[Sks-devel] Introduction + some ideas ...

[Sebastian Urbach]

Hi,

I want to indtroduce myself. My name is Sebastian "goose" Urbach and im
one of the 2 admins from keyserver.ccc-hanau.de. I want to thank my
collegue Jens who is on this list for a quite a while now and did most
of our work for the sks-keyserver after i suggested that we should
install one, ähm shame on me ...

I also set up a new keyserver called key-server.de which should be in
the pool within the next day or so. Btw, I need more peer-partners, so
if you are interested in just give me a wink and it will be done in no
time ;-)

Im well known for "direct and plain speaking and get stuff done", so
lets get started with a few ideas of mine regarding this project. As i
understand the owner of sks-keyservers-net is also on this list.

Here are a few ideas:

Problem 1:

Definitely not a good idea to base the server weight on just
one single probe from your server, probably physically based in the
United-States. This is resulting in very unrealistic values and is
getting even worse with every mile further away from the US and seems
to be unfair for the most servers which are not US based.

Solution:

Pick a few server on every continent to be redundant (if available) and
let them do checks right there. So we may get some realistic values.
This is just a rough plan, details should be figured out if you are
willing to change the procedure.

Problem 2:

Pool checks are, as i understand, just performed once for
about 12 hours ? If someone has a short problem. lets say reboot or
something during the check, he will be excluded from the pool for at
least 12 hours, as it happened with our keyserver a few days ago.

Solution:

Repeat the test after 5 or 10 minutes or so. That should prevent the
mentioned situation from above. It shouldnt be that hard on your
traffic or server load to do that.

Problem 3:

"The key differ value" is just based on your own number +/- afew
hundred as i recall. That seems to be a problem because the servers
have very different statistic times in reality and that could be result
in a difference that is too large by the time your value kicks in.

Solution:

Just sum up all key numbers from the servers which are in the pool by
that time and divide it through the number of keyservers. It could be
posted on the status page so that everbody can read it. Maybe like:

Total key number (all servers) / number of servers = xyz

You should be in the range between xyz and xyz keys to be included in
the pool.

Finally:

I know a lot to read but if we want to make some progress it had to be
discussed. I dont want to tease you, my ideas should be just a
starting point for a hopefully good contentual discussion and the only
possibility for that is this list ...

Have a nice weekend.

Greetings from the warm and sunny germany which is really confusing
for this time of the year ;-) 

-- 

Mit freundlichen Gruessen / yours sincerely

Sebastian Urbach

----------------------------------------------------------
Angewoehnung geistiger Grundsaetze ohne Gruende
nennt man Glauben.
----------------------------------------------------------
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)
Philosoph, Essayist, Lyriker und Schriftsteller

signature.asc
Description: PGP signature