Hi everybody,
i'm in china and when i start tor nodes (on a linux server) i often have to first start up the node using bridges, after i ran tor for a while i can restart the node as a bridge-no-exit-relay-entry-node, or whatever, and it will (through its cached data, I guess) be able to connect to the tor network.. and, importantly, help other nodes to connect to the tor network.
It would be great if the node's mode could automatically change, when I start the tor node it will try to be a bridge relay according to my torrc, if it can not establish a connection it will first use a bridge and when it has enough data (non blocked entry nodes) will return to becoming a relay. Does this make sense?
btw i think bridges.torproject.org is blocked in china (perhaps not surprisingly). And also, on linux servers, couldn't the tor node get the bridges via email by itself, that would be fantastic! each tor node could have its own gmail account, but i guess it would probably somehow be a problem for anonymity..?
take care
:)