diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index de1eb0469..e45ebcfe2 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -133,6 +133,7 @@
 /src/config/sample-server-torrc
 /src/config/torrc
 /src/config/torrc.sample
+/src/config/torrc.minimal
 
 # /src/or/
 /src/or/Makefile
diff --git a/changes/ticket11144 b/changes/ticket11144
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..265481b96
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changes/ticket11144
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+  o New features (sample torrc):
+    - Add a new, infrequently-changed "torrc.minimal".  This file's
+      purpose is similar to torrc.sample, but it is meant to be small
+      and change as infrequently as possible, for the benefit of
+      users whose systems prompt them for intervention whenever a
+      default configuration file is changed. Making this change
+      allows us to update torrc.sample to be a more generally useful
+      "sample torrc".
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 414c72a42..067527a77 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -1555,6 +1555,7 @@ AC_CONFIG_FILES([
         contrib/dist/torctl
         contrib/dist/tor.service
         src/config/torrc.sample
+        src/config/torrc.minimal
 ])
 
 if test x$asciidoc = xtrue && test "$ASCIIDOC" = "none" ; then
diff --git a/src/config/include.am b/src/config/include.am
index 35961b829..c28362851 100644
--- a/src/config/include.am
+++ b/src/config/include.am
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ confdir = $(sysconfdir)/tor
 
 tordatadir = $(datadir)/tor
 
-EXTRA_DIST+= src/config/geoip src/config/geoip6
+EXTRA_DIST+= src/config/geoip src/config/geoip6 src/config/torrc.minimal.in
 # fallback-consensus
 
 conf_DATA = src/config/torrc.sample
diff --git a/src/config/torrc.minimal.in b/src/config/torrc.minimal.in
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..d842fbcaf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/config/torrc.minimal.in
@@ -0,0 +1,192 @@
+## Configuration file for a typical Tor user
+## Last updated 9 October 2013 for Tor 0.2.5.2-alpha.
+## (may or may not work for much older or much newer versions of Tor.)
+##
+## Lines that begin with "## " try to explain what's going on. Lines
+## that begin with just "#" are disabled commands: you can enable them
+## by removing the "#" symbol.
+##
+## See 'man tor', or https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-manual.html,
+## for more options you can use in this file.
+##
+## Tor will look for this file in various places based on your platform:
+## https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq#torrc
+
+## Tor opens a socks proxy on port 9050 by default -- even if you don't
+## configure one below. Set "SocksPort 0" if you plan to run Tor only
+## as a relay, and not make any local application connections yourself.
+#SocksPort 9050 # Default: Bind to localhost:9050 for local connections.
+#SocksPort 192.168.0.1:9100 # Bind to this address:port too.
+
+## Entry policies to allow/deny SOCKS requests based on IP address.
+## First entry that matches wins. If no SocksPolicy is set, we accept
+## all (and only) requests that reach a SocksPort. Untrusted users who
+## can access your SocksPort may be able to learn about the connections
+## you make.
+#SocksPolicy accept 192.168.0.0/16
+#SocksPolicy reject *
+
+## Logs go to stdout at level "notice" unless redirected by something
+## else, like one of the below lines. You can have as many Log lines as
+## you want.
+##
+## We advise using "notice" in most cases, since anything more verbose
+## may provide sensitive information to an attacker who obtains the logs.
+##
+## Send all messages of level 'notice' or higher to @LOCALSTATEDIR@/log/tor/notices.log
+#Log notice file @LOCALSTATEDIR@/log/tor/notices.log
+## Send every possible message to @LOCALSTATEDIR@/log/tor/debug.log
+#Log debug file @LOCALSTATEDIR@/log/tor/debug.log
+## Use the system log instead of Tor's logfiles
+#Log notice syslog
+## To send all messages to stderr:
+#Log debug stderr
+
+## Uncomment this to start the process in the background... or use
+## --runasdaemon 1 on the command line. This is ignored on Windows;
+## see the FAQ entry if you want Tor to run as an NT service.
+#RunAsDaemon 1
+
+## The directory for keeping all the keys/etc. By default, we store
+## things in $HOME/.tor on Unix, and in Application Data\tor on Windows.
+#DataDirectory @LOCALSTATEDIR@/lib/tor
+
+## The port on which Tor will listen for local connections from Tor
+## controller applications, as documented in control-spec.txt.
+#ControlPort 9051
+## If you enable the controlport, be sure to enable one of these
+## authentication methods, to prevent attackers from accessing it.
+#HashedControlPassword 16:872860B76453A77D60CA2BB8C1A7042072093276A3D701AD684053EC4C
+#CookieAuthentication 1
+
+############### This section is just for location-hidden services ###
+
+## Once you have configured a hidden service, you can look at the
+## contents of the file ".../hidden_service/hostname" for the address
+## to tell people.
+##
+## HiddenServicePort x y:z says to redirect requests on port x to the
+## address y:z.
+
+#HiddenServiceDir @LOCALSTATEDIR@/lib/tor/hidden_service/
+#HiddenServicePort 80 127.0.0.1:80
+
+#HiddenServiceDir @LOCALSTATEDIR@/lib/tor/other_hidden_service/
+#HiddenServicePort 80 127.0.0.1:80
+#HiddenServicePort 22 127.0.0.1:22
+
+################ This section is just for relays #####################
+#
+## See https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-doc-relay for details.
+
+## Required: what port to advertise for incoming Tor connections.
+#ORPort 9001
+## If you want to listen on a port other than the one advertised in
+## ORPort (e.g. to advertise 443 but bind to 9090), you can do it as
+## follows.  You'll need to do ipchains or other port forwarding
+## yourself to make this work.
+#ORPort 443 NoListen
+#ORPort 127.0.0.1:9090 NoAdvertise
+
+## The IP address or full DNS name for incoming connections to your
+## relay. Leave commented out and Tor will guess.
+#Address noname.example.com
+
+## If you have multiple network interfaces, you can specify one for
+## outgoing traffic to use.
+# OutboundBindAddress 10.0.0.5
+
+## A handle for your relay, so people don't have to refer to it by key.
+#Nickname ididnteditheconfig
+
+## Define these to limit how much relayed traffic you will allow. Your
+## own traffic is still unthrottled. Note that RelayBandwidthRate must
+## be at least 20 KB.
+## Note that units for these config options are bytes per second, not bits
+## per second, and that prefixes are binary prefixes, i.e. 2^10, 2^20, etc.
+#RelayBandwidthRate 100 KB  # Throttle traffic to 100KB/s (800Kbps)
+#RelayBandwidthBurst 200 KB # But allow bursts up to 200KB/s (1600Kbps)
+
+## Use these to restrict the maximum traffic per day, week, or month.
+## Note that this threshold applies separately to sent and received bytes,
+## not to their sum: setting "4 GB" may allow up to 8 GB total before
+## hibernating.
+##
+## Set a maximum of 4 gigabytes each way per period.
+#AccountingMax 4 GB
+## Each period starts daily at midnight (AccountingMax is per day)
+#AccountingStart day 00:00
+## Each period starts on the 3rd of the month at 15:00 (AccountingMax
+## is per month)
+#AccountingStart month 3 15:00
+
+## Administrative contact information for this relay or bridge. This line
+## can be used to contact you if your relay or bridge is misconfigured or
+## something else goes wrong. Note that we archive and publish all
+## descriptors containing these lines and that Google indexes them, so
+## spammers might also collect them. You may want to obscure the fact that
+## it's an email address and/or generate a new address for this purpose.
+#ContactInfo Random Person <nobody AT example dot com>
+## You might also include your PGP or GPG fingerprint if you have one:
+#ContactInfo 0xFFFFFFFF Random Person <nobody AT example dot com>
+
+## Uncomment this to mirror directory information for others. Please do
+## if you have enough bandwidth.
+#DirPort 9030 # what port to advertise for directory connections
+## If you want to listen on a port other than the one advertised in
+## DirPort (e.g. to advertise 80 but bind to 9091), you can do it as
+## follows.  below too. You'll need to do ipchains or other port
+## forwarding yourself to make this work.
+#DirPort 80 NoListen
+#DirPort 127.0.0.1:9091 NoAdvertise
+## Uncomment to return an arbitrary blob of html on your DirPort. Now you
+## can explain what Tor is if anybody wonders why your IP address is
+## contacting them. See contrib/tor-exit-notice.html in Tor's source
+## distribution for a sample.
+#DirPortFrontPage @CONFDIR@/tor-exit-notice.html
+
+## Uncomment this if you run more than one Tor relay, and add the identity
+## key fingerprint of each Tor relay you control, even if they're on
+## different networks. You declare it here so Tor clients can avoid
+## using more than one of your relays in a single circuit. See
+## https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq#MultipleRelays
+## However, you should never include a bridge's fingerprint here, as it would
+## break its concealability and potentionally reveal its IP/TCP address.
+#MyFamily $keyid,$keyid,...
+
+## A comma-separated list of exit policies. They're considered first
+## to last, and the first match wins. If you want to _replace_
+## the default exit policy, end this with either a reject *:* or an
+## accept *:*. Otherwise, you're _augmenting_ (prepending to) the
+## default exit policy. Leave commented to just use the default, which is
+## described in the man page or at
+## https://www.torproject.org/documentation.html
+##
+## Look at https://www.torproject.org/faq-abuse.html#TypicalAbuses
+## for issues you might encounter if you use the default exit policy.
+##
+## If certain IPs and ports are blocked externally, e.g. by your firewall,
+## you should update your exit policy to reflect this -- otherwise Tor
+## users will be told that those destinations are down.
+##
+## For security, by default Tor rejects connections to private (local)
+## networks, including to your public IP address. See the man page entry
+## for ExitPolicyRejectPrivate if you want to allow "exit enclaving".
+##
+#ExitPolicy accept *:6660-6667,reject *:* # allow irc ports but no more
+#ExitPolicy accept *:119 # accept nntp as well as default exit policy
+#ExitPolicy reject *:* # no exits allowed
+
+## Bridge relays (or "bridges") are Tor relays that aren't listed in the
+## main directory. Since there is no complete public list of them, even an
+## ISP that filters connections to all the known Tor relays probably
+## won't be able to block all the bridges. Also, websites won't treat you
+## differently because they won't know you're running Tor. If you can
+## be a real relay, please do; but if not, be a bridge!
+#BridgeRelay 1
+## By default, Tor will advertise your bridge to users through various
+## mechanisms like https://bridges.torproject.org/. If you want to run
+## a private bridge, for example because you'll give out your bridge
+## address manually to your friends, uncomment this line:
+#PublishServerDescriptor 0
+
diff --git a/src/config/torrc.minimal.in-staging b/src/config/torrc.minimal.in-staging
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..d842fbcaf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/config/torrc.minimal.in-staging
@@ -0,0 +1,192 @@
+## Configuration file for a typical Tor user
+## Last updated 9 October 2013 for Tor 0.2.5.2-alpha.
+## (may or may not work for much older or much newer versions of Tor.)
+##
+## Lines that begin with "## " try to explain what's going on. Lines
+## that begin with just "#" are disabled commands: you can enable them
+## by removing the "#" symbol.
+##
+## See 'man tor', or https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-manual.html,
+## for more options you can use in this file.
+##
+## Tor will look for this file in various places based on your platform:
+## https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq#torrc
+
+## Tor opens a socks proxy on port 9050 by default -- even if you don't
+## configure one below. Set "SocksPort 0" if you plan to run Tor only
+## as a relay, and not make any local application connections yourself.
+#SocksPort 9050 # Default: Bind to localhost:9050 for local connections.
+#SocksPort 192.168.0.1:9100 # Bind to this address:port too.
+
+## Entry policies to allow/deny SOCKS requests based on IP address.
+## First entry that matches wins. If no SocksPolicy is set, we accept
+## all (and only) requests that reach a SocksPort. Untrusted users who
+## can access your SocksPort may be able to learn about the connections
+## you make.
+#SocksPolicy accept 192.168.0.0/16
+#SocksPolicy reject *
+
+## Logs go to stdout at level "notice" unless redirected by something
+## else, like one of the below lines. You can have as many Log lines as
+## you want.
+##
+## We advise using "notice" in most cases, since anything more verbose
+## may provide sensitive information to an attacker who obtains the logs.
+##
+## Send all messages of level 'notice' or higher to @LOCALSTATEDIR@/log/tor/notices.log
+#Log notice file @LOCALSTATEDIR@/log/tor/notices.log
+## Send every possible message to @LOCALSTATEDIR@/log/tor/debug.log
+#Log debug file @LOCALSTATEDIR@/log/tor/debug.log
+## Use the system log instead of Tor's logfiles
+#Log notice syslog
+## To send all messages to stderr:
+#Log debug stderr
+
+## Uncomment this to start the process in the background... or use
+## --runasdaemon 1 on the command line. This is ignored on Windows;
+## see the FAQ entry if you want Tor to run as an NT service.
+#RunAsDaemon 1
+
+## The directory for keeping all the keys/etc. By default, we store
+## things in $HOME/.tor on Unix, and in Application Data\tor on Windows.
+#DataDirectory @LOCALSTATEDIR@/lib/tor
+
+## The port on which Tor will listen for local connections from Tor
+## controller applications, as documented in control-spec.txt.
+#ControlPort 9051
+## If you enable the controlport, be sure to enable one of these
+## authentication methods, to prevent attackers from accessing it.
+#HashedControlPassword 16:872860B76453A77D60CA2BB8C1A7042072093276A3D701AD684053EC4C
+#CookieAuthentication 1
+
+############### This section is just for location-hidden services ###
+
+## Once you have configured a hidden service, you can look at the
+## contents of the file ".../hidden_service/hostname" for the address
+## to tell people.
+##
+## HiddenServicePort x y:z says to redirect requests on port x to the
+## address y:z.
+
+#HiddenServiceDir @LOCALSTATEDIR@/lib/tor/hidden_service/
+#HiddenServicePort 80 127.0.0.1:80
+
+#HiddenServiceDir @LOCALSTATEDIR@/lib/tor/other_hidden_service/
+#HiddenServicePort 80 127.0.0.1:80
+#HiddenServicePort 22 127.0.0.1:22
+
+################ This section is just for relays #####################
+#
+## See https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-doc-relay for details.
+
+## Required: what port to advertise for incoming Tor connections.
+#ORPort 9001
+## If you want to listen on a port other than the one advertised in
+## ORPort (e.g. to advertise 443 but bind to 9090), you can do it as
+## follows.  You'll need to do ipchains or other port forwarding
+## yourself to make this work.
+#ORPort 443 NoListen
+#ORPort 127.0.0.1:9090 NoAdvertise
+
+## The IP address or full DNS name for incoming connections to your
+## relay. Leave commented out and Tor will guess.
+#Address noname.example.com
+
+## If you have multiple network interfaces, you can specify one for
+## outgoing traffic to use.
+# OutboundBindAddress 10.0.0.5
+
+## A handle for your relay, so people don't have to refer to it by key.
+#Nickname ididnteditheconfig
+
+## Define these to limit how much relayed traffic you will allow. Your
+## own traffic is still unthrottled. Note that RelayBandwidthRate must
+## be at least 20 KB.
+## Note that units for these config options are bytes per second, not bits
+## per second, and that prefixes are binary prefixes, i.e. 2^10, 2^20, etc.
+#RelayBandwidthRate 100 KB  # Throttle traffic to 100KB/s (800Kbps)
+#RelayBandwidthBurst 200 KB # But allow bursts up to 200KB/s (1600Kbps)
+
+## Use these to restrict the maximum traffic per day, week, or month.
+## Note that this threshold applies separately to sent and received bytes,
+## not to their sum: setting "4 GB" may allow up to 8 GB total before
+## hibernating.
+##
+## Set a maximum of 4 gigabytes each way per period.
+#AccountingMax 4 GB
+## Each period starts daily at midnight (AccountingMax is per day)
+#AccountingStart day 00:00
+## Each period starts on the 3rd of the month at 15:00 (AccountingMax
+## is per month)
+#AccountingStart month 3 15:00
+
+## Administrative contact information for this relay or bridge. This line
+## can be used to contact you if your relay or bridge is misconfigured or
+## something else goes wrong. Note that we archive and publish all
+## descriptors containing these lines and that Google indexes them, so
+## spammers might also collect them. You may want to obscure the fact that
+## it's an email address and/or generate a new address for this purpose.
+#ContactInfo Random Person <nobody AT example dot com>
+## You might also include your PGP or GPG fingerprint if you have one:
+#ContactInfo 0xFFFFFFFF Random Person <nobody AT example dot com>
+
+## Uncomment this to mirror directory information for others. Please do
+## if you have enough bandwidth.
+#DirPort 9030 # what port to advertise for directory connections
+## If you want to listen on a port other than the one advertised in
+## DirPort (e.g. to advertise 80 but bind to 9091), you can do it as
+## follows.  below too. You'll need to do ipchains or other port
+## forwarding yourself to make this work.
+#DirPort 80 NoListen
+#DirPort 127.0.0.1:9091 NoAdvertise
+## Uncomment to return an arbitrary blob of html on your DirPort. Now you
+## can explain what Tor is if anybody wonders why your IP address is
+## contacting them. See contrib/tor-exit-notice.html in Tor's source
+## distribution for a sample.
+#DirPortFrontPage @CONFDIR@/tor-exit-notice.html
+
+## Uncomment this if you run more than one Tor relay, and add the identity
+## key fingerprint of each Tor relay you control, even if they're on
+## different networks. You declare it here so Tor clients can avoid
+## using more than one of your relays in a single circuit. See
+## https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq#MultipleRelays
+## However, you should never include a bridge's fingerprint here, as it would
+## break its concealability and potentionally reveal its IP/TCP address.
+#MyFamily $keyid,$keyid,...
+
+## A comma-separated list of exit policies. They're considered first
+## to last, and the first match wins. If you want to _replace_
+## the default exit policy, end this with either a reject *:* or an
+## accept *:*. Otherwise, you're _augmenting_ (prepending to) the
+## default exit policy. Leave commented to just use the default, which is
+## described in the man page or at
+## https://www.torproject.org/documentation.html
+##
+## Look at https://www.torproject.org/faq-abuse.html#TypicalAbuses
+## for issues you might encounter if you use the default exit policy.
+##
+## If certain IPs and ports are blocked externally, e.g. by your firewall,
+## you should update your exit policy to reflect this -- otherwise Tor
+## users will be told that those destinations are down.
+##
+## For security, by default Tor rejects connections to private (local)
+## networks, including to your public IP address. See the man page entry
+## for ExitPolicyRejectPrivate if you want to allow "exit enclaving".
+##
+#ExitPolicy accept *:6660-6667,reject *:* # allow irc ports but no more
+#ExitPolicy accept *:119 # accept nntp as well as default exit policy
+#ExitPolicy reject *:* # no exits allowed
+
+## Bridge relays (or "bridges") are Tor relays that aren't listed in the
+## main directory. Since there is no complete public list of them, even an
+## ISP that filters connections to all the known Tor relays probably
+## won't be able to block all the bridges. Also, websites won't treat you
+## differently because they won't know you're running Tor. If you can
+## be a real relay, please do; but if not, be a bridge!
+#BridgeRelay 1
+## By default, Tor will advertise your bridge to users through various
+## mechanisms like https://bridges.torproject.org/. If you want to run
+## a private bridge, for example because you'll give out your bridge
+## address manually to your friends, uncomment this line:
+#PublishServerDescriptor 0
+