1 Filename: 164-reporting-server-status.txt
2 Title: Reporting the status of server votes
11 When a given node isn't listed in the directory, it isn't always easy
12 to tell why. This proposal suggest a quick-and-dirty way for
13 authorities to export not only how they voted, but why, and a way to
14 collate the information.
18 Right now, if you want to know the reason why your server was listed
19 a certain way in the Tor directory, the following steps are
22 - Look through your log for reports of what the authority said
23 when you tried to upload.
25 - Look at the consensus; see if you're listed.
27 - Wait a while, see if things get better.
29 - Download the votes from all the authorities, and see how they
30 voted. Try to figure out why.
32 - If you think they'll listen to you, ask some authority
33 operators to look you up in their mtbf files and logs to see
34 why they voted as they did.
40 We should add a new vote-like information-only document that
41 authorities serve on request. Call it a "vote info". It is
42 generated at the same time as a vote, but used only for
43 determining why a server voted as it did. It is served from
44 /tor/status-vote-info/current/authority[.z]
46 It differs from a vote in that:
48 * Its vote-status field is 'vote-info'.
50 * It includes routers that the authority would not include
53 For these, it includes an "omitted" line with an English
54 message explaining why they were omitted.
56 * For each router, it includes a line describing its WFU and
59 "stability <mtbf> up-since='date'"
60 "uptime <wfu> down-since='date'"
62 * It describes the WFU and MTBF thresholds it requires to
63 vote for a given router in various roles in the header.
66 "flag-requirement <flag-name> <field> <op> <value>"
70 "flag-requirement Guard uptime > 80"
72 * It includes info on routers all of whose descriptors that
73 were uploaded but rejected over the past few hours. The
74 "r" lines for these are the same as for regular routers.
75 The other lines are omitted for these routers, and are
76 replaced with a single "rejected" line, explaining (in
77 English) why the router was rejected.
80 A status site (like Torweather or Torstatus or another
81 tool) can poll these files when they are generated, collate
82 the data, and make it available to server operators.
86 This document makes no provisions for caching these "vote
87 info" documents. If many people wind up fetching them
88 aggressively from the authorities, that would be bad.