Add an option to disable relaying onion traffic

[palikacska]

I use uTox and Isotoxin and noticed that all two Tox clients generate some traffic at around 1kB/s. Checked it with a sniffer and looks like encrypted data. Did some Google search and I suppose it's DHT traffic coming from the bootstrap node I connect to. Can DHT traffic relaying be disabled?

I'm behind a firewall (restricted work network) and no other clients or nodes can connect to me. I also cannot connect to any other nodes that do not default to port 443. So I think it's nonsense for me to relay traffic. Or relay among whom? The only node I can communicate with is a TCP relay bootstrap node.

[iphydf]

You can disable UDP (which disables the DHT). Your client should provide an option for this.

[palikacska]

It is disabled in both of the mentioned clients. From my work network I could not even have any UDP traffic. It's filtered by the firewall. Still there is TCP traffic between my computer and the relay node I connect to (via TCP port 443). Even if all my contacts are offline.

[GrayHatter]

It's looking for your contacts, and making sure that the node where your friend will look for you, knows you're online.

[palikacska]

Why does it have to look for my contacts every second? I have only two contacts. It communicates with ten times more amount of data than when chatting.

Let alone mobile devices that run a client like Antox which is also based on toxcore. They will drain the battery really fast just because of this (I think) unnecessary relay/lookup data that uses Wi-Fi or mobile internet (3G/4G) which means high power consumption. Not to mention the traffic it continuously causes when connected to a 3G/4G mobile internet network. It can consume a significant part of the data plan.

Traffic should only be generated when there is communication and peer-to-peer connections should be preferred with UPnP techniques instead of relaying everything. Before Tox gets widespread this should be thought over again seriously. Tox should be decentralized as much as possible. Not interdependent that causes a lot of unnecessary extra traffic.

[iphydf]

• "Traffic should only be generated when there is communication" - this is not possible. Since it's peer-to-peer, you need to have regular traffic to announce yourself so friends can find you.
• "UPnP techniques" - we're working on it: Add NAT traversal #226. If you have expertise, any help there is welcome.

[palikacska]

Well, I'm not saying that all relaying or user announcing have to be disabled. I'm saying that there should be an option that I don't want to participate in forwarding this traffic, because it causes high data usage and it costs extra money when we're talking about data plans on mobile networks.

[iphydf]

We should certainly reduce data usage. We will be looking into that in due time (after we've established a basis upon which we can build, and which we can modify without the constant fear of things breaking in subtle ways). But, I don't think you are relaying traffic if you disable UDP. #440 could be related to this issue.

[zoff99]

also (but a different issue) is sending own avatar every time a friend comes online.
just think when you have 1000 android mobile devices and people are going into elevators and such. those devices will go offline and online all the time.

they will be sending avatar byte constantly all the time

[GrayHatter]

@zoff99 clients should use tox_hash() to get a reproducible data hash for the avatar. Then send the avatar with that hash. Again, sane clients will check this against the hash they have already, and will cancel the file transfer if they already have that avatar.

[zoff99]

if 1 million devices send avatar hashes every 1 minute, thats still stupid and just a waste of bandwidth.
also again, all tox client developers need to code this , and duplicate code and incompatibilites will arise.

this is not a code issue, but rather a specification issue. it says that sending avatar is required when a friend comes online. there should be room for a "can send avatar ...." or something.

[GrayHatter]

You're really gonna be discouraged when you learn that toxcore sends your name and your status message to every friend every time you connect.

…

On Jan 24, 2017 1:29 AM, "Zoff" ***@***.***> wrote: if 1 million devices send avatar hashes every 1 minute, thats still stupid and just a waste of bandwidth — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#441 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAO20Np3JWJDoidKB3frbdSxnvQyLalvks5rVcR5gaJpZM4Lk2Iy> .

[zoff99]

:-)

[iphydf]

Action here is: add an option to ignore all onion traffic.

This option is for users who want to be in the DHT but don't want to participate in the onion.