TorFlow Node Capacity, Integrity and Reliability Measurements at HotPETS

by mikeperry | June 21, 2009

Like Karsten, I too am presenting at HotPETS in Seattle in August. My presentation will cover my work with my TorFlow suite - a python library and utility set to assist measuring and adjusting performance on the Tor network, and to scan the network for malfunctioning and misbehaving exits.

One of the highlights is a system for performance feedback: a set of training wheels of sorts for Tor's load balancing algorithms that once deployed, should greatly improve the performance of the network for 0.2.1 clients. I am very much excited about this and am looking forward to throwing the switch on it in the coming weeks.

Also of note is the discovery that nodes that use Tor's built in rate-limiting are far less likely to fail circuits than those that do not, especially for Windows nodes. So if you are a Windows node operator, please rate limit your node slightly below your connection's capacity using either the Vidalia GUI or the BandwidthRate torrc config option.. I will be emailing the contact info addresses of nodes that are most affected by this soon.

The paper for the presentation describes the library, utilities, and their results in much further detail.

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Anonymous (not verified) said:

January 15, 2010

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I've tried https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk and it haven't worked on my machine. Ubuntu/8.10/x64. Tor v0.2.1.21.

1) ExitAuthority/soat_config_real.py is missing, I take it it soat_config.py should be used as the template.
2) ErrorReply: 515 Authentication failed: Wrong length on authentication cookie.

It's 32 bytes.
-rw------- 1 debian-tor debian-tor 32 Jan 16 03:43 control_auth_cookie

Here is the log file:
========================================
Jan 16 03:43:41.111 [notice] Tor v0.2.1.21. This is experimental software. Do not rely on it for strong anonymity. (Running on Linux x86_64)
Jan 16 03:43:41.112 [notice] Initialized libevent version 1.3e using method epoll. Good.
Jan 16 03:43:41.112 [notice] Opening Socks listener on 127.0.0.1:9210
Jan 16 03:43:41.112 [notice] Opening Control listener on 127.0.0.1:9211

# ./soat.py --ssl --html --http --dnsrebind
DEBUG [ Sat Jan 16 03:43:59 2010 ]: Read tor config. Got Socks proxy: 9210
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:43:59 2010 ]: Connecting to Tor at 127.0.0.1:9211
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:00 2010 ]: Hibernating router bmwanon is running, flags: HSDir Named Running Valid
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:00 2010 ]: No bandwidth for live router EmuWikiTORService, flags: Running Stable Unnamed V2Dir Valid
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:00 2010 ]: Hibernating router blablub is running, flags: Named Running Valid
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:00 2010 ]: No bandwidth for live router OhDannyBoy, flags: Exit Running V2Dir Valid
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:00 2010 ]: No bandwidth for live router DOBERMANN, flags: Exit Running V2Dir Valid
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:00 2010 ]: Hibernating router fuga is running, flags: HSDir Named Running Valid
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:01 2010 ]: Hibernating router ThinkPenguin is running, flags: HSDir Named Running Valid
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:01 2010 ]: Hibernating router Pegdymmiv2 is running, flags: HSDir Named Running Valid
NOTICE [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:01 2010 ]: Running router Key=9B301F461E54083C080825EE0E23298150B07DE1 has no descriptor
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:01 2010 ]: Hibernating router bingsFreeNet is running, flags: Named Running Valid
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:01 2010 ]: Hibernating router GravenTORServer is running, flags: HSDir Named Running Valid
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:01 2010 ]: Hibernating router agate is running, flags: Named Running Valid
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:01 2010 ]: Hibernating router CarlaB is running, flags: Named Running Valid
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:01 2010 ]: No bandwidth for live router Unnamed, flags: Exit Running V2Dir Valid
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:02 2010 ]: No bandwidth for live router DOK, flags: Exit Running V2Dir Valid
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:02 2010 ]: Hibernating router GoElephantGoGoGo is running, flags: Named Running Valid
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:02 2010 ]: Hibernating router JucHadCod8 is running, flags: Named Running Valid
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:02 2010 ]: Hibernating router saveprivacyde is running, flags: Named Running Valid
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:02 2010 ]: Hibernating router TorNode140 is running, flags: Running Valid
NOTICE [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:02 2010 ]: Running router PPrivComLuxembourg3=1ADABAC444018AB38B672F53E067EC9F3740D1FA has no descriptor
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:02 2010 ]: Hibernating router rwxrwxrwx is running, flags: HSDir Running Valid
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:02 2010 ]: No bandwidth for live router Infinity, flags: Exit Running Unnamed V2Dir Valid
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:03 2010 ]: Hibernating router q867401q is running, flags: Named Running Valid
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:03 2010 ]: Hibernating router ssnthnet is running, flags: HSDir Named Running Valid
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Expiring non-running router 33261B47E7D35D3AD24073827CF167357E8E6513
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Expiring non-running router 8CE47A57689199F3CB47BF798ABAB971BFA912A7
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Expiring non-running router 0EF3B88271121837EAFA8DEF91923BF3CAF2A0E2
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Expiring non-running router 9A356DA25A8D9DCF0865800A0DE863B21D1FCBEA
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Expiring non-running router C60AB5E1A17DD1597F4D05DA063A89104ACD8382
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Expiring non-running router 8A05E6B624AE3494604726A7B99CD1C70A58D775
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Expiring non-running router 1F689A58746D4A8E3BFFC46B2E92C27A31075715
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Expiring non-running router 945D08433DEB34F0BA3954C625356FD860B9DC3E
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Expiring non-running router D91B26D377E00B78D43CFEC3053CB9143C8C8487
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Expiring non-running router 079AF6C8558C5EEA6B81B3DA4F23498178A73ADC
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Expiring non-running router A620BA8FC8E9E4C2C0127FEA39194C2AFE736AA9
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Expiring non-running router A40C88E5ACDD01A6BA02F6F1DCBC8CC363CAE737
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Expiring non-running router 371ED81C2EA31EE18C347BFC043E790A66C92334
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Expiring non-running router E8CA0174C05AEC05EDAB8C208F089DE84C32CE1F
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Expiring non-running router B3298ADED2385D9D28365F6620218C5BF978244A
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Expiring non-running router 657CECEA84681DAE50BFB6FBAA7E0E4BF2DD0CE3
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Expiring non-running router 54C452F119A859BA3C7C0E38288A36D15A182642
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Expiring non-running router D8DCC504908AD1D64076ACE4AB19FA5A3DC1E65B
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Expiring non-running router 55C39AD47B3C8FA3A7FF876FCD97142FE93824C7
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Expiring non-running router 01340C8CDF5E90B9D4FF1AEBDCA403CD2FF6E562
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Expiring non-running router 5EF5A140C6DF64235E0CE6FCDC43CA178E968013
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Expiring non-running router 984F2FB60447EAB1B473A44B8AE93A65337808A5
DEBUG [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Reconfigure with consensus
DEBUG [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: E = 102561829, G = 181165749, T = 263302898, g_ratio = 0.688050721721, e_ratio = 0.389520319674, bw_per_hop = 131651449.0
DEBUG [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Bw: 78480838/263302898. The exit-weight is: 0, guard weight is: 0.273309388079
DEBUG [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: E = 102561829, G = 181165749, T = 263302898, g_ratio = 0.688050721721, e_ratio = 0.389520319674, bw_per_hop = 131651449.0
DEBUG [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Bw: 78480838/263302898. The exit-weight is: 0, guard weight is: 0.273309388079
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Read 1455/1479 routers
DEBUG [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: SETEVENTS EXTENDED STREAM BW NEWCONSENSUS NEWDESC CIRC STREAM_BW

INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Monitoring REMAP events for weirdness
ERROR [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: An unexpected error occured.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "./soat.py", line 2828, in
main(sys.argv)
File "./soat.py", line 2678, in main
scanhdlr.check_dns_rebind()
File "./soat.py", line 259, in check_dns_rebind
c.authenticate()
File "../../TorCtl/TorCtl.py", line 721, in authenticate
self.sendAndRecv("AUTHENTICATE \"%s\"\r\n"%secret)
File "../../TorCtl/TorCtl.py", line 710, in sendAndRecv
raise ErrorReply("%s %s"%(tp, msg))
ErrorReply: 515 Authentication failed: Wrong length on authentication cookie.
INFO [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Resetting __LeaveStreamsUnattached=0 and FetchUselessDescriptors=1
NOTICE [ Sat Jan 16 03:44:04 2010 ]: Tor closed control connection. Exiting event thread.