Dear those experts who are familiar with Directory Protocol, I just search on Atlas for Authorities Directories and found there are 10, include "Tonga". But when I check the Consensus Health I found that "Tonga" is not on the list of "Signatures", "Known flags", "Number of relays voted about", "Consensus methods"; while the node named "consensus" did not appear in Atlas, but is on those list and can vote the "network status". So may question is that: Is "Tonga" really an Authority Directory? IS "Tonga" and "consensus" a same node? Thank you in advance!
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1 Answer
The difference is because Tonga is a little special. Unlike the other directory authorities Tonga doesn't vote in the consensus (iirc it's the bridge authority). Take a peek at the following list...
https://gitweb.torproject.org/stem.git/tree/stem/descriptor/remote.py#n674
Note that Tonga doesn't have a v3ident. Tonga is an authority, but doesn't vote so for things like Consensus Health which are concerned with the consensus it's moot.
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Thank you Damian for your quick response to my question. I think I got your point about "Tonga", but how about the node named "consensus" highlighted in blue? Is it just a virtual node designated for the final agreement between other nodes' votes? thank you in advance! Mar 6, 2015 at 0:08
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1Nope, 'consensus' isn't a relay. Directory authorities each vote on what they think should the network should look like. These individual votes are tallied, and the majority determines the 'consensus'. The consensus is the de-facto definition of who's a tor relay, and used by clients (tor users) to make their circuits. This is a way of distributing trust so a single malicious authority (or even a group of them) can't hurt users.– DamianMar 6, 2015 at 6:57