improvement: reduce workload or proxy

[WofWca]

...to be comparable to browser-based proxies. Otherwise the proxy polls every 5 seconds, which is 12x as frequent as browser-based proxies do. See

• https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake/-/issues/40373
• https://github.com/guardianproject/orbot/issues/1105

Due to changes in the API, I think this is gonna be a breaking change.

Why WIP:

• [ ] This requires updating to a (not yet released) Snowflake version. For reference, see de01c06515678bef35be867dc1b780a805889b3e
• [ ] I am not sure whether it is OK to log.Fatalf inside the main function instead of in the goroutine.
• [ ] Please verify that this will produce sane C binding outputs, and is good otherwise - I do not really understand this part.
• [ ] Maybe there is a better way to write this? I used int, thinking that it's not gonna be available for the C version.

[tladesignz]

Let me know, when a Snowflake version will be released, which contains your changes! Then we'll move this forward.

[WofWca]

Hey! Letting you know, as promised, that a new release has been published. It includes the change that is needed for this MR.

[tladesignz]

Do you mean Snowflake version 2.10.1? I'm currently working on a complete rewrite with the help of Tor Project folks. See #60 That version is already in it: https://github.com/tladesignz/IPtProxy/commit/768e1e3ba6828aada8585677fd6af33e4c0d1d55#diff-921d56f45ab720258a612811bbd4594084f19cd8a179ed28708deaf302e787a2R10

We're short of releasing, one more upstream bug needs to be resolved.

[WofWca]

Yes, I meant 2.10.1. It includes the PollInterval config option.

[tladesignz]

Ok, is this helpful for you? 3e2825a3b7e1e60b2afc1f2e127915f5c2e4eda2

[WofWca]

Yes, it's the right direction, but I'd say we need to default to a lower value, as in this MR.

Would you like me to rebase it?

[tladesignz]

The default comes from the upstream Snowflake library. Unless you give a good reason, why the default should be 2 seconds instead of 5, that is not going to change...

[tladesignz]

Oh, you actually mean the higher value of 120 seconds, which is a lower frequency? Well, still.

[WofWca]

Oh, you actually mean the higher value of 120 seconds

Yes. The reasons are laid out here https://github.com/guardianproject/orbot/issues/1105 The upstream maintainers agree with me: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake/-/issues/40373:

orbot proxies poll very frequently, more frequently than browser proxies, because they use the Snowflake Go library which was historically only used by standalone clients with more resources. We should add a field to the SnowflakeProxy struct to allow callers of the library, like iptproxy, to modify the poll interval.

[tladesignz]

Sorry, but I don't see any argument in the mentioned documents, why this should default to 120 seconds in IPtProxy. It's definitely valuable to set it to something higher than 5 seconds in Orbot, true that. But why have a different default? Because mobile?

@n8fr8, what would you consider a sensible value in Orbot?

[WofWca]

Yes, because mobile. The default for browsers is 60 seconds.

This project is currently only used in Orbot and in its iOS alternative, right?

[n8fr8]

The SnowflakeProxy "kindness" mode feature is only on Orbot Android.

I don't have any special insight to what the value should be for this usage, but I think we want to lessen the burden on the user's device as we can.

[WofWca]

I raised this question on today's Tor anti-censorship meeting. We agreed that 120s should be alright. I'll post a link later if needed.

Update: https://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2024/tor-meeting.2024-12-05-16.01.log.html

[tladesignz]

Well. Everybody agreed on that Orbot should move to a 120 second interval. That doesn't mean IPtProxy should.

Sorry, but the notion of changing the default of this in IPtProxy rubs me the wrong way. It'll be very different to what it was before. It will be very different to what the upstream Snowfake Proxy code uses.

For anybody using this other than us, that will create confusion. And no. I don't have an idea of who else is using this feature, and if there are users at all. After all, it's FOSS. But I know of different people using IPtProxy in general. So there might be users out there, who are using the Snowflake Proxy feature and they would be very surprised if I change this behind their back.

I will leave it at the default 5 seconds for now, in this lib.

Orbot then can, and should, increase this value.

I'll publish a release.

[WofWca]

That's also fine. Thanks!

[tladesignz]

It's published! https://central.sonatype.com/artifact/com.netzarchitekten/IPtProxy