[tahoe-lafs-trac-stream] [tahoe-lafs] #1086: servers should attempt to open connections to clients

[tahoe-lafs]

#1086: servers should attempt to open connections to clients
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     Reporter:  zooko         |      Owner:
         Type:  enhancement   |     Status:  new
     Priority:  major         |  Milestone:  eventually
    Component:  code-network  |    Version:  1.7β
   Resolution:                |   Keywords:  introducer
Launchpad Bug:                |
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Comment (by davidsarah):

 Replying to [comment:8 zooko]:
 > tjgillies added a FAQ entry on the wiki: wiki:FAQ?version=52#Q21_NAT

 which says:
 > Ideally, all clients attempt to open connections to all servers, and all
 servers attempt to open connections to all clients. So, if the client is
 not behind NAT, then even if the server is behind NAT. However, this is
 not currently the case. Currently what it does is that all clients attempt
 to open connections to all servers, but if there is a connection between
 two Tahoe-LAFS processes (== Tahoe-LAFS nodes) it can re-use that
 connection for any client or server in either node. So, when you enabled a
 storage server on the public facing server, that caused the node behind
 NAT to initiate a TCP connection to the node on the public facing server.
 Once that connection was established, that enabled the node there to *use*
 the server behind NAT.

 The current behaviour is a bug for the following reason: If a node is
 behind a NAT and is only intermittently connected, but has storage service
 enabled (by mistake, perhaps), then it will sometimes be used as a server
 and sometimes be inaccessible. Worse, it will only be accessible to some
 subset of the other nodes. This leads to poor preservation and
 availability. It is better for the NAT to cause the node to always be
 inaccessible as a server.

 I also disagree that we should be changing the behaviour to one style now
 and then changing it to the opposite style later. It makes more sense to
 have a config switch (but I don't know where that switch should be).

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1086#comment:12>
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