tor-spec.txt 38 KB

123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051525354555657585960616263646566676869707172737475767778798081828384858687888990919293949596979899100101102103104105106107108109110111112113114115116117118119120121122123124125126127128129130131132133134135136137138139140141142143144145146147148149150151152153154155156157158159160161162163164165166167168169170171172173174175176177178179180181182183184185186187188189190191192193194195196197198199200201202203204205206207208209210211212213214215216217218219220221222223224225226227228229230231232233234235236237238239240241242243244245246247248249250251252253254255256257258259260261262263264265266267268269270271272273274275276277278279280281282283284285286287288289290291292293294295296297298299300301302303304305306307308309310311312313314315316317318319320321322323324325326327328329330331332333334335336337338339340341342343344345346347348349350351352353354355356357358359360361362363364365366367368369370371372373374375376377378379380381382383384385386387388389390391392393394395396397398399400401402403404405406407408409410411412413414415416417418419420421422423424425426427428429430431432433434435436437438439440441442443444445446447448449450451452453454455456457458459460461462463464465466467468469470471472473474475476477478479480481482483484485486487488489490491492493494495496497498499500501502503504505506507508509510511512513514515516517518519520521522523524525526527528529530531532533534535536537538539540541542543544545546547548549550551552553554555556557558559560561562563564565566567568569570571572573574575576577578579580581582583584585586587588589590591592593594595596597598599600601602603604605606607608609610611612613614615616617618619620621622623624625626627628629630631632633634635636637638639640641642643644645646647648649650651652653654655656657658659660661662663664665666667668669670671672673674675676677678679680681682683684685686687688689690691692693694695696697698699700701702703704705706707708709710711712713714715716717718719720721722723724725726727728729730731732733734735736737738739740741742743744745746747748749750751752753754755756757758759760761762763764765766767768769770771772773774775776777778779780781782783784785786787788789790791792793794795796797798799800801802803804805806807808809810811812813814815816817818819820821822823824825826827828829830831832833834835836837838839840841842843844845846847848849850851852853854855856857858859860861862863864865866867868869870871872873874875876877878879880881882883884
  1. $Id$
  2. Tor Protocol Specification
  3. Roger Dingledine
  4. Nick Mathewson
  5. Note: This is an attempt to specify Tor as it exists as implemented in
  6. mid-August, 2004. It is not recommended that others implement this
  7. design as it stands; future versions of Tor will implement improved
  8. protocols.
  9. This is not a design document; most design criteria are not examined. For
  10. more information on why Tor acts as it does, see tor-design.pdf.
  11. TODO: (very soon)
  12. - REASON_CONNECTFAILED should include an IP.
  13. - Copy prose from tor-design to make everything more readable.
  14. 0. Notation:
  15. PK -- a public key.
  16. SK -- a private key
  17. K -- a key for a symmetric cypher
  18. a|b -- concatenation of 'a' and 'b'.
  19. [A0 B1 C2] -- a three-byte sequence, containing the bytes with
  20. hexadecimal values A0, B1, and C2, in that order.
  21. All numeric values are encoded in network (big-endian) order.
  22. Unless otherwise specified, all symmetric ciphers are AES in counter
  23. mode, with an IV of all 0 bytes. Asymmetric ciphers are either RSA
  24. with 1024-bit keys and exponents of 65537, or DH with the safe prime
  25. from rfc2409, section 6.2, whose hex representation is:
  26. "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFC90FDAA22168C234C4C6628B80DC1CD129024E08"
  27. "8A67CC74020BBEA63B139B22514A08798E3404DDEF9519B3CD3A431B"
  28. "302B0A6DF25F14374FE1356D6D51C245E485B576625E7EC6F44C42E9"
  29. "A637ED6B0BFF5CB6F406B7EDEE386BFB5A899FA5AE9F24117C4B1FE6"
  30. "49286651ECE65381FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF"
  31. All "hashes" are 20-byte SHA1 cryptographic digests.
  32. When we refer to "the hash of a public key", we mean the SHA1 hash of the
  33. ASN.1 encoding of an RSA public key (as specified in PKCS.1).
  34. 1. System overview
  35. Onion Routing is a distributed overlay network designed to anonymize
  36. low-latency TCP-based applications such as web browsing, secure shell,
  37. and instant messaging. Clients choose a path through the network and
  38. build a ``circuit'', in which each node (or ``onion router'' or ``OR'')
  39. in the path knows its predecessor and successor, but no other nodes in
  40. the circuit. Traffic flowing down the circuit is sent in fixed-size
  41. ``cells'', which are unwrapped by a symmetric key at each node (like
  42. the layers of an onion) and relayed downstream.
  43. 2. Connections
  44. There are two ways to connect to an onion router (OR). The first is
  45. as an onion proxy (OP), which allows the OP to authenticate the OR
  46. without authenticating itself. The second is as another OR, which
  47. allows mutual authentication.
  48. Tor uses TLS for link encryption. All implementations MUST support
  49. the TLS ciphersuite "TLS_EDH_RSA_WITH_DES_192_CBC3_SHA", and SHOULD
  50. support "TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA" if it is available.
  51. Implementations MAY support other ciphersuites, but MUST NOT
  52. support any suite without ephemeral keys, symmetric keys of at
  53. least 128 bits, and digests of at least 160 bits.
  54. An OP or OR always sends a two-certificate chain, consisting of a
  55. self-signed certificate containing the OR's identity key, and a second
  56. certificate using a short-term connection key. The commonName of the
  57. second certificate is the OR's nickname, and the commonName of the first
  58. certificate is the OR's nickname, followed by a space and the string
  59. "<identity>".
  60. All parties receiving certificates must confirm that the identity key is
  61. as expected. (When initiating a connection, the expected identity key is
  62. the one given in the directory; when creating a connection because of an
  63. EXTEND cell, the expected identity key is the one given in the cell.) If
  64. the key is not as expected, the party must close the connection.
  65. All parties SHOULD reject connections to or from ORs that have malformed
  66. or missing certificates. ORs MAY accept connections from OPs with
  67. malformed or missing certificates.
  68. Once a TLS connection is established, the two sides send cells
  69. (specified below) to one another. Cells are sent serially. All
  70. cells are 512 bytes long. Cells may be sent embedded in TLS
  71. records of any size or divided across TLS records, but the framing
  72. of TLS records MUST NOT leak information about the type or contents
  73. of the cells.
  74. OR-to-OR connections are never deliberately closed. When an OR
  75. starts or receives a new directory, it tries to open new
  76. connections to any OR it is not already connected to.
  77. [not true, unused OR conns close after 5 mins too -RD]
  78. OR-to-OP connections are not permanent. An OP should close a
  79. connection to an OR if there are no circuits running over the
  80. connection, and an amount of time (KeepalivePeriod, defaults to 5
  81. minutes) has passed.
  82. 3. Cell Packet format
  83. The basic unit of communication for onion routers and onion
  84. proxies is a fixed-width "cell". Each cell contains the following
  85. fields:
  86. CircID [2 bytes]
  87. Command [1 byte]
  88. Payload (padded with 0 bytes) [509 bytes]
  89. [Total size: 512 bytes]
  90. The CircID field determines which circuit, if any, the cell is
  91. associated with.
  92. The 'Command' field holds one of the following values:
  93. 0 -- PADDING (Padding) (See Sec 6.2)
  94. 1 -- CREATE (Create a circuit) (See Sec 4)
  95. 2 -- CREATED (Acknowledge create) (See Sec 4)
  96. 3 -- RELAY (End-to-end data) (See Sec 5)
  97. 4 -- DESTROY (Stop using a circuit) (See Sec 4)
  98. The interpretation of 'Payload' depends on the type of the cell.
  99. PADDING: Payload is unused.
  100. CREATE: Payload contains the handshake challenge.
  101. CREATED: Payload contains the handshake response.
  102. RELAY: Payload contains the relay header and relay body.
  103. DESTROY: Payload is unused.
  104. Upon receiving any other value for the command field, an OR must
  105. drop the cell.
  106. The payload is padded with 0 bytes.
  107. PADDING cells are currently used to implement connection keepalive.
  108. If there is no other traffic, ORs and OPs send one another a PADDING
  109. cell every few minutes.
  110. CREATE, CREATED, and DESTROY cells are used to manage circuits;
  111. see section 4 below.
  112. RELAY cells are used to send commands and data along a circuit; see
  113. section 5 below.
  114. 4. Circuit management
  115. 4.1. CREATE and CREATED cells
  116. Users set up circuits incrementally, one hop at a time. To create a
  117. new circuit, OPs send a CREATE cell to the first node, with the
  118. first half of the DH handshake; that node responds with a CREATED
  119. cell with the second half of the DH handshake plus the first 20 bytes
  120. of derivative key data (see section 4.2). To extend a circuit past
  121. the first hop, the OP sends an EXTEND relay cell (see section 5)
  122. which instructs the last node in the circuit to send a CREATE cell
  123. to extend the circuit.
  124. The payload for a CREATE cell is an 'onion skin', which consists
  125. of the first step of the DH handshake data (also known as g^x).
  126. The data is encrypted to Bob's PK as follows: Suppose Bob's PK is
  127. L octets long. If the data to be encrypted is shorter than L-42,
  128. then it is encrypted directly (with OAEP padding). If the data is at
  129. least as long as L-42, then a randomly generated 16-byte symmetric
  130. key is prepended to the data, after which the first L-16-42 bytes
  131. of the data are encrypted with Bob's PK; and the rest of the data is
  132. encrypted with the symmetric key.
  133. So in this case, the onion skin on the wire looks like:
  134. RSA-encrypted:
  135. OAEP padding [42 bytes]
  136. Symmetric key [16 bytes]
  137. First part of g^x [70 bytes]
  138. Symmetrically encrypted:
  139. Second part of g^x [58 bytes]
  140. The relay payload for an EXTEND relay cell consists of:
  141. Address [4 bytes]
  142. Port [2 bytes]
  143. Onion skin [186 bytes]
  144. Public key hash [20 bytes]
  145. The port and address field denote the IPV4 address and port of the next
  146. onion router in the circuit; the public key hash is the SHA1 hash of the
  147. PKCS#1 ASN1 encoding of the next onion router's identity (signing) key.
  148. [XXXX Before 0.0.8, EXTEND cells did not include the public key hash.
  149. Servers running 0.0.8 distinguish the old-style cells based on the
  150. length of payloads. (Servers running 0.0.7 blindly pass on the extend
  151. cell regardless of length.) In a future release, old-style EXTEND
  152. cells will not be supported.]
  153. The payload for a CREATED cell, or the relay payload for an
  154. EXTENDED cell, contains:
  155. DH data (g^y) [128 bytes]
  156. Derivative key data (KH) [20 bytes] <see 4.2 below>
  157. The CircID for a CREATE cell is an arbitrarily chosen 2-byte integer,
  158. selected by the node (OP or OR) that sends the CREATE cell. To prevent
  159. CircID collisions, when one OR sends a CREATE cell to another, it chooses
  160. from only one half of the possible values based on the ORs' public
  161. identity keys: if the sending OR has a lower key, it chooses a CircID with
  162. an MSB of 0; otherwise, it chooses a CircID with an MSB of 1.
  163. Public keys are compared numerically by modulus.
  164. (Older versions of Tor compared OR nicknames, and did it in a broken and
  165. unreliable way. To support versions of Tor earlier than 0.0.9pre6,
  166. implementations should notice when the other side of a connection is
  167. sending CREATE cells with the "wrong" MSG, and switch accordingly.)
  168. 4.2. Setting circuit keys
  169. Once the handshake between the OP and an OR is completed, both
  170. servers can now calculate g^xy with ordinary DH. From the base key
  171. material g^xy, they compute derivative key material as follows.
  172. First, the server represents g^xy as a big-endian unsigned integer.
  173. Next, the server computes 100 bytes of key data as K = SHA1(g^xy |
  174. [00]) | SHA1(g^xy | [01]) | ... SHA1(g^xy | [04]) where "00" is
  175. a single octet whose value is zero, [01] is a single octet whose
  176. value is one, etc. The first 20 bytes of K form KH, bytes 21-40 form
  177. the forward digest Df, 41-60 form the backward digest Db, 61-76 form
  178. Kf, and 77-92 form Kb.
  179. KH is used in the handshake response to demonstrate knowledge of the
  180. computed shared key. Df is used to seed the integrity-checking hash
  181. for the stream of data going from the OP to the OR, and Db seeds the
  182. integrity-checking hash for the data stream from the OR to the OP. Kf
  183. is used to encrypt the stream of data going from the OP to the OR, and
  184. Kb is used to encrypt the stream of data going from the OR to the OP.
  185. 4.3. Creating circuits
  186. When creating a circuit through the network, the circuit creator
  187. (OP) performs the following steps:
  188. 1. Choose an onion router as an exit node (R_N), such that the onion
  189. router's exit policy does not exclude all pending streams
  190. that need a circuit.
  191. 2. Choose a chain of (N-1) chain of N onion routers
  192. (R_1...R_N-1) to constitute the path, such that no router
  193. appears in the path twice.
  194. 3. If not already connected to the first router in the chain,
  195. open a new connection to that router.
  196. 4. Choose a circID not already in use on the connection with the
  197. first router in the chain; send a CREATE cell along the
  198. connection, to be received by the first onion router.
  199. 5. Wait until a CREATED cell is received; finish the handshake
  200. and extract the forward key Kf_1 and the backward key Kb_1.
  201. 6. For each subsequent onion router R (R_2 through R_N), extend
  202. the circuit to R.
  203. To extend the circuit by a single onion router R_M, the OP performs
  204. these steps:
  205. 1. Create an onion skin, encrypted to R_M's public key.
  206. 2. Send the onion skin in a relay EXTEND cell along
  207. the circuit (see section 5).
  208. 3. When a relay EXTENDED cell is received, verify KH, and
  209. calculate the shared keys. The circuit is now extended.
  210. When an onion router receives an EXTEND relay cell, it sends a CREATE
  211. cell to the next onion router, with the enclosed onion skin as its
  212. payload. The initiating onion router chooses some circID not yet
  213. used on the connection between the two onion routers. (But see
  214. section 4.1. above, concerning choosing circIDs based on
  215. lexicographic order of nicknames.)
  216. As an extension (called router twins), if the desired next onion
  217. router R in the circuit is down, and some other onion router R'
  218. has the same public keys as R, then it's ok to extend to R' rather than R.
  219. When an onion router receives a CREATE cell, if it already has a
  220. circuit on the given connection with the given circID, it drops the
  221. cell. Otherwise, after receiving the CREATE cell, it completes the
  222. DH handshake, and replies with a CREATED cell. Upon receiving a
  223. CREATED cell, an onion router packs it payload into an EXTENDED relay
  224. cell (see section 5), and sends that cell up the circuit. Upon
  225. receiving the EXTENDED relay cell, the OP can retrieve g^y.
  226. (As an optimization, OR implementations may delay processing onions
  227. until a break in traffic allows time to do so without harming
  228. network latency too greatly.)
  229. 4.4. Tearing down circuits
  230. Circuits are torn down when an unrecoverable error occurs along
  231. the circuit, or when all streams on a circuit are closed and the
  232. circuit's intended lifetime is over. Circuits may be torn down
  233. either completely or hop-by-hop.
  234. To tear down a circuit completely, an OR or OP sends a DESTROY
  235. cell to the adjacent nodes on that circuit, using the appropriate
  236. direction's circID.
  237. Upon receiving an outgoing DESTROY cell, an OR frees resources
  238. associated with the corresponding circuit. If it's not the end of
  239. the circuit, it sends a DESTROY cell for that circuit to the next OR
  240. in the circuit. If the node is the end of the circuit, then it tears
  241. down any associated edge connections (see section 5.1).
  242. After a DESTROY cell has been processed, an OR ignores all data or
  243. destroy cells for the corresponding circuit.
  244. (The rest of this section is not currently used; on errors, circuits
  245. are destroyed, not truncated.)
  246. To tear down part of a circuit, the OP may send a RELAY_TRUNCATE cell
  247. signaling a given OR (Stream ID zero). That OR sends a DESTROY
  248. cell to the next node in the circuit, and replies to the OP with a
  249. RELAY_TRUNCATED cell.
  250. When an unrecoverable error occurs along one connection in a
  251. circuit, the nodes on either side of the connection should, if they
  252. are able, act as follows: the node closer to the OP should send a
  253. RELAY_TRUNCATED cell towards the OP; the node farther from the OP
  254. should send a DESTROY cell down the circuit.
  255. 4.5. Routing relay cells
  256. When an OR receives a RELAY cell, it checks the cell's circID and
  257. determines whether it has a corresponding circuit along that
  258. connection. If not, the OR drops the RELAY cell.
  259. Otherwise, if the OR is not at the OP edge of the circuit (that is,
  260. either an 'exit node' or a non-edge node), it de/encrypts the payload
  261. with AES/CTR, as follows:
  262. 'Forward' relay cell (same direction as CREATE):
  263. Use Kf as key; decrypt.
  264. 'Back' relay cell (opposite direction from CREATE):
  265. Use Kb as key; encrypt.
  266. The OR then decides whether it recognizes the relay cell, by
  267. inspecting the payload as described in section 5.1 below. If the OR
  268. recognizes the cell, it processes the contents of the relay cell.
  269. Otherwise, it passes the decrypted relay cell along the circuit if
  270. the circuit continues. If the OR at the end of the circuit
  271. encounters an unrecognized relay cell, an error has occurred: the OR
  272. sends a DESTROY cell to tear down the circuit.
  273. When a relay cell arrives at an OP, the OP decrypts the payload
  274. with AES/CTR as follows:
  275. OP receives data cell:
  276. For I=N...1,
  277. Decrypt with Kb_I. If the payload is recognized (see
  278. section 5.1), then stop and process the payload.
  279. For more information, see section 5 below.
  280. 5. Application connections and stream management
  281. 5.1. Relay cells
  282. Within a circuit, the OP and the exit node use the contents of
  283. RELAY packets to tunnel end-to-end commands and TCP connections
  284. ("Streams") across circuits. End-to-end commands can be initiated
  285. by either edge; streams are initiated by the OP.
  286. The payload of each unencrypted RELAY cell consists of:
  287. Relay command [1 byte]
  288. 'Recognized' [2 bytes]
  289. StreamID [2 bytes]
  290. Digest [4 bytes]
  291. Length [2 bytes]
  292. Data [498 bytes]
  293. The relay commands are:
  294. 1 -- RELAY_BEGIN
  295. 2 -- RELAY_DATA
  296. 3 -- RELAY_END
  297. 4 -- RELAY_CONNECTED
  298. 5 -- RELAY_SENDME
  299. 6 -- RELAY_EXTEND
  300. 7 -- RELAY_EXTENDED
  301. 8 -- RELAY_TRUNCATE
  302. 9 -- RELAY_TRUNCATED
  303. 10 -- RELAY_DROP
  304. 11 -- RELAY_RESOLVE
  305. 12 -- RELAY_RESOLVED
  306. The 'Recognized' field in any unencrypted relay payload is always
  307. set to zero; the 'digest' field is computed as the first four bytes
  308. of the running SHA-1 digest of all the bytes that have travelled
  309. over this circuit, seeded from Df or Db respectively (obtained in
  310. section 4.2 above), and including this RELAY cell's entire payload
  311. (taken with the digest field set to zero).
  312. When the 'recognized' field of a RELAY cell is zero, and the digest
  313. is correct, the cell is considered "recognized" for the purposes of
  314. decryption (see section 4.5 above).
  315. All RELAY cells pertaining to the same tunneled stream have the
  316. same stream ID. StreamIDs are chosen randomly by the OP. RELAY
  317. cells that affect the entire circuit rather than a particular
  318. stream use a StreamID of zero.
  319. The 'Length' field of a relay cell contains the number of bytes in
  320. the relay payload which contain real payload data. The remainder of
  321. the payload is padded with NUL bytes.
  322. 5.2. Opening streams and transferring data
  323. To open a new anonymized TCP connection, the OP chooses an open
  324. circuit to an exit that may be able to connect to the destination
  325. address, selects an arbitrary StreamID not yet used on that circuit,
  326. and constructs a RELAY_BEGIN cell with a payload encoding the address
  327. and port of the destination host. The payload format is:
  328. ADDRESS | ':' | PORT | [00]
  329. where ADDRESS can be a DNS hostname, or an IPv4 address in
  330. dotted-quad format, or an IPv6 address surrounded by square brackets;
  331. and where PORT is encoded in decimal.
  332. [What is the [00] for? -NM]
  333. [It's so the payload is easy to parse out with string funcs -RD]
  334. Upon receiving this cell, the exit node resolves the address as
  335. necessary, and opens a new TCP connection to the target port. If the
  336. address cannot be resolved, or a connection can't be established, the
  337. exit node replies with a RELAY_END cell. (See 5.4 below.)
  338. Otherwise, the exit node replies with a RELAY_CONNECTED cell, whose
  339. payload is the 4-byte IPv4 address or the 16-byte IPv6 address to which
  340. the connection was made.
  341. The OP waits for a RELAY_CONNECTED cell before sending any data.
  342. Once a connection has been established, the OP and exit node
  343. package stream data in RELAY_DATA cells, and upon receiving such
  344. cells, echo their contents to the corresponding TCP stream.
  345. RELAY_DATA cells sent to unrecognized streams are dropped.
  346. Relay RELAY_DROP cells are long-range dummies; upon receiving such
  347. a cell, the OR or OP must drop it.
  348. 5.3. Closing streams
  349. When an anonymized TCP connection is closed, or an edge node
  350. encounters error on any stream, it sends a 'RELAY_END' cell along the
  351. circuit (if possible) and closes the TCP connection immediately. If
  352. an edge node receives a 'RELAY_END' cell for any stream, it closes
  353. the TCP connection completely, and sends nothing more along the
  354. circuit for that stream.
  355. The payload of a RELAY_END cell begins with a single 'reason' byte to
  356. describe why the stream is closing, plus optional data (depending on
  357. the reason.) The values are:
  358. 1 -- REASON_MISC (catch-all for unlisted reasons)
  359. 2 -- REASON_RESOLVEFAILED (couldn't look up hostname)
  360. 3 -- REASON_CONNECTREFUSED (remote host refused connection) [*]
  361. 4 -- REASON_EXITPOLICY (OR refuses to connect to host or port)
  362. 5 -- REASON_DESTROY (Circuit is being destroyed)
  363. 6 -- REASON_DONE (Anonymized TCP connection was closed)
  364. 7 -- REASON_TIMEOUT (Connection timed out, or OR timed out
  365. while connecting)
  366. 8 -- (unallocated) [**]
  367. 9 -- REASON_HIBERNATING (OR is temporarily hibernating)
  368. 10 -- REASON_INTERNAL (Internal error at the OR)
  369. 11 -- REASON_RESOURCELIMIT (OR has no resources to fulfill request)
  370. 12 -- REASON_CONNRESET (Connection was unexpectedly reset)
  371. 13 -- REASON_TORPROTOCOL (Sent when closing connection because of
  372. Tor protocol violations.)
  373. (With REASON_EXITPOLICY, the 4-byte IPv4 address or 16-byte IPv6 address
  374. forms the optional data; no other reason currently has extra data.)
  375. OPs and ORs MUST accept reasons not on the above list, since future
  376. versions of Tor may provide more fine-grained reasons.
  377. [*] Older versions of Tor also send this reason when connections are
  378. reset.
  379. [**] Due to a bug in versions of Tor through 0095, error reason 8 must
  380. remain allocated until that version is obsolete.
  381. --- [The rest of this section describes unimplemented functionality.]
  382. Because TCP connections can be half-open, we follow an equivalent
  383. to TCP's FIN/FIN-ACK/ACK protocol to close streams.
  384. An exit connection can have a TCP stream in one of three states:
  385. 'OPEN', 'DONE_PACKAGING', and 'DONE_DELIVERING'. For the purposes
  386. of modeling transitions, we treat 'CLOSED' as a fourth state,
  387. although connections in this state are not, in fact, tracked by the
  388. onion router.
  389. A stream begins in the 'OPEN' state. Upon receiving a 'FIN' from
  390. the corresponding TCP connection, the edge node sends a 'RELAY_FIN'
  391. cell along the circuit and changes its state to 'DONE_PACKAGING'.
  392. Upon receiving a 'RELAY_FIN' cell, an edge node sends a 'FIN' to
  393. the corresponding TCP connection (e.g., by calling
  394. shutdown(SHUT_WR)) and changing its state to 'DONE_DELIVERING'.
  395. When a stream in already in 'DONE_DELIVERING' receives a 'FIN', it
  396. also sends a 'RELAY_FIN' along the circuit, and changes its state
  397. to 'CLOSED'. When a stream already in 'DONE_PACKAGING' receives a
  398. 'RELAY_FIN' cell, it sends a 'FIN' and changes its state to
  399. 'CLOSED'.
  400. If an edge node encounters an error on any stream, it sends a
  401. 'RELAY_END' cell (if possible) and closes the stream immediately.
  402. 5.4. Remote hostname lookup
  403. To find the address associated with a hostname, the OP sends a
  404. RELAY_RESOLVE cell containing the hostname to be resolved. (For a reverse
  405. lookup, the OP sends a RELAY_RESOLVE cell containing an in-addr.arpa
  406. address.) The OR replies with a RELAY_RESOLVED cell containing a status
  407. byte, and any number of answers. Each answer is of the form:
  408. Type (1 octet)
  409. Length (1 octet)
  410. Value (variable-width)
  411. "Length" is the length of the Value field.
  412. "Type" is one of:
  413. 0x00 -- Hostname
  414. 0x04 -- IPv4 address
  415. 0x06 -- IPv6 address
  416. 0xF0 -- Error, transient
  417. 0xF1 -- Error, nontransient
  418. If any answer has a type of 'Error', then no other answer may be given.
  419. The RELAY_RESOLVE cell must use a nonzero, distinct streamID; the
  420. corresponding RELAY_RESOLVED cell must use the same streamID. No stream
  421. is actually created by the OR when resolving the name.
  422. 6. Flow control
  423. 6.1. Link throttling
  424. Each node should do appropriate bandwidth throttling to keep its
  425. user happy.
  426. Communicants rely on TCP's default flow control to push back when they
  427. stop reading.
  428. 6.2. Link padding
  429. Currently nodes are not required to do any sort of link padding or
  430. dummy traffic. Because strong attacks exist even with link padding,
  431. and because link padding greatly increases the bandwidth requirements
  432. for running a node, we plan to leave out link padding until this
  433. tradeoff is better understood.
  434. 6.3. Circuit-level flow control
  435. To control a circuit's bandwidth usage, each OR keeps track of
  436. two 'windows', consisting of how many RELAY_DATA cells it is
  437. allowed to package for transmission, and how many RELAY_DATA cells
  438. it is willing to deliver to streams outside the network.
  439. Each 'window' value is initially set to 1000 data cells
  440. in each direction (cells that are not data cells do not affect
  441. the window). When an OR is willing to deliver more cells, it sends a
  442. RELAY_SENDME cell towards the OP, with Stream ID zero. When an OR
  443. receives a RELAY_SENDME cell with stream ID zero, it increments its
  444. packaging window.
  445. Each of these cells increments the corresponding window by 100.
  446. The OP behaves identically, except that it must track a packaging
  447. window and a delivery window for every OR in the circuit.
  448. An OR or OP sends cells to increment its delivery window when the
  449. corresponding window value falls under some threshold (900).
  450. If a packaging window reaches 0, the OR or OP stops reading from
  451. TCP connections for all streams on the corresponding circuit, and
  452. sends no more RELAY_DATA cells until receiving a RELAY_SENDME cell.
  453. [this stuff is badly worded; copy in the tor-design section -RD]
  454. 6.4. Stream-level flow control
  455. Edge nodes use RELAY_SENDME cells to implement end-to-end flow
  456. control for individual connections across circuits. Similarly to
  457. circuit-level flow control, edge nodes begin with a window of cells
  458. (500) per stream, and increment the window by a fixed value (50)
  459. upon receiving a RELAY_SENDME cell. Edge nodes initiate RELAY_SENDME
  460. cells when both a) the window is <= 450, and b) there are less than
  461. ten cell payloads remaining to be flushed at that edge.
  462. 7. Directories and routers
  463. 7.1. Extensible information format
  464. Router descriptors and directories both obey the following lightweight
  465. extensible information format.
  466. The highest level object is a Document, which consists of one or more Items.
  467. Every Item begins with a KeywordLine, followed by one or more Objects. A
  468. KeywordLine begins with a Keyword, optionally followed by a space and more
  469. non-newline characters, and ends with a newline. A Keyword is a sequence of
  470. one or more characters in the set [A-Za-z0-9-]. An Object is a block of
  471. encoded data in pseudo-Open-PGP-style armor. (cf. RFC 2440)
  472. More formally:
  473. Document ::= (Item | NL)+
  474. Item ::= KeywordLine Object*
  475. KeywordLine ::= Keyword NL | Keyword SP ArgumentsChar+ NL
  476. Keyword = KeywordChar+
  477. KeywordChar ::= 'A' ... 'Z' | 'a' ... 'z' | '0' ... '9' | '-'
  478. ArgumentChar ::= any printing ASCII character except NL.
  479. Object ::= BeginLine Base-64-encoded-data EndLine
  480. BeginLine ::= "-----BEGIN " Keyword "-----" NL
  481. EndLine ::= "-----END " Keyword "-----" NL
  482. The BeginLine and EndLine of an Object must use the same keyword.
  483. When interpreting a Document, software MUST reject any document containing a
  484. KeywordLine that starts with a keyword it doesn't recognize.
  485. The "opt" keyword is reserved for non-critical future extensions. All
  486. implementations MUST ignore any item of the form "opt keyword ....." when
  487. they would not recognize "keyword ....."; and MUST treat "opt keyword ....."
  488. as synonymous with "keyword ......" when keyword is recognized.
  489. 7.1. Router descriptor format.
  490. Every router descriptor MUST start with a "router" Item; MUST end with a
  491. "router-signature" Item and an extra NL; and MUST contain exactly one
  492. instance of each of the following Items: "published" "onion-key" "link-key"
  493. "signing-key" "bandwidth". Additionally, a router descriptor MAY contain any
  494. number of "accept", "reject", "fingerprint", "uptime", and "opt" Items.
  495. Other than "router" and "router-signature", the items may appear in any
  496. order.
  497. The items' formats are as follows:
  498. "router" nickname address (ORPort SocksPort DirPort)?
  499. Indicates the beginning of a router descriptor. "address" must be an
  500. IPv4 address in dotted-quad format. The Port values will soon be
  501. deprecated; using them here is equivalent to using them in a "ports"
  502. item.
  503. "ports" ORPort SocksPort DirPort
  504. Indicates the TCP ports at which this OR exposes functionality.
  505. ORPort is a port at which this OR accepts TLS connections for the main
  506. OR protocol; SocksPort is the port at which this OR accepts SOCKS
  507. connections; and DirPort is the port at which this OR accepts
  508. directory-related HTTP connections. If any port is not supported, the
  509. value 0 is given instead of a port number.
  510. "bandwidth" bandwidth-avg bandwidth-burst bandwidth-observed
  511. Estimated bandwidth for this router, in bytes per second. The
  512. "average" bandwidth is the volume per second that the OR is willing
  513. to sustain over long periods; the "burst" bandwidth is the volume
  514. that the OR is willing to sustain in very short intervals. The
  515. "observed" value is an estimate of the capacity this server can
  516. handle. The server remembers the max bandwidth sustained output
  517. over any ten second period in the past day, and another sustained
  518. input. The "observed" value is the lesser of these two numbers.
  519. [bandwidth-observed was not present before 0.0.8.]
  520. "platform" string
  521. A human-readable string describing the system on which this OR is
  522. running. This MAY include the operating system, and SHOULD include
  523. the name and version of the software implementing the Tor protocol.
  524. "published" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
  525. The time, in GMT, when this descriptor was generated.
  526. "fingerprint"
  527. A fingerprint (20 byte SHA1 hash of asn1 encoded public key, encoded
  528. in hex, with spaces after every 4 characters) for this router's
  529. identity key.
  530. "uptime"
  531. The number of seconds that this OR process has been running.
  532. "onion-key" NL a public key in PEM format
  533. This key is used to encrypt EXTEND cells for this OR. The key MUST
  534. be accepted for at least XXXX hours after any new key is published in
  535. a subsequent descriptor.
  536. "signing-key" NL a public key in PEM format
  537. The OR's long-term identity key.
  538. "accept" exitpattern
  539. "reject" exitpattern
  540. These lines, in order, describe the rules that an OR follows when
  541. deciding whether to allow a new stream to a given address. The
  542. 'exitpattern' syntax is described below.
  543. "router-signature" NL Signature NL
  544. The "SIGNATURE" object contains a signature of the PKCS1-padded SHA1
  545. hash of the entire router descriptor, taken from the beginning of the
  546. "router" line, through the newline after the "router-signature" line.
  547. The router descriptor is invalid unless the signature is performed
  548. with the router's identity key.
  549. "dircacheport" port NL
  550. Same as declaring "port" as this OR's directory port in the 'router'
  551. line. At most one of dircacheport and the directory port in the router
  552. line may be non-zero.
  553. [Obsolete; will go away once 0.0.8 is dead. Older versions of Tor
  554. did poorly when non-authoritative directories had a non-zero directory
  555. port. To transition, Tor 0.0.8 used dircacheport for
  556. nonauthoritative directories.]
  557. "contact" info NL
  558. Describes a way to contact the server's administrator, preferably
  559. including an email address and a PGP key fingerprint.
  560. "family" names NL
  561. 'Names' is a space-separated list of server nicknames. If two ORs
  562. list one another in their "family" entries, then OPs should treat
  563. them as a single OR for the purpose of path selection.
  564. For example, if node A's descriptor contains "family B", and node B's
  565. descriptor contains "family A", then node A and node B should never
  566. be used on the same circuit.
  567. "read-history" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS (NSEC s) NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM... NL
  568. "write-history" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS (NSEC s) NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM,NUM... NL
  569. Declare how much bandwidth the OR has used recently. Usage is divided
  570. into intervals of NSEC seconds. The YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS field defines
  571. the end of the most recent interval. The numbers are the number of
  572. bytes used in the most recent intervals, ordered from oldest to newest.
  573. nickname ::= between 1 and 19 alphanumeric characters, case-insensitive.
  574. exitpattern ::= addrspec ":" portspec
  575. portspec ::= "*" | port | port "-" port
  576. port ::= an integer between 1 and 65535, inclusive.
  577. addrspec ::= "*" | ip4spec | ip6spec
  578. ipv4spec ::= ip4 | ip4 "/" num_ip4_bits | ip4 "/" ip4mask
  579. ip4 ::= an IPv4 address in dotted-quad format
  580. ip4mask ::= an IPv4 mask in dotted-quad format
  581. num_ip4_bits ::= an integer between 0 and 32
  582. ip6spec ::= ip6 | ip6 "/" num_ip6_bits
  583. ip6 ::= an IPv6 address, surrounded by square brackets.
  584. num_ip6_bits ::= an integer between 0 and 128
  585. Ports are required; if they are not included in the router
  586. line, they must appear in the "ports" lines.
  587. 7.2. Directory format
  588. A Directory begins with a "signed-directory" item, followed by one each of
  589. the following, in any order: "recommended-software", "published",
  590. "router-status", "directory-signing-key". It may include any number of "opt"
  591. items. After these items, a directory includes any number of router
  592. descriptors, and a single "directory-signature" item.
  593. "signed-directory"
  594. Indicates the start of a directory.
  595. "published" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
  596. The time at which this directory was generated and signed, in GMT.
  597. "directory-signing-key"
  598. The key used to sign this directory; see "signing-key" for format.
  599. "recommended-software" comma-separated-version-list
  600. A list of which versions of which implementations are currently
  601. believed to be secure and compatible with the network.
  602. "running-routers" space-separated-list
  603. A description of which routers are currently believed to be up or
  604. down. Every entry consists of an optional "!", followed by either an
  605. OR's nickname, or "$" followed by a hexadecimal encoding of the hash
  606. of an OR's identity key. If the "!" is included, the router is
  607. believed not to be running; otherwise, it is believed to be running.
  608. If a router's nickname is given, exactly one router of that nickname
  609. will appear in the directory, and that router is "approved" by the
  610. directory server. If a hashed identity key is given, that OR is not
  611. "approved". [XXXX The 'running-routers' line is only provided for
  612. backward compatibility. New code should parse 'router-status'
  613. instead.]
  614. "router-status" space-separated-list
  615. A description of which routers are currently believed to be up or
  616. down, and which are verified or unverified. Contains one entry for
  617. every router that the directory server knows. Each entry is of the
  618. format:
  619. !name=$digest [Verified router, currently not live.]
  620. name=$digest [Verified router, currently live.]
  621. !$digest [Unverified router, currently not live.]
  622. or $digest [Unverified router, currently live.]
  623. (where 'name' is the router's nickname and 'digest' is a hexadecimal
  624. encoding of the hash of the routers' identity key).
  625. When parsing this line, clients should only mark a router as
  626. 'verified' if its nickname AND digest match the one provided.
  627. [XXXX 'router-status' was added in 0.0.9pre5; older directory code
  628. uses 'running-routers' instead.]
  629. "directory-signature" nickname-of-dirserver NL Signature
  630. Note: The router descriptor for the directory server MUST appear first.
  631. The signature is computed by computing the SHA-1 hash of the
  632. directory, from the characters "signed-directory", through the newline
  633. after "directory-signature". This digest is then padded with PKCS.1,
  634. and signed with the directory server's signing key.
  635. If software encounters an unrecognized keyword in a single router descriptor,
  636. it should reject only that router descriptor, and continue using the
  637. others. If it encounters an unrecognized keyword in the directory header,
  638. it should reject the entire directory.
  639. 7.3. Network-status descriptor
  640. A "network-status" (a.k.a "running-routers") document is a truncated
  641. directory that contains only the current status of a list of nodes, not
  642. their actual descriptors. It contains exactly one of each of the following
  643. entries.
  644. "network-status"
  645. Must appear first.
  646. "published" YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
  647. (see 7.2 above)
  648. "router-status" list
  649. (see 7.2 above)
  650. "directory-signature" NL signature
  651. (see 7.2 above)
  652. 7.4. Behavior of a directory server
  653. lists nodes that are connected currently
  654. speaks HTTP on a socket, spits out directory on request
  655. Directory servers listen on a certain port (the DirPort), and speak a
  656. limited version of HTTP 1.0. Clients send either GET or POST commands.
  657. The basic interactions are:
  658. "%s %s HTTP/1.0\r\nContent-Length: %lu\r\nHost: %s\r\n\r\n",
  659. command, url, content-length, host.
  660. Get "/tor/" to fetch a full directory.
  661. Get "/tor/dir.z" to fetch a compressed full directory.
  662. Get "/tor/running-routers" to fetch a network-status descriptor.
  663. Post "/tor/" to post a server descriptor, with the body of the
  664. request containing the descriptor.
  665. "host" is used to specify the address:port of the dirserver, so
  666. the request can survive going through HTTP proxies.
  667. A.1. Differences between spec and implementation
  668. - The current specification requires all ORs to have IPv4 addresses, but
  669. allows servers to exit and resolve to IPv6 addresses, and to declare IPv6
  670. addresses in their exit policies. The current codebase has no IPv6
  671. support at all.