Make it possible to debug if a configured hidden service is working and eventually reinitialize it

[evilaliv3]

Many of the @globaleaks users have encountered situations in which hidden servers instantiated via TxTorcon seems to lose reachability.

It would be really interesting if it could be made possible to debug if a configured hidden service is working and eventually reinitialize it.

[evilaliv3]

@meejah: do you have by the chance any ready recipe for this that could be applied on txtorcon 0.19.3?

[meejah]

Hmm..
What are the symptoms? These are v2 services, right? Do they use the ADD_ONION API, or via torrc/SET_CONF?

(I have seen onions occasionally use connectivity .. but I'm not very clear on the details of how/when services change introduction-points or any differences between torrc and ADD_ONION services. Have you asked in #tor..?)

[meejah]

I guess another solution would be to just try to connect to the service periodically. Perhaps this can even happen from the same GlobalLeaks client? (No idea about the privacy implications of that though..)

[evilaliv3]

GlobaLeaks opens a single connection and keeps it open.
It then uses ADD_ONION to add hidden services.

The syntom is that after a while even if the connections is kept open and do not fail, the hidden service become unreachable by users trying to reach it via the TorBrowser

[meejah]

The reason I suggest asking #tor and/or #tor-dev is because I've heard other reports about onion services (not using txtorcon) seeming to randomly lose connectivity "after a while". So, I don't know if this is "a tor thing" or "a txtorcon thing" or just something to do with which Introduction Points you happened to pick.

Of course, if there's something txtorcon can do to help with this, I'm definitely game to add some code! :)

For example, maybe a built-in monitor or so that periodically tries to build (additional) circuits to the Introduction Points? Again, though, this is worth some #tor-dev discussion because it might have anonymity implications for the service!

[meejah]

p.s. to clarify: these are v2 services only, right? Or does GlobalLeaks use v3 now?

[meejah]

@evilaliv3 what version of Tor are you using?

[evilaliv3]

@meejah v2 on 0.3.3.9