From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from sog-mx-2.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com ([172.29.43.192] helo=mx.sourceforge.net) by sfs-ml-1.v29.ch3.sourceforge.com with esmtp (Exim 4.76) (envelope-from ) id 1Rs3uh-0004bu-1C for bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net; Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:57:43 +0000 Received-SPF: pass (sog-mx-2.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com: domain of gmail.com designates 209.85.212.47 as permitted sender) client-ip=209.85.212.47; envelope-from=gmaxwell@gmail.com; helo=mail-vw0-f47.google.com; Received: from mail-vw0-f47.google.com ([209.85.212.47]) by sog-mx-2.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com with esmtps (TLSv1:RC4-SHA:128) (Exim 4.76) id 1Rs3uc-0004j3-Rl for bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net; Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:57:42 +0000 Received: by vbbff1 with SMTP id ff1so2078368vbb.34 for ; Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:57:33 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.52.91.200 with SMTP id cg8mr6978801vdb.65.1327978651788; Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:57:31 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.220.151.200 with HTTP; Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:57:31 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: References: Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:57:31 -0500 Message-ID: From: Gregory Maxwell To: Gavin Andresen Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Spam-Score: -1.1 (-) X-Spam-Report: Spam Filtering performed by mx.sourceforge.net. See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. -1.5 SPF_CHECK_PASS SPF reports sender host as permitted sender for sender-domain 0.0 FREEMAIL_FROM Sender email is commonly abused enduser mail provider (gmaxwell[at]gmail.com) -0.0 SPF_PASS SPF: sender matches SPF record -0.1 DKIM_VALID_AU Message has a valid DKIM or DK signature from author's domain 0.1 DKIM_SIGNED Message has a DKIM or DK signature, not necessarily valid -0.1 DKIM_VALID Message has at least one valid DKIM or DK signature 0.5 AWL AWL: From: address is in the auto white-list X-Headers-End: 1Rs3uc-0004j3-Rl Cc: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] CAddrMan: Stochastic IP address manager X-BeenThere: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:57:43 -0000 On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 9:05 PM, Gavin Andresen w= rote: > I've also been wondering if it is time to remove the IRC bootstrapping > mechanism; it would remove a fair bit of code and we'd stop getting > reports that various ISPs tag bitcoin as malware. =C2=A0When testing the > list of built-in bootstrapping IP addresses I always connect fairly > quickly, and the DNS seeding hosts seems to be working nicely, too. S=CE=BF=E2=80=94 would we remove it or leave it deactivated as a fallback u= sers can turn on? I have two different thoughts about IRC depending on the answer. I think it's important that we have more mechanisms then just DNS and hardcoded seednodes. This is important because the mechanisms we have are all pretty subject to blocking. Now=E2=80=94 before you say it=E2=80=94 Bitcoin isn't = intended to be blocking resistant (combine it with Tor and Tor anti-censorship tools) but by making blocking a bit harder we discourage people from even trying, even if we're not seriously in the anti-blocking business=E2=80=94 and it gives bitcoin users more confidence because there = is a bit less FUD "What if your ISP blocks it?? It uses DNS! Someone might take away the domains! SOPA PIPI ACTA CIPA Alakazam". Is the fact that users can addnodes / addr.txt enough of an alternative to address this? _If so_, then removing it is a good idea. I volunteer to maintain a multi-channel joining node for the foreseeable future to avoid letting old clients get partitioned (several people need to do this). An area where I think our mechanisms are inadequate absent IRC is announcing new nodes. I had a new listener up for over a week recently and was basically getting no inbound until I enabled IRC. I volunteer to do some measurement of this (e.g. bring up some nodes with no irc and find out how long until sipa hears about them). If DNS seeds are slow to learn about new nodes we may need to add a simple UDP announcement feature. In any case, I hadn't been thinking that we would completely remove IRC=E2=80=94 I was expecting us to keep IRC around but turned off. In particular I think it may be a little risky to turn off IRC at the same time as deploying addrman, because if addrman has unexpected bad behavior IRC is what may keep things going. Obviously it should be well tested enough to feel confident, but belt-and-suspenders is the way to go. If we do keep in the long run I think it's important to _fix_ IRC. Right now it has some really stupid behavior which is highly pro-partitioning. */who only returns a few nodes, and because most idlers aren't actually working (no port forward) it's usually for there to be only a few that work. (I've never seen zero, but I've seen 1). *Other than who we only learn about nodes when they join. But the stable long lived nodes we need to hear about seldom rejoin. Nonuseful windows boxes go up and down a lot. *Nodes sit in a single channel forever. There are 100 of them. Especially with fewer clients on line nodes may be sitting alone with no correctly working nodes with them. *Nodes recently seen on IRC are highly promoted in the peer selection. So, here is an updated irc.cpp which I've been running (in various versions) for a while: http://people.xiph.org/~greg/irc.cpp It does the following things: * Only stays connected for a half hour * If its sure its not listening it uses a random nick so people won't try to connect * Reconnects if it needs more connections * If the node is actually listening (evidence by actual incoming connections) it reconnects on its own every 1-2 hours and joins two channels at random rather than one. (it doesn't change peer selection=E2=80=94 It's hard to be confident of the impact of that change. I think addrman makes it less of an issue) I've only not submitted it as a pull request because I haven't had a chance to test to my standards, and because I felt unsure about the future of IRC. I feel strongly that if we're going to keep IRC as a backup we should fix it. If we're not going to bother then thats fine=E2=80=94 but I think w= e need to think carefully if we're doing enough for bootstraping (with the points I made) without it. Certainly getting it off by default would be a good move. The botnet allegations are horrible.