tor/doc/contrib/torel-design.txt

Design For A Tor DNS-based Exit List

Status:

  This is a suggested design for a DNS Exit List (DNSEL) for Tor exit nodes.
  See http://exitlist.torproject.org/ for an implementation.

Why?

  It's useful for third parties to be able to tell when a given connection
  is coming from a Tor exit node.  Potential applications range from
  "anonymous user" cloaks on IRC networks like oftc, to networks like
  Freenode that apply special authentication rules to users from these
  IPs, to systems like Wikipedia that may want to make a priority of
  _unblocking_ shared IPs more liberally than non-shared IPs, since shared
  IPs presumably have non-abusive users as well as abusive ones.

  Since Tor provides exit policies, not every Tor server will connect to
  every address:port combination on the Internet.  Unless you're trying to
  penalize hosts for supporting anonymity, it makes more sense to answer
  the fine-grained question "which Tor servers will connect to _me_?" than
  the coarse-grained question "which Tor servers exist?"  The fine-grained
  approach also helps Tor server ops who share an IP with their Tor
  server: if they want to access a site that blocks Tor users, they
  can exclude that site from their exit policy, and the site can learn
  that they won't send it anonymous connections.

  Tor already ships with a tool (the "contrib/exitlist" script) to
  identify which Tor nodes might open anonymous connections to any given
  exit address.  But this is a bit tricky to set up, so only sites like
  Freenode and OFTC that are dedicated to privacy use it.
  Conversely, providers of some DNSEL implementations are providing
  coarse-grained lists of Tor hosts -- sometimes even listing servers that
  permit no exit connections at all.  This is rather a problem, since
  support for DNSEL is pretty ubiquitous.


How?

  Keep a running Tor instance, and parse the cached-routers and
  cached-routers.new files as new routers arrive.  To tell whether a given
  server allows connections to a certain address:port combo, look at the
  definitions in dir-spec.txt or follow the logic of the current exitlist
  script. If bug 405 is still open when you work on this
  (https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&id=405), you'll
  probably want to extend it to look at only the newest descriptor for
  each server, so you don't use obsolete exit policy data.

  FetchUselessDescriptors would probably be a good torrc option to enable.

  If you're also running a directory cache, you get extra-fresh
  information.


The DNS interface

  Standard DNSEL, if I understand right, looks like this: There's some
  authoritative name server for foo.example.com.  You want to know if
  1.2.3.4 is in the list, so you query for an A record for
  4.3.2.1.foo.example.com.  If the record exists and has the value
  127.0.0.2[DNSBL-EMAIL], 1.2.3.4 is in the list.  If you get an NXDOMAIN
  error, 1.2.3.4 is not in the list.  If you ask for a domain name outside
  of the foo.example.com zone, you get a Server Failure error[RFC 1035].

  Assume that the DNSEL answers queries authoritatively for some zone,
  torhosts.example.com.  Below are some queries that could be supported,
  though some of them are possibly a bad idea.


  Query type 1: "General IP:Port"

    Format:
        {IP1}.{port}.{IP2}.ip-port.torhosts.example.com

    Rule:
        Iff {IP1} is a Tor server that permits connections to {port} on
        {IP2}, then there should be an A record with the value 127.0.0.2.

    Example:
        "1.0.0.10.80.4.3.2.1.ip-port.torhosts.example.com" should have the
        value 127.0.0.2 if and only if there is a Tor server at 10.0.0.1
        that allows connections to port 80 on 1.2.3.4.

    Example use:
        I'm running an IRC server at w.x.y.z:9999, and I want to tell
        whether an incoming connection is from a Tor server.  I set
        up my IRC server to give a special mask to any user coming from
        an IP listed in 9999.z.y.x.w.ip-port.torhosts.example.com.

        Later, when I get a connection from a.b.c.d, my ircd looks up
        "d.c.b.a.9999.z.y.x.w.ip-port.torhosts.example.com" to see
        if it's a Tor server that allows connections to my ircd.


  Query type 2: "IP-port group"

    Format:
        {IP}.{listname}.list.torhosts.example.com

    Rule:
        Iff this Tor server is configured with an IP:Port list named
        {listname}, and {IP} is a Tor server that permits connections to
        any member of {listname}, then there exists an A record.

    Example:
        Suppose torhosts.example.com has a list of IP:Port called "foo".
        There is an A record for 4.3.2.1.foo.list.torhosts.example.com
        if and only if 1.2.3.4 is a Tor server that permits connections
        to one of the addresses in list "foo".

    Example use:
        Suppose torhosts.example.com has a list of hosts in "examplenet",
        a popular IRC network.  Rather than having them each set up to
        query the appropriate "ip-port" list, they could instead all be
        set to query a central examplenet.list.torhosts.example.com.

    Problems:
        We'd be better off if each individual server queried about hosts
        that allowed connections to itself.  That way, if I wanted to
        allow anonymous connections to foonet, but I wanted to be able to
        connect to foonet from my own IP without being marked, I could add
        just a few foonet addresses to my exit policy.


  Query type 3: "My IP, with port"

    Format:
        {IP}.{port}.me.torhosts.example.com

    Rule:
        An A record exists iff there is a tor server at {IP} that permits
        connections to {port} on the host that requested the lookup.

    Example:
        "4.3.2.1.80.me.torhosts.example.com" should have an A record if
        and only if there is a Tor server at 1.2.3.4 that allows
        connections to port 80 of the querying host.

    Example use:
        Somebody wants to set up a quick-and-dirty Tor detector for a
        single webserver: just point them at 80.me.torhosts.example.com.

    Problem:
        This would be easiest to use, but DNS gets in the way. If you
        create DNS records that give different results depending on who is
        asking, you mess up caching.  There could be a fix here, but might
        not.


  RECOMMENDATION: Just build ip-port for now, and see what demand is
  like.  There's no point in building mechanisms nobody wants.

Web interface:

  Should provide the same data as the dns interface.

Other issues:

  After a Tor server op turns off their server, it stops publishing server
  descriptors. We should consider that server's IP address to still
  represent a Tor node until 48 hours after its last descriptor was
  published.

  30-60 minutes is not an unreasonable TTL.

  There could be some demand for address masks and port lists. Address
  masks wider than /8 make me nervous here, as do port ranges.

  We need an answer for what to do about hosts which exit from different
  IPs than their advertised IP. One approach would be for the DNSEL
  to launch periodic requests to itself through all exit servers whose
  policies allow it -- and then see where the requests actually come from.

References:

  [DNSBL-EMAIL] Levine, J., "DNS Based Blacklists and Whitelists for
  E-Mail", http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-irtf-asrg-dnsbl-02, November
  2005.

  [RFC 1035] Mockapetris, P., "Domain Names - Implementation and
  Specification", RFC 1035, November 1987.