highest level object is a Document, which consists of one or more
+ Items. Every Item begins with a KeywordLine, followed by one or more
+ Objects. A KeywordLine begins with a Keyword, optionally followed by
+ whitespace and more non-newline characters, and ends with a newline. A
+ Keyword is a sequence of one or more characters in the set [A-Za-z0-9-].
+ An Object is a block of encoded data in pseudo-Open-PGP-style
+ armor. (cf. RFC 2440)
+
+ More formally:
+
+ Document ::= (Item | NL)+
+ Item ::= KeywordLine Object*
+ KeywordLine ::= Keyword NL | Keyword WS ArgumentsChar+ NL
+ Keyword = KeywordChar+
+ KeywordChar ::= 'A' ... 'Z' | 'a' ... 'z' | '0' ... '9' | '-'
+ ArgumentChar ::= any printing ASCII character except NL.
+ WS = (SP | TAB)+
+ Object ::= BeginLine Base-64-encoded-data EndLine
+ BeginLine ::= "-----BEGIN " Keyword "-----" NL
+ EndLine ::= "-----END " Keyword "-----" NL
- The router descriptor format is unchanged from tor-spec.txt.
+ The BeginLine and EndLine of an Object must use the same keyword.
+
+ When interpreting a Document, software MUST reject any document containing a
+ KeywordLine that starts with a keyword it doesn't recognize.
+
+ The "opt" keyword is reserved for non-critical future extensions. All
+ implementations MUST ignore any item of the form "opt keyword ....." when
+ they would not recognize "keyword ....."; and MUST treat "opt keyword ....."
+ as synonymous with "keyword ......" when keyword is recognized.
+
+2. Router operation
ORs SHOULD generate a new router descriptor whenever any of the
following events have occurred:
@@ -105,6 +137,142 @@ $Id$
http://<hostname:port>/tor/
+2.1. Router descriptor format
+
+ Every router descriptor MUST start with a "router" Item; MUST end with a
+ "router-signature" Item and an extra NL; and MUST contain exactly one
+ instance of each of the following Items: "published" "onion-key"
+ "link-key" "signing-key" "bandwidth". Additionally, a router descriptor
+ MAY contain any number of "accept", "reject", "fingerprint", "uptime", and
+ "opt" Items. Other than "router" and "router-signature", the items may
+ appear in any order.
+
+ The items' formats are as follows:
+ "router" nickname address ORPort SocksPort DirPort
+
+ Indicates the beginning of a router descriptor. "address" must be an
+ IPv4 address in dotted-quad format. The last three numbers indicate
+ the TCP ports at which this OR exposes functionality. ORPort is a port
+ at which this OR accepts TLS connections for the main OR protocol;
+ SocksPort is deprecated and should always be 0; and DirPort is the
+ port at which this OR accepts directory-related HTTP connections. If
+ any port is not supported, the value 0 is given instead of a port
+ number.
+
+ "bandwidth" bandwidth-avg bandwidth-burst bandwidth-observed
+
+ Estimated bandwidth for this router, in bytes per second. The
+ "average" bandwidth is the volume per second that the OR is willing to
+ sustain over long periods; the "burst" bandwidth is the volume that
+ the OR is willing to sustain in very short intervals. The "observed"
+ value is an estimate of the capacity this server can handle. The
+ server remembers the max bandwidth sustained output over any ten
+ second period in the past day, and another sustained input. The
+ "observed" value is the lesser of these two numbers.
+
+ "platform" string
+
+ A human-readable string describing the system on which this OR is
+ running. This MAY include the operating system, and SHOULD include
+ the name and version of the software implementing the Tor protocol.
+
+ "published" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
+
+ The time, in GMT, when this descriptor was generated.
+
+ "fingerprint"
+
+ A fingerprint (a HASH_LEN-byte of asn1 encoded public key, encoded in
+ hex, with a single space after every 4 characters) for this router's
+ identity key. A descriptor is considered invalid (and MUST be
+ rejected) if the fingerprint line does not match the public key.
+
+ [We didn't start parsing this line until Tor 0.1.0.6-rc; it should
+ be marked with "opt" until earlier versions of Tor are obsolete.]
+
+ "hibernating" 0|1
+
+ If the value is 1, then the Tor server was hibernating when the
+ descriptor was published, and shouldn't be used to build circuits.
+
+ [We didn't start parsing this line until Tor 0.1.0.6-rc; it should be
+ marked with "opt" until earlier versions of Tor are obsolete.]
+
+ "uptime"
+
+ The number of seconds that this OR process has been running.
+
+ "onion-key" NL a public key in PEM format
+
+ This key is used to encrypt EXTEND cells for this OR. The key MUST be
+ accepted for at least XXXX hours after any new key is published in a
+ subsequent descriptor.
+
+ "signing-key" NL a public key in PEM format
+
+ The OR's long-term identity key.
+
+ "accept" exitpattern
+ "reject" exitpattern
+
+ These lines, in order, describe the rules that an OR follows when
+ deciding whether to allow a new stream to a given address. The
+ 'exitpattern' syntax is described below.
+
+ "router-signature" NL Signature NL
+
+ The "SIGNATURE" object contains a signature of the PKCS1-padded
+ hash of the entire router descriptor, taken from the beginning of the
+ "router" line, through the newline after the "router-signature" line.
+ The router descriptor is invalid unless the signature is performed
+ with the router's identity key.
+
+ "contact" info NL
+
+ Describes a way to contact the server's administrator, preferably
+ including an email address and a PGP key fingerprint.
+
+ "family" names NL
+
+ 'Names' is a whitespace-separated list of server nicknames. If two
+ ORs list one another in their "family" entries, then OPs should treat
+ them as a single OR for the purpose of path selection.
+
+ For example, if node A's descriptor contains "family B", and node B's
+ descriptor contains "family A", then node A and node B should never
+ be used on the same circuit.
+
+ "read-history" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS (NSEC s) NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM... NL
+ "write-history" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS (NSEC s) NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM... NL
+
+ Declare how much bandwidth the OR has used recently. Usage is divided
+ into intervals of NSEC seconds. The YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS field
+ defines the end of the most recent interval. The numbers are the
+ number of bytes used in the most recent intervals, ordered from
+ oldest to newest.
+
+ [We didn't start parsing these lines until Tor 0.1.0.6-rc; they should
+ be marked with "opt" until earlier versions of Tor are obsolete.]
+
+2.1. Nonterminals in routerdescriptors
+
+ nickname ::= between 1 and 19 alphanumeric characters, case-insensitive.
+
+ exitpattern ::= addrspec ":" portspec
+ portspec ::= "*" | port | port "-" port
+ port ::= an integer between 1 and 65535, inclusive.
+ addrspec ::= "*" | ip4spec | ip6spec
+ ipv4spec ::= ip4 | ip4 "/" num_ip4_bits | ip4 "/" ip4mask
+ ip4 ::= an IPv4 address in dotted-quad format
+ ip4mask ::= an IPv4 mask in dotted-quad format
+ num_ip4_bits ::= an integer between 0 and 32
+ ip6spec ::= ip6 | ip6 "/" num_ip6_bits
+ ip6 ::= an IPv6 address, surrounded by square brackets.
+ num_ip6_bits ::= an integer between 0 and 128
+
+ Ports are required; if they are not included in the router
+ line, they must appear in the "ports" lines.
+
3. Network status format
Directory authorities generate, sign, and compress network-status
diff --git a/trunk/doc/tor-spec-v0.txt b/trunk/doc/tor-spec-v0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..d64647d7d8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/trunk/doc/tor-spec-v0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,734 @@
+$Id$
+
+ Tor Protocol Specification
+
+ Roger Dingledine
+ Nick Mathewson
+
+Note: This document specifies Tor as currently implemented in versions
+0.1.2.1-alpha and earlier. Current protocol designs are described in
+tor-spec.txt.
+
+0. Preliminaries
+
+0.1. Notation and encoding
+
+ PK -- a public key.
+ SK -- a private key.
+ K -- a key for a symmetric cypher.
+
+ a|b -- concatenation of 'a' and 'b'.
+
+ [A0 B1 C2] -- a three-byte sequence, containing the bytes with
+ hexadecimal values A0, B1, and C2, in that order.
+
+ All numeric values are encoded in network (big-endian) order.
+
+ H(m) -- a cryptographic hash of m.
+
+0.2. Security parameters
+
+ Tor uses a stream cipher, a public-key cipher, the Diffie-Hellman
+ protocol, and a hash function.
+
+ KEY_LEN -- the length of the stream cipher's key, in bytes.
+
+ PK_ENC_LEN -- the length of a public-key encrypted message, in bytes.
+ PK_PAD_LEN -- the number of bytes added in padding for public-key
+ encryption, in bytes. (The largest number of bytes that can be encrypted
+ in a single public-key operation is therefore PK_ENC_LEN-PK_PAD_LEN.)
+
+ DH_LEN -- the number of bytes used to represent a member of the
+ Diffie-Hellman group.
+ DH_SEC_LEN -- the number of bytes used in a Diffie-Hellman private key (x).
+
+ HASH_LEN -- the length of the hash function's output, in bytes.
+
+ CELL_LEN -- The length of a Tor cell, in bytes.
+
+0.3. Ciphers
+
+ For a stream cipher, we use 128-bit AES in counter mode, with an IV of all
+ 0 bytes.
+
+ For a public-key cipher, we use RSA with 1024-bit keys and a fixed
+ exponent of 65537. We use OAEP padding, with SHA-1 as its digest
+ function. (For OAEP padding, see
+ ftp://ftp.rsasecurity.com/pub/pkcs/pkcs-1/pkcs-1v2-1.pdf)
+
+ For Diffie-Hellman, we use a generator (g) of 2. For the modulus (p), we
+ use the 1024-bit safe prime from rfc2409, (section 6.2) whose hex
+ representation is:
+
+ "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFC90FDAA22168C234C4C6628B80DC1CD129024E08"
+ "8A67CC74020BBEA63B139B22514A08798E3404DDEF9519B3CD3A431B"
+ "302B0A6DF25F14374FE1356D6D51C245E485B576625E7EC6F44C42E9"
+ "A637ED6B0BFF5CB6F406B7EDEE386BFB5A899FA5AE9F24117C4B1FE6"
+ "49286651ECE65381FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF"
+
+ As an optimization, implementations SHOULD choose DH private keys (x) of
+ 320 bits. Implementations that do this MUST never use any DH key more
+ than once.
+
+ For a hash function, we use SHA-1.
+
+ KEY_LEN=16.
+ DH_LEN=128; DH_GROUP_LEN=40.
+ PK_ENC_LEN=128; PK_PAD_LEN=42.
+ HASH_LEN=20.
+
+ When we refer to "the hash of a public key", we mean the SHA-1 hash of the
+ DER encoding of an ASN.1 RSA public key (as specified in PKCS.1).
+
+ All "random" values should be generated with a cryptographically strong
+ random number generator, unless otherwise noted.
+
+ The "hybrid encryption" of a byte sequence M with a public key PK is
+ computed as follows:
+ 1. If M is less than PK_ENC_LEN-PK_PAD_LEN, pad and encrypt M with PK.
+ 2. Otherwise, generate a KEY_LEN byte random key K.
+ Let M1 = the first PK_ENC_LEN-PK_PAD_LEN-KEY_LEN bytes of M,
+ and let M2 = the rest of M.
+ Pad and encrypt K|M1 with PK. Encrypt M2 with our stream cipher,
+ using the key K. Concatenate these encrypted values.
+ [XXX Note that this "hybrid encryption" approach does not prevent
+ an attacker from adding or removing bytes to the end of M. It also
+ allows attackers to modify the bytes not covered by the OAEP --
+ see Goldberg's PET2006 paper for details. We will add a MAC to this
+ scheme one day. -RD]
+
+0.4. Other parameter values
+
+ CELL_LEN=512
+
+1. System overview
+
+ Tor is a distributed overlay network designed to anonymize
+ low-latency TCP-based applications such as web browsing, secure shell,
+ and instant messaging. Clients choose a path through the network and
+ build a ``circuit'', in which each node (or ``onion router'' or ``OR'')
+ in the path knows its predecessor and successor, but no other nodes in
+ the circuit. Traffic flowing down the circuit is sent in fixed-size
+ ``cells'', which are unwrapped by a symmetric key at each node (like
+ the layers of an onion) and relayed downstream.
+
+2. Connections
+
+ There are two ways to connect to an onion router (OR). The first is
+ as an onion proxy (OP), which allows the OP to authenticate the OR
+ without authenticating itself. The second is as another OR, which
+ allows mutual authentication.
+
+ Tor uses TLS for link encryption. All implementations MUST support
+ the TLS ciphersuite "TLS_EDH_RSA_WITH_DES_192_CBC3_SHA", and SHOULD
+ support "TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA" if it is available.
+ Implementations MAY support other ciphersuites, but MUST NOT
+ support any suite without ephemeral keys, symmetric keys of at
+ least KEY_LEN bits, and digests of at least HASH_LEN bits.
+
+ An OP or OR always sends a two-certificate chain, consisting of a
+ certificate using a short-term connection key and a second, self-
+ signed certificate containing the OR's identity key. The commonName of the
+ first certificate is the OR's nickname, and the commonName of the second
+ certificate is the OR's nickname, followed by a space and the string
+ "<identity>".
+
+ All parties receiving certificates must confirm that the identity key is
+ as expected. (When initiating a connection, the expected identity key is
+ the one given in the directory; when creating a connection because of an
+ EXTEND cell, the expected identity key is the one given in the cell.) If
+ the key is not as expected, the party must close the connection.
+
+ All parties SHOULD reject connections to or from ORs that have malformed
+ or missing certificates. ORs MAY accept or reject connections from OPs
+ with malformed or missing certificates.
+
+ Once a TLS connection is established, the two sides send cells
+ (specified below) to one another. Cells are sent serially. All
+ cells are CELL_LEN bytes long. Cells may be sent embedded in TLS
+ records of any size or divided across TLS records, but the framing
+ of TLS records MUST NOT leak information about the type or contents
+ of the cells.
+
+ TLS connections are not permanent. An OP or an OR may close a
+ connection to an OR if there are no circuits running over the
+ connection, and an amount of time (KeepalivePeriod, defaults to 5
+ minutes) has passed.
+
+ (As an exception, directory servers may try to stay connected to all of
+ the ORs -- though this will be phased out for the Tor 0.1.2.x release.)
+
+3. Cell Packet format
+
+ The basic unit of communication for onion routers and onion
+ proxies is a fixed-width "cell". Each cell contains the following
+ fields:
+
+ CircID [2 bytes]
+ Command [1 byte]
+ Payload (padded with 0 bytes) [CELL_LEN-3 bytes]
+ [Total size: CELL_LEN bytes]
+
+ The CircID field determines which circuit, if any, the cell is
+ associated with.
+
+ The 'Command' field holds one of the following values:
+ 0 -- PADDING (Padding) (See Sec 6.2)
+ 1 -- CREATE (Create a circuit) (See Sec 4.1)
+ 2 -- CREATED (Acknowledge create) (See Sec 4.1)
+ 3 -- RELAY (End-to-end data) (See Sec 4.5 and 5)
+ 4 -- DESTROY (Stop using a circuit) (See Sec 4.4)
+ 5 -- CREATE_FAST (Create a circuit, no PK) (See Sec 4.1)
+ 6 -- CREATED_FAST (Circuit created, no PK) (See Sec 4.1)
+ 7 -- HELLO (Introduce the OR) (See Sec 7.1)
+
+ The interpretation of 'Payload' depends on the type of the cell.
+ PADDING: Payload is unused.
+ CREATE: Payload contains the handshake challenge.
+ CREATED: Payload contains the handshake response.
+ RELAY: Payload contains the relay header and relay body.
+ DESTROY: Payload contains a reason for closing the circuit.
+ (see 4.4)
+ Upon receiving any other value for the command field, an OR must
+ drop the cell.
+
+ The payload is padded with 0 bytes.
+
+ PADDING cells are currently used to implement connection keepalive.
+ If there is no other traffic, ORs and OPs send one another a PADDING
+ cell every few minutes.
+
+ CREATE, CREATED, and DESTROY cells are used to manage circuits;
+ see section 4 below.
+
+ RELAY cells are used to send commands and data along a circuit; see
+ section 5 below.
+
+ HELLO cells are used to introduce parameters and characteristics of
+ Tor clients and servers when connections are established.
+
+4. Circuit management
+
+4.1. CREATE and CREATED cells
+
+ Users set up circuits incrementally, one hop at a time. To create a
+ new circuit, OPs send a CREATE cell to the first node, with the
+ first half of the DH handshake; that node responds with a CREATED
+ cell with the second half of the DH handshake plus the first 20 bytes
+ of derivative key data (see section 4.2). To extend a circuit past
+ the first hop, the OP sends an EXTEND relay cell (see section 5)
+ which instructs the last node in the circuit to send a CREATE cell
+ to extend the circuit.
+
+ The payload for a CREATE cell is an 'onion skin', which consists
+ of the first step of the DH handshake data (also known as g^x).
+ This value is hybrid-encrypted (see 0.3) to Bob's public key, giving
+ an onion-skin of:
+ PK-encrypted:
+ Padding padding [PK_PAD_LEN bytes]
+ Symmetric key [KEY_LEN bytes]
+ First part of g^x [PK_ENC_LEN-PK_PAD_LEN-KEY_LEN bytes]
+ Symmetrically encrypted:
+ Second part of g^x [DH_LEN-(PK_ENC_LEN-PK_PAD_LEN-KEY_LEN)
+ bytes]
+
+ The relay payload for an EXTEND relay cell consists of:
+ Address [4 bytes]
+ Port [2 bytes]
+ Onion skin [DH_LEN+KEY_LEN+PK_PAD_LEN bytes]
+ Identity fingerprint [HASH_LEN bytes]
+
+ The port and address field denote the IPV4 address and port of the next
+ onion router in the circuit; the public key hash is the hash of the PKCS#1
+ ASN1 encoding of the next onion router's identity (signing) key. (See 0.3
+ above.) (Including this hash allows the extending OR verify that it is
+ indeed connected to the correct target OR, and prevents certain
+ man-in-the-middle attacks.)
+
+ The payload for a CREATED cell, or the relay payload for an
+ EXTENDED cell, contains:
+ DH data (g^y) [DH_LEN bytes]
+ Derivative key data (KH) [HASH_LEN bytes] <see 4.2 below>
+
+ The CircID for a CREATE cell is an arbitrarily chosen 2-byte integer,
+ selected by the node (OP or OR) that sends the CREATE cell. To prevent
+ CircID collisions, when one OR sends a CREATE cell to another, it chooses
+ from only one half of the possible values based on the ORs' public
+ identity keys: if the sending OR has a lower key, it chooses a CircID with
+ an MSB of 0; otherwise, it chooses a CircID with an MSB of 1.
+
+ Public keys are compared numerically by modulus.
+
+ As usual with DH, x and y MUST be generated randomly.
+
+4.1.1. CREATE_FAST/CREATED_FAST cells
+
+ When initializing the first hop of a circuit, the OP has already
+ established the OR's identity and negotiated a secret key using TLS.
+ Because of this, it is not always necessary for the OP to perform the
+ public key operations to create a circuit. In this case, the
+ OP MAY send a CREATE_FAST cell instead of a CREATE cell for the first
+ hop only. The OR responds with a CREATED_FAST cell, and the circuit is
+ created.
+
+ A CREATE_FAST cell contains:
+
+ Key material (X) [HASH_LEN bytes]
+
+ A CREATED_FAST cell contains:
+
+ Key material (Y) [HASH_LEN bytes]
+ Derivative key data [HASH_LEN bytes] (See 4.2 below)
+
+ The values of X and Y must be generated randomly.
+
+ [Versions of Tor before 0.1.0.6-rc did not support these cell types;
+ clients should not send CREATE_FAST cells to older Tor servers.]
+
+4.2. Setting circuit keys
+
+ Once the handshake between the OP and an OR is completed, both can
+ now calculate g^xy with ordinary DH. Before computing g^xy, both client
+ and server MUST verify that the received g^x or g^y value is not degenerate;
+ that is, it must be strictly greater than 1 and strictly less than p-1
+ where p is the DH modulus. Implementations MUST NOT complete a handshake
+ with degenerate keys. Implementations MUST NOT discard other "weak"
+ g^x values.
+
+ (Discarding degenerate keys is critical for security; if bad keys
+ are not discarded, an attacker can substitute the server's CREATED
+ cell's g^y with 0 or 1, thus creating a known g^xy and impersonating
+ the server. Discarding other keys may allow attacks to learn bits of
+ the private key.)
+
+ (The mainline Tor implementation, in the 0.1.1.x-alpha series, discarded
+ all g^x values less than 2^24, greater than p-2^24, or having more than
+ 1024-16 identical bits. This served no useful purpose, and we stopped.)
+
+ If CREATE or EXTEND is used to extend a circuit, the client and server
+ base their key material on K0=g^xy, represented as a big-endian unsigned
+ integer.
+
+ If CREATE_FAST is used, the client and server base their key material on
+ K0=X|Y.
+
+ From the base key material K0, they compute KEY_LEN*2+HASH_LEN*3 bytes of
+ derivative key data as
+ K = H(K0 | [00]) | H(K0 | [01]) | H(K0 | [02]) | ...
+
+ The first HASH_LEN bytes of K form KH; the next HASH_LEN form the forward
+ digest Df; the next HASH_LEN 41-60 form the backward digest Db; the next
+ KEY_LEN 61-76 form Kf, and the final KEY_LEN form Kb. Excess bytes from K
+ are discarded.
+
+ KH is used in the handshake response to demonstrate knowledge of the
+ computed shared key. Df is used to seed the integrity-checking hash
+ for the stream of data going from the OP to the OR, and Db seeds the
+ integrity-checking hash for the data stream from the OR to the OP. Kf
+ is used to encrypt the stream of data going from the OP to the OR, and
+ Kb is used to encrypt the stream of data going from the OR to the OP.
+
+4.3. Creating circuits
+
+ When creating a circuit through the network, the circuit creator
+ (OP) performs the following steps:
+
+ 1. Choose an onion router as an exit node (R_N), such that the onion
+ router's exit policy includes at least one pending stream that
+ needs a circuit (if there are any).
+
+ 2. Choose a chain of (N-1) onion routers
+ (R_1...R_N-1) to constitute the path, such that no router
+ appears in the path twice.
+
+ 3. If not already connected to the first router in the chain,
+ open a new connection to that router.
+
+ 4. Choose a circID not already in use on the connection with the
+ first router in the chain; send a CREATE cell along the
+ connection, to be received by the first onion router.
+
+ 5. Wait until a CREATED cell is received; finish the handshake
+ and extract the forward key Kf_1 and the backward key Kb_1.
+
+ 6. For each subsequent onion router R (R_2 through R_N), extend
+ the circuit to R.
+
+ To extend the circuit by a single onion router R_M, the OP performs
+ these steps:
+
+ 1. Create an onion skin, encrypted to R_M's public key.
+
+ 2. Send the onion skin in a relay EXTEND cell along
+ the circuit (see section 5).
+
+ 3. When a relay EXTENDED cell is received, verify KH, and
+ calculate the shared keys. The circuit is now extended.
+
+ When an onion router receives an EXTEND relay cell, it sends a CREATE
+ cell to the next onion router, with the enclosed onion skin as its
+ payload. The initiating onion router chooses some circID not yet
+ used on the connection between the two onion routers. (But see
+ section 4.1. above, concerning choosing circIDs based on
+ lexicographic order of nicknames.)
+
+ When an onion router receives a CREATE cell, if it already has a
+ circuit on the given connection with the given circID, it drops the
+ cell. Otherwise, after receiving the CREATE cell, it completes the
+ DH handshake, and replies with a CREATED cell. Upon receiving a
+ CREATED cell, an onion router packs it payload into an EXTENDED relay
+ cell (see section 5), and sends that cell up the circuit. Upon
+ receiving the EXTENDED relay cell, the OP can retrieve g^y.
+
+ (As an optimization, OR implementations may delay processing onions
+ until a break in traffic allows time to do so without harming
+ network latency too greatly.)
+
+4.4. Tearing down circuits
+
+ Circuits are torn down when an unrecoverable error occurs along
+ the circuit, or when all streams on a circuit are closed and the
+ circuit's intended lifetime is over. Circuits may be torn down
+ either completely or hop-by-hop.
+
+ To tear down a circuit completely, an OR or OP sends a DESTROY
+ cell to the adjacent nodes on that circuit, using the appropriate
+ direction's circID.
+
+ Upon receiving an outgoing DESTROY cell, an OR frees resources
+ associated with the corresponding circuit. If it's not the end of
+ the circuit, it sends a DESTROY cell for that circuit to the next OR
+ in the circuit. If the node is the end of the circuit, then it tears
+ down any associated edge connections (see section 5.1).
+
+ After a DESTROY cell has been processed, an OR ignores all data or
+ destroy cells for the corresponding circuit.
+
+ To tear down part of a circuit, the OP may send a RELAY_TRUNCATE cell
+ signaling a given OR (Stream ID zero). That OR sends a DESTROY
+ cell to the next node in the circuit, and replies to the OP with a
+ RELAY_TRUNCATED cell.
+
+ When an unrecoverable error occurs along one connection in a
+ circuit, the nodes on either side of the connection should, if they
+ are able, act as follows: the node closer to the OP should send a
+ RELAY_TRUNCATED cell towards the OP; the node farther from the OP
+ should send a DESTROY cell down the circuit.
+
+ The payload of a RELAY_TRUNCATED or DESTROY cell contains a single octet,
+ describing why the circuit is being closed or truncated. When sending a
+ TRUNCATED or DESTROY cell because of another TRUNCATED or DESTROY cell,
+ the error code should be propagated. The origin of a circuit always sets
+ this error code to 0, to avoid leaking its version.
+
+ The error codes are:
+ 0 -- NONE (No reason given.)
+ 1 -- PROTOCOL (Tor protocol violation.)
+ 2 -- INTERNAL (Internal error.)
+ 3 -- REQUESTED (A client sent a TRUNCATE command.)
+ 4 -- HIBERNATING (Not currently operating; trying to save bandwidth.)
+ 5 -- RESOURCELIMIT (Out of memory, sockets, or circuit IDs.)
+ 6 -- CONNECTFAILED (Unable to reach server.)
+ 7 -- OR_IDENTITY (Connected to server, but its OR identity was not
+ as expected.)
+ 8 -- OR_CONN_CLOSED (The OR connection that was carrying this circuit
+ died.)
+
+ [Versions of Tor prior to 0.1.0.11 didn't send reasons; implementations
+ MUST accept empty TRUNCATED and DESTROY cells.]
+
+4.5. Routing relay cells
+
+ When an OR receives a RELAY cell, it checks the cell's circID and
+ determines whether it has a corresponding circuit along that
+ connection. If not, the OR drops the RELAY cell.
+
+ Otherwise, if the OR is not at the OP edge of the circuit (that is,
+ either an 'exit node' or a non-edge node), it de/encrypts the payload
+ with the stream cipher, as follows:
+ 'Forward' relay cell (same direction as CREATE):
+ Use Kf as key; decrypt.
+ 'Back' relay cell (opposite direction from CREATE):
+ Use Kb as key; encrypt.
+ Note that in counter mode, decrypt and encrypt are the same operation.
+
+ The OR then decides whether it recognizes the relay cell, by
+ inspecting the payload as described in section 5.1 below. If the OR
+ recognizes the cell, it processes the contents of the relay cell.
+ Otherwise, it passes the decrypted relay cell along the circuit if
+ the circuit continues. If the OR at the end of the circuit
+ encounters an unrecognized relay cell, an error has occurred: the OR
+ sends a DESTROY cell to tear down the circuit.
+
+ When a relay cell arrives at an OP, the OP decrypts the payload
+ with the stream cipher as follows:
+ OP receives data cell:
+ For I=N...1,
+ Decrypt with Kb_I. If the payload is recognized (see
+ section 5.1), then stop and process the payload.
+
+ For more information, see section 5 below.
+
+5. Application connections and stream management
+
+5.1. Relay cells
+
+ Within a circuit, the OP and the exit node use the contents of
+ RELAY packets to tunnel end-to-end commands and TCP connections
+ ("Streams") across circuits. End-to-end commands can be initiated
+ by either edge; streams are initiated by the OP.
+
+ The payload of each unencrypted RELAY cell consists of:
+ Relay command [1 byte]
+ 'Recognized' [2 bytes]
+ StreamID [2 bytes]
+ Digest [4 bytes]
+ Length [2 bytes]
+ Data [CELL_LEN-14 bytes]
+
+ The relay commands are:
+ 1 -- RELAY_BEGIN [forward]
+ 2 -- RELAY_DATA [forward or backward]
+ 3 -- RELAY_END [forward or backward]
+ 4 -- RELAY_CONNECTED [backward]
+ 5 -- RELAY_SENDME [forward or backward]
+ 6 -- RELAY_EXTEND [forward]
+ 7 -- RELAY_EXTENDED [backward]
+ 8 -- RELAY_TRUNCATE [forward]
+ 9 -- RELAY_TRUNCATED [backward]
+ 10 -- RELAY_DROP [forward or backward]
+ 11 -- RELAY_RESOLVE [forward]
+ 12 -- RELAY_RESOLVED [backward]
+
+ Commands labelled as "forward" must only be sent by the originator
+ of the circuit. Commands labelled as "backward" must only be sent by
+ other nodes in the circuit back to the originator. Commands marked
+ as either can be sent either by the originator or other nodes.
+
+ The 'recognized' field in any unencrypted relay payload is always set
+ to zero; the 'digest' field is computed as the first four bytes of
+ the running digest of all the bytes that have been destined for
+ this hop of the circuit or originated from this hop of the circuit,
+ seeded from Df or Db respectively (obtained in section 4.2 above),
+ and including this RELAY cell's entire payload (taken with the digest
+ field set to zero).
+
+ When the 'recognized' field of a RELAY cell is zero, and the digest
+ is correct, the cell is considered "recognized" for the purposes of
+ decryption (see section 4.5 above).
+
+ (The digest does not include any bytes from relay cells that do
+ not start or end at this hop of the circuit. That is, it does not
+ include forwarded data. Therefore if 'recognized' is zero but the
+ digest does not match, the running digest at that node should
+ not be updated, and the cell should be forwarded on.)
+
+ All RELAY cells pertaining to the same tunneled stream have the
+ same stream ID. StreamIDs are chosen arbitrarily by the OP. RELAY
+ cells that affect the entire circuit rather than a particular
+ stream use a StreamID of zero.
+
+ The 'Length' field of a relay cell contains the number of bytes in
+ the relay payload which contain real payload data. The remainder of
+ the payload is padded with NUL bytes.
+
+ If the RELAY cell is recognized but the relay command is not
+ understood, the cell must be dropped and ignored. Its contents
+ still count with respect to the digests, though. [Before
+ 0.1.1.10, Tor closed circuits when it received an unknown relay
+ command. Perhaps this will be more forward-compatible. -RD]
+
+5.2. Opening streams and transferring data
+
+ To open a new anonymized TCP connection, the OP chooses an open
+ circuit to an exit that may be able to connect to the destination
+ address, selects an arbitrary StreamID not yet used on that circuit,
+ and constructs a RELAY_BEGIN cell with a payload encoding the address
+ and port of the destination host. The payload format is:
+
+ ADDRESS | ':' | PORT | [00]
+
+ where ADDRESS can be a DNS hostname, or an IPv4 address in
+ dotted-quad format, or an IPv6 address surrounded by square brackets;
+ and where PORT is encoded in decimal.
+
+ [What is the [00] for? -NM]
+ [It's so the payload is easy to parse out with string funcs -RD]
+
+ Upon receiving this cell, the exit node resolves the address as
+ necessary, and opens a new TCP connection to the target port. If the
+ address cannot be resolved, or a connection can't be established, the
+ exit node replies with a RELAY_END cell. (See 5.4 below.)
+ Otherwise, the exit node replies with a RELAY_CONNECTED cell, whose
+ payload is in one of the following formats:
+ The IPv4 address to which the connection was made [4 octets]
+ A number of seconds (TTL) for which the address may be cached [4 octets]
+ or
+ Four zero-valued octets [4 octets]
+ An address type (6) [1 octet]
+ The IPv6 address to which the connection was made [16 octets]
+ A number of seconds (TTL) for which the address may be cached [4 octets]
+ [XXXX Versions of Tor before 0.1.1.6 ignore and do not generate the TTL
+ field. No version of Tor currently generates the IPv6 format.
+
+ Tor servers before 0.1.2.0 set the TTL field to a fixed value. Later
+ versions set the TTL to the last value seen from a DNS server, and expire
+ their own cached entries after a fixed interval. This prevents certain
+ attacks.]
+
+ The OP waits for a RELAY_CONNECTED cell before sending any data.
+ Once a connection has been established, the OP and exit node
+ package stream data in RELAY_DATA cells, and upon receiving such
+ cells, echo their contents to the corresponding TCP stream.
+ RELAY_DATA cells sent to unrecognized streams are dropped.
+
+ Relay RELAY_DROP cells are long-range dummies; upon receiving such
+ a cell, the OR or OP must drop it.
+
+5.3. Closing streams
+
+ When an anonymized TCP connection is closed, or an edge node
+ encounters error on any stream, it sends a 'RELAY_END' cell along the
+ circuit (if possible) and closes the TCP connection immediately. If
+ an edge node receives a 'RELAY_END' cell for any stream, it closes
+ the TCP connection completely, and sends nothing more along the
+ circuit for that stream.
+
+ The payload of a RELAY_END cell begins with a single 'reason' byte to
+ describe why the stream is closing, plus optional data (depending on
+ the reason.) The values are:
+
+ 1 -- REASON_MISC (catch-all for unlisted reasons)
+ 2 -- REASON_RESOLVEFAILED (couldn't look up hostname)
+ 3 -- REASON_CONNECTREFUSED (remote host refused connection) [*]
+ 4 -- REASON_EXITPOLICY (OR refuses to connect to host or port)
+ 5 -- REASON_DESTROY (Circuit is being destroyed)
+ 6 -- REASON_DONE (Anonymized TCP connection was closed)
+ 7 -- REASON_TIMEOUT (Connection timed out, or OR timed out
+ while connecting)
+ 8 -- (unallocated) [**]
+ 9 -- REASON_HIBERNATING (OR is temporarily hibernating)
+ 10 -- REASON_INTERNAL (Internal error at the OR)
+ 11 -- REASON_RESOURCELIMIT (OR has no resources to fulfill request)
+ 12 -- REASON_CONNRESET (Connection was unexpectedly reset)
+ 13 -- REASON_TORPROTOCOL (Sent when closing connection because of
+ Tor protocol violations.)
+
+ (With REASON_EXITPOLICY, the 4-byte IPv4 address or 16-byte IPv6 address
+ forms the optional data; no other reason currently has extra data.
+ As of 0.1.1.6, the body also contains a 4-byte TTL.)
+
+ OPs and ORs MUST accept reasons not on the above list, since future
+ versions of Tor may provide more fine-grained reasons.
+
+ [*] Older versions of Tor also send this reason when connections are
+ reset.
+ [**] Due to a bug in versions of Tor through 0095, error reason 8 must
+ remain allocated until that version is obsolete.
+
+ --- [The rest of this section describes unimplemented functionality.]
+
+ Because TCP connections can be half-open, we follow an equivalent
+ to TCP's FIN/FIN-ACK/ACK protocol to close streams.
+
+ An exit connection can have a TCP stream in one of three states:
+ 'OPEN', 'DONE_PACKAGING', and 'DONE_DELIVERING'. For the purposes
+ of modeling transitions, we treat 'CLOSED' as a fourth state,
+ although connections in this state are not, in fact, tracked by the
+ onion router.
+
+ A stream begins in the 'OPEN' state. Upon receiving a 'FIN' from
+ the corresponding TCP connection, the edge node sends a 'RELAY_FIN'
+ cell along the circuit and changes its state to 'DONE_PACKAGING'.
+ Upon receiving a 'RELAY_FIN' cell, an edge node sends a 'FIN' to
+ the corresponding TCP connection (e.g., by calling
+ shutdown(SHUT_WR)) and changing its state to 'DONE_DELIVERING'.
+
+ When a stream in already in 'DONE_DELIVERING' receives a 'FIN', it
+ also sends a 'RELAY_FIN' along the circuit, and changes its state
+ to 'CLOSED'. When a stream already in 'DONE_PACKAGING' receives a
+ 'RELAY_FIN' cell, it sends a 'FIN' and changes its state to
+ 'CLOSED'.
+
+ If an edge node encounters an error on any stream, it sends a
+ 'RELAY_END' cell (if possible) and closes the stream immediately.
+
+5.4. Remote hostname lookup
+
+ To find the address associated with a hostname, the OP sends a
+ RELAY_RESOLVE cell containing the hostname to be resolved. (For a reverse
+ lookup, the OP sends a RELAY_RESOLVE cell containing an in-addr.arpa
+ address.) The OR replies with a RELAY_RESOLVED cell containing a status
+ byte, and any number of answers. Each answer is of the form:
+ Type (1 octet)
+ Length (1 octet)
+ Value (variable-width)
+ TTL (4 octets)
+ "Length" is the length of the Value field.
+ "Type" is one of:
+ 0x00 -- Hostname
+ 0x04 -- IPv4 address
+ 0x06 -- IPv6 address
+ 0xF0 -- Error, transient
+ 0xF1 -- Error, nontransient
+
+ If any answer has a type of 'Error', then no other answer may be given.
+
+ The RELAY_RESOLVE cell must use a nonzero, distinct streamID; the
+ corresponding RELAY_RESOLVED cell must use the same streamID. No stream
+ is actually created by the OR when resolving the name.
+
+6. Flow control
+
+6.1. Link throttling
+
+ Each node should do appropriate bandwidth throttling to keep its
+ user happy.
+
+ Communicants rely on TCP's default flow control to push back when they
+ stop reading.
+
+6.2. Link padding
+
+ Currently nodes are not required to do any sort of link padding or
+ dummy traffic. Because strong attacks exist even with link padding,
+ and because link padding greatly increases the bandwidth requirements
+ for running a node, we plan to leave out link padding until this
+ tradeoff is better understood.
+
+6.3. Circuit-level flow control
+
+ To control a circuit's bandwidth usage, each OR keeps track of
+ two 'windows', consisting of how many RELAY_DATA cells it is
+ allowed to package for transmission, and how many RELAY_DATA cells
+ it is willing to deliver to streams outside the network.
+ Each 'window' value is initially set to 1000 data cells
+ in each direction (cells that are not data cells do not affect
+ the window). When an OR is willing to deliver more cells, it sends a
+ RELAY_SENDME cell towards the OP, with Stream ID zero. When an OR
+ receives a RELAY_SENDME cell with stream ID zero, it increments its
+ packaging window.
+
+ Each of these cells increments the corresponding window by 100.
+
+ The OP behaves identically, except that it must track a packaging
+ window and a delivery window for every OR in the circuit.
+
+ An OR or OP sends cells to increment its delivery window when the
+ corresponding window value falls under some threshold (900).
+
+ If a packaging window reaches 0, the OR or OP stops reading from
+ TCP connections for all streams on the corresponding circuit, and
+ sends no more RELAY_DATA cells until receiving a RELAY_SENDME cell.
+[this stuff is badly worded; copy in the tor-design section -RD]
+
+6.4. Stream-level flow control
+
+ Edge nodes use RELAY_SENDME cells to implement end-to-end flow
+ control for individual connections across circuits. Similarly to
+ circuit-level flow control, edge nodes begin with a window of cells
+ (500) per stream, and increment the window by a fixed value (50)
+ upon receiving a RELAY_SENDME cell. Edge nodes initiate RELAY_SENDME
+ cells when both a) the window is <= 450, and b) there are less than
+ ten cell payloads remaining to be flushed at that edge.
+
diff --git a/trunk/doc/tor-spec.txt b/trunk/doc/tor-spec.txt
index 35b71e00db..b64e757d19 100644
--- a/trunk/doc/tor-spec.txt
+++ b/trunk/doc/tor-spec.txt
@@ -5,9 +5,12 @@ $Id$
Roger Dingledine
Nick Mathewson
-Note: This document aims to specify Tor as currently implemented. Future
-versions of Tor will implement improved protocols, and compatibility is
-not guaranteed.
+Note: This document aims to specify Tor as implemented in 0.1.2.1-alpha-cvs
+and later. Future versions of Tor will implement improved protocols, and
+compatibility is not guaranteed.
+
+For earlier versions of the protocol, see tor-spec-v0.txt; current versions
+are backward-compatible.
This specification is not a design document; most design criteria
are not examined. For more information on why Tor acts as it does,
@@ -122,6 +125,8 @@ when do we rotate which keys (tls, link, etc)?
``cells'', which are unwrapped by a symmetric key at each node (like
the layers of an onion) and relayed downstream.
+1.1. Protocol Versioning
+
2. Connections
There are two ways to connect to an onion router (OR). The first is
@@ -777,299 +782,6 @@ when do we rotate which keys (tls, link, etc)?
version we sent in our HELLO cell, we must resend a new HELLO cell
using that version.
-8. Directories and routers
-
-8.1. Extensible information format
-
-Router descriptors and directories both obey the following lightweight
-extensible information format.
-
-The highest level object is a Document, which consists of one or more Items.
-Every Item begins with a KeywordLine, followed by one or more Objects. A
-KeywordLine begins with a Keyword, optionally followed by whitespace and more
-non-newline characters, and ends with a newline. A Keyword is a sequence of
-one or more characters in the set [A-Za-z0-9-]. An Object is a block of
-encoded data in pseudo-Open-PGP-style armor. (cf. RFC 2440)
-
-More formally:
-
- Document ::= (Item | NL)+
- Item ::= KeywordLine Object*
- KeywordLine ::= Keyword NL | Keyword WS ArgumentsChar+ NL
- Keyword = KeywordChar+
- KeywordChar ::= 'A' ... 'Z' | 'a' ... 'z' | '0' ... '9' | '-'
- ArgumentChar ::= any printing ASCII character except NL.
- WS = (SP | TAB)+
- Object ::= BeginLine Base-64-encoded-data EndLine
- BeginLine ::= "-----BEGIN " Keyword "-----" NL
- EndLine ::= "-----END " Keyword "-----" NL
-
- The BeginLine and EndLine of an Object must use the same keyword.
-
-When interpreting a Document, software MUST reject any document containing a
-KeywordLine that starts with a keyword it doesn't recognize.
-
-The "opt" keyword is reserved for non-critical future extensions. All
-implementations MUST ignore any item of the form "opt keyword ....." when
-they would not recognize "keyword ....."; and MUST treat "opt keyword ....."
-as synonymous with "keyword ......" when keyword is recognized.
-
-8.2. Router descriptor format.
-
-Every router descriptor MUST start with a "router" Item; MUST end with a
-"router-signature" Item and an extra NL; and MUST contain exactly one
-instance of each of the following Items: "published" "onion-key" "link-key"
-"signing-key" "bandwidth". Additionally, a router descriptor MAY contain any
-number of "accept", "reject", "fingerprint", "uptime", and "opt" Items.
-Other than "router" and "router-signature", the items may appear in any
-order.
-
-The items' formats are as follows:
- "router" nickname address ORPort SocksPort DirPort
-
- Indicates the beginning of a router descriptor. "address"
- must be an IPv4 address in dotted-quad format. The last
- three numbers indicate the TCP ports at which this OR exposes
- functionality. ORPort is a port at which this OR accepts TLS
- connections for the main OR protocol; SocksPort is deprecated and
- should always be 0; and DirPort is the port at which this OR accepts
- directory-related HTTP connections. If any port is not supported,
- the value 0 is given instead of a port number.
-
- "bandwidth" bandwidth-avg bandwidth-burst bandwidth-observed
-
- Estimated bandwidth for this router, in bytes per second. The
- "average" bandwidth is the volume per second that the OR is willing
- to sustain over long periods; the "burst" bandwidth is the volume
- that the OR is willing to sustain in very short intervals. The
- "observed" value is an estimate of the capacity this server can
- handle. The server remembers the max bandwidth sustained output
- over any ten second period in the past day, and another sustained
- input. The "observed" value is the lesser of these two numbers.
-
- "platform" string
-
- A human-readable string describing the system on which this OR is
- running. This MAY include the operating system, and SHOULD include
- the name and version of the software implementing the Tor protocol.
-
- "published" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
-
- The time, in GMT, when this descriptor was generated.
-
- "fingerprint"
-
- A fingerprint (a HASH_LEN-byte of asn1 encoded public key, encoded
- in hex, with a single space after every 4 characters) for this router's
- identity key. A descriptor is considered invalid (and MUST be
- rejected) if the fingerprint line does not match the public key.
-
- [We didn't start parsing this line until Tor 0.1.0.6-rc; it should
- be marked with "opt" until earlier versions of Tor are obsolete.]
-
- "hibernating" 0|1
-
- If the value is 1, then the Tor server was hibernating when the
- descriptor was published, and shouldn't be used to build circuits.
-
- [We didn't start parsing this line until Tor 0.1.0.6-rc; it should
- be marked with "opt" until earlier versions of Tor are obsolete.]
-
- "uptime"
-
- The number of seconds that this OR process has been running.
-
- "onion-key" NL a public key in PEM format
-
- This key is used to encrypt EXTEND cells for this OR. The key MUST
- be accepted for at least XXXX hours after any new key is published in
- a subsequent descriptor.
-
- "signing-key" NL a public key in PEM format
-
- The OR's long-term identity key.
-
- "accept" exitpattern
- "reject" exitpattern
-
- These lines, in order, describe the rules that an OR follows when
- deciding whether to allow a new stream to a given address. The
- 'exitpattern' syntax is described below.
-
- "router-signature" NL Signature NL
-
- The "SIGNATURE" object contains a signature of the PKCS1-padded
- hash of the entire router descriptor, taken from the beginning of the
- "router" line, through the newline after the "router-signature" line.
- The router descriptor is invalid unless the signature is performed
- with the router's identity key.
-
- "contact" info NL
-
- Describes a way to contact the server's administrator, preferably
- including an email address and a PGP key fingerprint.
-
- "family" names NL
-
- 'Names' is a whitespace-separated list of server nicknames. If two ORs
- list one another in their "family" entries, then OPs should treat them
- as a single OR for the purpose of path selection.
-
- For example, if node A's descriptor contains "family B", and node B's
- descriptor contains "family A", then node A and node B should never
- be used on the same circuit.
-
- "read-history" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS (NSEC s) NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM... NL
- "write-history" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS (NSEC s) NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM... NL
-
- Declare how much bandwidth the OR has used recently. Usage is divided
- into intervals of NSEC seconds. The YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS field defines
- the end of the most recent interval. The numbers are the number of
- bytes used in the most recent intervals, ordered from oldest to newest.
-
- [We didn't start parsing these lines until Tor 0.1.0.6-rc; they should
- be marked with "opt" until earlier versions of Tor are obsolete.]
-
-nickname ::= between 1 and 19 alphanumeric characters, case-insensitive.
-
-exitpattern ::= addrspec ":" portspec
-portspec ::= "*" | port | port "-" port
-port ::= an integer between 1 and 65535, inclusive.
-addrspec ::= "*" | ip4spec | ip6spec
-ipv4spec ::= ip4 | ip4 "/" num_ip4_bits | ip4 "/" ip4mask
-ip4 ::= an IPv4 address in dotted-quad format
-ip4mask ::= an IPv4 mask in dotted-quad format
-num_ip4_bits ::= an integer between 0 and 32
-ip6spec ::= ip6 | ip6 "/" num_ip6_bits
-ip6 ::= an IPv6 address, surrounded by square brackets.
-num_ip6_bits ::= an integer between 0 and 128
-
-Ports are required; if they are not included in the router
-line, they must appear in the "ports" lines.
-
-8.3. Directory format
-
-[Sections 8.3-8.5 describe the old version 1 directory format, which is
-used by Tor 0.0.9.x and 0.1.0.x. See dir-spec.txt for the new version
-2 format, used by 0.1.1.x and 0.1.2.x. -RD]
-
-A Directory begins with a "signed-directory" item, followed by one each of
-the following, in any order: "recommended-software", "published",
-"router-status", "dir-signing-key". It may include any number of "opt"
-items. After these items, a directory includes any number of router
-descriptors, and a single "directory-signature" item.
-
- "signed-directory"
-
- Indicates the start of a directory.
-
- "published" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
-
- The time at which this directory was generated and signed, in GMT.
-
- "dir-signing-key"
-
- The key used to sign this directory; see "signing-key" for format.
-
- "recommended-software" comma-separated-version-list
-
- A list of which versions of which implementations are currently
- believed to be secure and compatible with the network.
-
- "running-routers" whitespace-separated-list
-
- A description of which routers are currently believed to be up or
- down. Every entry consists of an optional "!", followed by either an
- OR's nickname, or "$" followed by a hexadecimal encoding of the hash
- of an OR's identity key. If the "!" is included, the router is
- believed not to be running; otherwise, it is believed to be running.
- If a router's nickname is given, exactly one router of that nickname
- will appear in the directory, and that router is "approved" by the
- directory server. If a hashed identity key is given, that OR is not
- "approved". [XXXX The 'running-routers' line is only provided for
- backward compatibility. New code should parse 'router-status'
- instead.]
-
- "router-status" whitespace-separated-list
-
- A description of which routers are currently believed to be up or
- down, and which are verified or unverified. Contains one entry for
- every router that the directory server knows. Each entry is of the
- format:
-
- !name=$digest [Verified router, currently not live.]
- name=$digest [Verified router, currently live.]
- !$digest [Unverified router, currently not live.]
- or $digest [Unverified router, currently live.]
-
- (where 'name' is the router's nickname and 'digest' is a hexadecimal
- encoding of the hash of the routers' identity key).
-
- When parsing this line, clients should only mark a router as
- 'verified' if its nickname AND digest match the one provided.
-
- "directory-signature" nickname-of-dirserver NL Signature
-
-The signature is computed by computing the digest of the
-directory, from the characters "signed-directory", through the newline
-after "directory-signature". This digest is then padded with PKCS.1,
-and signed with the directory server's signing key.
-
-If software encounters an unrecognized keyword in a single router descriptor,
-it MUST reject only that router descriptor, and continue using the
-others. Because this mechanism is used to add 'critical' extensions to
-future versions of the router descriptor format, implementation should treat
-it as a normal occurrence and not, for example, report it to the user as an
-error. [Versions of Tor prior to 0.1.1 did this.]
-
-If software encounters an unrecognized keyword in the directory header,
-it SHOULD reject the entire directory.
-
-8.4. Network-status descriptor
-
-[Sections 8.3-8.5 describe the old version 1 directory format, which is
-used by Tor 0.0.9.x and 0.1.0.x. See dir-spec.txt for the new version
-2 format, used by 0.1.1.x and 0.1.2.x. -RD]
-
-A "network-status" (a.k.a "running-routers") document is a truncated
-directory that contains only the current status of a list of nodes, not
-their actual descriptors. It contains exactly one of each of the following
-entries.
-
- "network-status"
-
- Must appear first.
-
- "published" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
-
- (see 8.3 above)
-
- "router-status" list
-
- (see 8.3 above)
-
- "directory-signature" NL signature
-
- (see 8.3 above)
-
-8.5. Behavior of a directory server
-
-lists nodes that are connected currently
-speaks HTTP on a socket, spits out directory on request
-
-Directory servers listen on a certain port (the DirPort), and speak a
-limited version of HTTP 1.0. Clients send either GET or POST commands.
-The basic interactions are:
- "%s %s HTTP/1.0\r\nContent-Length: %lu\r\nHost: %s\r\n\r\n",
- command, url, content-length, host.
- Get "/tor/" to fetch a full directory.
- Get "/tor/dir.z" to fetch a compressed full directory.
- Get "/tor/running-routers" to fetch a network-status descriptor.
- Post "/tor/" to post a server descriptor, with the body of the
- request containing the descriptor.
-
- "host" is used to specify the address:port of the dirserver, so
- the request can survive going through HTTP proxies.
A.1. Differences between spec and implementation