Filename: 293-know-when-to-publish.txt Title: Other ways for relays to know when to publish Author: Nick Mathewson Created: 30-May-2018 Status: Closed Target: 0.3.5 Implemented-In: 0.4.0.1-alpha [IMPLEMENTATION NOTES: Mechanism one is implemented; mechanism two is rejected.] 1. Motivation In proposal 275, we give reasons for dropping the published-on field from consensus documents, to improve the performance of consensus diffs. We've already changed Tor (as of 0.2.9.11) to allow us to set those fields far in the future -- but unfortunately, there is still one use case that requires them: relays use the published-on field to tell if they are about to fall out of the consensus and need to make new descriptors. Here we propose two alternative mechanisms for relays to know that they should publish descriptors, so we can enact proposal 275 and set the published-on field to some time in the distant future. 2. Mechanism One: The StaleDesc flag Authorities should begin voting on a new StaleDesc flag. When authorities vote, if the most recent published_on date for a descriptor is over DESC_IS_STALE_INTERVAL in the past, the authorities should vote to give the StaleDesc flag to that relay. If any relay sees that it has the StaleDesc flag, it should upload some time in the first half of the voting interval. (Implementors should take care not to re-upload over and over, though: Relays won't lose the flag until the next voting interval is reached.) (Define DESC_IS_STALE_INTERVAL as equal to FORCE_REGENERATE_DESCRIPTOR_INTERVAL.) 3. Mechanism Two: Uploading more frequently when rejected. Tor relays should remember the last time at which they uploaded a descriptor that was accepted by a majority of dirauths. If this time is more than FAST_RETRY_DESCRIPTOR_INTERVAL in the past, we mark our descriptor as dirty from mark_my_descriptor_dirty_if_too_old(). 4. Implications for proposal 275 Once most relays are running versions that support the features above, and once authorities are generating consensuses with the StaleDesc flag, there will no longer be a need to keep the published time in consensus documents accurate -- we can start setting it to some time in the distant future, per proposal 275.