Re: [Sks-devel] "sks recon" without "sks db"

[Kim Minh Kaplan]

Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote:

> I was wondering if "sks recon" is able to do any useful work if "sks db"
> is not running.

No.

> I'm not clear on the specific mechanics of the recon
> protocol --

Although I do not understand the underlying mathematics, I've had a
look at the protocol. First the recon processes send each other the
hash (SHA1 if I remember correctly) of the keys that are not the peers
database. This is the part that does the math describes in Yaron
Minsky’s Set Reconciliation with Nearly Optimal Communication
Complexity. After that each recon process queries the peer db process
for the real keys, using a POST /pks/hashquery and send those keys to
the local db server through a unix socket.

> do gossiping servers need to fetch or send keys to/from the
> peer's "sks db" service?

Yes.

> Any pointers to documentation that would answer this question would be
> welcome also.

I do not know about any documentation thus I will point you to the
code in recon that call out to db.
https://bitbucket.org/skskeyserver/sks-keyserver/src/4069c369eaaa718c6d4f19427f8f164fb9a1e1f0/reconserver.ml?at=default#cl-116
and the functions send_dbmsg and get_keystrings_via_http in
https://bitbucket.org/skskeyserver/sks-keyserver/src/4069c369eaaa718c6d4f19427f8f164fb9a1e1f0/reconComm.ml?at=default#cl-56
-- 
Kim Minh.
http://www.kim-minh.com/