using both ConnectTo and AutoConnect to avoid network partitions

[Nirmal Thacker]

Thanks Guss, some comments and questions:

If you make the yellow nodes ConnectTo all other nodes, and not have
> AutoConnect = yes, and the other nodes just have AutoConnect = yes but
> no ConnectTo's, then you will get the desired graph.


The reason this approach is not desirable is because it fails at
automation. It requires us to add a new line of AutoConnect = <new node
that joined tinc> to both yellow nodes everytime a new node node joins,
while in the current setup as long as the keys of every new node are
exchanged between the new nodes and the yellow nodes, the ConnectTo's can
stay constant


> Yes, AutoConnect will still remove outgoing connections that it thinks
> are redundant. So even if the initial ConnectTo's will cause nodes to
> connect to the yellow ones, after a while they can remove those.
>

Is this optimization also vulnerable to the bug we saw earlier with regard
to the network split? Or given that the ConnectTo's exist, peer nodes, will
fall back onto these, thereby 'recovering' in some sense if a network split
were to occur due to the the AutoConnect bug?


   -nirmal

On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 1:27 PM, Guus Sliepen <guus at tinc-vpn.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 10:40:39AM -0700, Nirmal Thacker wrote:
>
> > Following your suggestion we reconfigured our tinc network as follows.
> > Here is a new graph and below is our updated configuration:
> > http://imgur.com/a/n6ksh
> [...]
> > We are concerned that:
> > - We still dont see edges in the graph that show connections between
> every
> > blue labeled node to both the yellow labeled nodes
> >
> > Any reason why we dont see these edges?
>
> Yes, AutoConnect will still remove outgoing connections that it thinks
> are redundant. So even if the initial ConnectTo's will cause nodes to
> connect to the yellow ones, after a while they can remove those.
>
> > Is there something missing in our configuration?
>
> If you make the yellow nodes ConnectTo all other nodes, and not have
> AutoConnect = yes, and the other nodes just have AutoConnect = yes but
> no ConnectTo's, then you will get the desired graph.
>
> > > > - What is the workaround until we patch with this fix? Using a
> > > combination of AutoConnect and ConnectTo?
> > >
> > > Yes.
>
> I should've elaborated here.
>
> --
> Met vriendelijke groet / with kind regards,
>      Guus Sliepen <guus at tinc-vpn.org>
>
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>
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