Anondate

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extracting time from Tor consensus

anondate-get

Diagnostic utility. anondate-get. A higher level and easier to use tool than the lower level anondate.

Usage of anondate-get should be safe. It does not use networking. It does not change the time. It only looks at locally available information.

sudo anondate-get

Sample output.

/usr/sbin/anondate-get: INFO: 100% Tor bootstrap, ok.
/usr/sbin/anondate-get: INFO: tor_circuit_established_check.py, ok.
/usr/sbin/anondate-get: INFO: Tor circuit already established, ok.
/usr/sbin/anondate-get: INFO: current time in valid in range, ok.
/usr/sbin/anondate-get: INFO: Tor certificate lifetime valid, ok.
/usr/sbin/anondate-get: END: Exiting with exit_code '3' indicating 'Could not determine any time using Tor from consensus or certificate life time.'.

anondate-set

Security impact has yet to be documented.

anondate-set.

sudo anondate-set

/usr/sbin/anondate-set: INFO: Status file '/run/anondate/tor_certificate_lifetime_set' does not yet exist.
/usr/sbin/anondate-set: INFO: running anondate-get...
/usr/sbin/anondate-get: INFO: 100% Tor bootstrap, ok.
/usr/sbin/anondate-get: INFO: tor_circuit_established_check.py, ok.
/usr/sbin/anondate-get: INFO: Tor circuit already established, ok.
/usr/sbin/anondate-get: INFO: current time in valid in range, ok.
/usr/sbin/anondate-get: INFO: Tor certificate lifetime valid, ok.
/usr/sbin/anondate-get: END: Exiting with exit_code '3' indicating 'Could not determine any time using Tor from consensus or certificate life time.'.
/usr/sbin/anondate-set: END: Exiting with exit_code '3' indicating 'Setting time using anondate either not possible or not required.'.

anondate

Introduction

• TODO: documentation on anondate is outdated
• The anondate interface description as per the latest git master:
• Kicksecure GitHub helper-scripts repository subpath
• See also: #Tor Consensus Method
• Needs access to either:
  • /var/run/tor/log (default only in Kicksecure). [Tor Project upstream feature request: additional /var/run/tor/log default log] This is preferable because it contains only Tor's log since the last boot, which is more relevant and easier for anondate to parse.
  • Or access to /var/log/tor/log. This is configurable through the environment variable TOR_LOG (export TOR_LOG=/var/log/tor/log). (Alternatively, we could change the default in the code.)

Consensus Related Options

• --verified-only
• --prefer-verified
• --unverified-only

Special Exit Codes

• exit 3: $TOR_LOG not readable.
• exit 4: $consensus not readable.

anondate --has-consensus

Useful for checking whether requesting any of the #Date Ranges Output values is worthwhile.

• yes:
  • exit 0
• no:
  • exit 1

Could be replaced by Tor ControlPort / python-stem?

• verified-only: Yes. (consensus/valid-after)
• unverified: No.

anondate --current-time-in-valid-range

Useful as a sanity test before setting the time for the first time and before updating it with a newly fetched timestamp.

• yes:
  • exit 0
• no:
  • exit 1

Could be replaced by Tor ControlPort / python-stem?

• verified-only: Yes. (See below.)
• unverified: No. Tor Project upstream feature request: make unverified consensus ISOTime accessible through Tor's ControlPort

anondate --show-valid-after

• yes:
  • output: 2015-08-15 22:00:00
  • exit 0
• no:
  • exit 1

Could be replaced by Tor ControlPort / python-stem?

• verified-only: Yes. consensus/valid-after
• unverified: No. Tor Project upstream feature request: make unverified consensus ISOTime accessible through Tor's ControlPort

anondate --show-valid-until

• yes:
  • output: 2015-08-16 01:00:00
  • exit 0
• no:
  • exit 1

Could be replaced by Tor ControlPort / python-stem?

• verified-only: Yes. consensus/valid-until
• unverified: No. Tor Project upstream feature request: make unverified consensus ISOTime accessible through Tor's ControlPort

anondate --show-middle-range

• yes:
  • output: 2015-08-15 23:30:00
  • exit 0
• no:
  • exit 1

(A scripted calculation of the above.)

Certificate Validity

When the clock is several months or years fast or slow, Tor cannot even download the Tor consensus. Tor, however, should always provide a certificate lifetime. For a security discussion, see also Tor Certificate Lifetime.

anondate --tor-cert-lifetime-valid

Sep 03 10:32:59.000 [warn] Certificate already expired. Either their clock is set wrong, or your clock is wrong.
Sep 03 10:32:59.000 [warn] (certificate lifetime runs from Aug 16 00:00:00 2014 GMT through Jul 29 23:59:59 2015 GMT. Your time is Sep 03 10:32:59 2015 UTC.)

• yes:
  • output: Sep 03 10:34:00.000 [warn] Certificate already expired. Either their clock is set wrong, or your clock is wrong.
  • exit 0
• no:
  • exit 1

Could this be replaced by Tor ControlPort / python-stem? No. Tor Project upstream feature request: make certificate lifetime accessible through Tor's ControlPort

anondate --tor-cert-valid-after

Similar to the above, but provides less output.

• output: Jun 16 00:00:00 2014 GMT
• Exit codes unreliable.
• Don't use without invoking the above first.
• (Could be fixed in the code if worthwhile.)

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