## 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. For some reasons, it contains additional data (depending on the reason.) The values are: ```text 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 -- REASON_NOROUTE (Routing error while attempting to contact destination) 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.) 14 -- REASON_NOTDIRECTORY (Client sent RELAY_BEGIN_DIR to a non-directory relay.) [*] Older versions of Tor also send this reason when connections are reset. ``` OPs and ORs MUST accept reasons not on the above list, since future versions of Tor may provide more fine-grained reasons. For most reasons, the format of RELAY_END is: Reason [1 byte] For REASON_EXITPOLICY, the format of RELAY_END is: ```text Reason [1 byte] IPv4 or IPv6 address [4 bytes or 16 bytes] TTL [4 bytes] ``` (If the TTL is absent, it should be treated as if it were 0xffffffff. If the address is absent or is the wrong length, the RELAY_END message should be processed anyway.) Tors SHOULD NOT send any reason except REASON_MISC for a stream that they have originated. Implementations SHOULD accept empty RELAY_END messages, and treat them as if they specified REASON_MISC. Upon receiving a RELAY_END cell, the recipient may be sure that no further cells will arrive on that stream, and can treat such cells as a protocol violation. After sending a RELAY_END cell, the sender needs to give the recipient time to receive that cell. In the meantime, the sender SHOULD remember how many cells of which types (CONNECTED, SENDME, DATA) that it would have accepted on that stream, and SHOULD kill the circuit if it receives more than permitted. --- [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 (or onion service) 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.