November 2011 - tor-relays - lists.torproject.org

Messages "We stalled too much while trying to write..."
by Klaus Layer 02 Dec '11

02 Dec '11

Hi, I am getting many messages of this type on a node with 0.2.3.7-alpha: [NOTICE] We stalled too much while trying to write 192 bytes to address [scrubbed]. If this happens a lot, either something is wrong with your network connection, or something is wrong with theirs. (fd 1304, type Directory, state 2, marked at main.c:962). The node is running on quad core i7 with a Gbit network interface. The network connection is working. I never saw this type of messages on my other nodes. Any advice how to get rid of these messages? Regards, Klaus

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consensus "Bandwidth=" values
by Scott Bennett 01 Dec '11

01 Dec '11

Something new appears to be happening in the authorities' assignments of "Bandwidth=" values in the consensus documents over the past few days. Here are some statistics from the recent consensus with the following valid times: valid-after 2011-11-30 22:00:00 fresh-until 2011-11-30 23:00:00 valid-until 2011-12-01 01:00:00 A quick count of "Bandwidth=" values from this consensus shows that just over 20% of all relays have been assigned "Bandwidth=1". The consensus contains 2487 relays in all. The top twenty by count are as follows. Count Bandwidth= % of Total 499 1 20.06 65 2 2.61 37 3 1.48 35 5 1.40 33 7 1.32 31 6 1.24 31 14 1.24 29 4 1.16 29 12 1.16 25 15 1.00 23 11 0.92 22 9 0.88 21 20 0.84 20 8 0.80 18 17 0.72 18 10 0.72 15 32 0.60 14 53 0.56 14 24 0.56 14 18 0.56 The top ten in the above list account for 814 relays or 32.73% of all relays in the consensus, yet they will get little or no traffic because of the assigned "Bandwidth=" values. My relay's traffic went from around 55% - 60% of what I had hoped to contribute down to almost nothing in the course of about three days, and the "Bandwidth=" value assigned to it in the consensus is 1. For a long time, it had typically been in the high 20s to high 30s with occasional excursions from slightly lower to somewhere in the 50s. So is this sudden, massive reassignment of loads due to a bug in the newest tor version(s)? Or is it an intended change by the developers? Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG ********************************************************************** * Internet: bennett at cs.niu.edu * *--------------------------------------------------------------------* * "A well regulated and disciplined militia, is at all times a good * * objection to the introduction of that bane of all free governments * * -- a standing army." * * -- Gov. John Hancock, New York Journal, 28 January 1790 * **********************************************************************

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Tor bridge relay
by SiR GadaBout 30 Nov '11

30 Nov '11

Hi, I'm a new user of Ubuntu Linux considering setting up a bridge relay on the tor network over my home connection. If you don't mind, I'd like to set out my aims first. I have a laptop currently serving a Privoxy ad-filtering proxy for my home network. The plan is to torify my iPhone whilst retaining the ad-filtering effects of Privoxy. Once I'm comfortable this is working, i'd like to turn the server into a bridge relay. 1) Can I Torify my iPhone in this manner without a jailbreak? 2) Is my use of Privoxy counter-productive? I believe it is no longer bundled with Tor owing to privacy concerns. 3) Is it possible to make my bridge relay operate only between certain hours, so as not to aggravate my ISP? I'd be thinking of making it available for ten hours every day during local off-peak hours. I could consider making it available permanently if this pans out okay, or if the timed service isn't an option. My iPhone is a 3GS running iOS 5.0.1. The laptop is running Ubuntu Server 11.10 64-bit. It has 2GB DDR2 RAM, a 2GHz Core2Duo CPU and a Gigabit Ethernet connection. My broadband is 10Mb down, 1Mb up. Thanks in advance, B.

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In which countries are relays needed, disallowed?
by Steve Snyder 25 Nov '11

25 Nov '11

I tried to set up a Tor relay in the UK today and was told that UK law prohibited anonymous Internet traffic. My tentative UK ISP told me that they must be able to provide identification of users if presented with a court order. Hmmm... The topic of country-specific conditions raises 2 questions in my mind: 1. Does the Tor Project keep a list of Tor-hostile countries? I understand that such a list over time would vary in reliability, but it would be nice to know. 2. Given the ability to set up a Tor relay in any political jurisdiction, which ones would be recommended? I'm thinking of both local political conditions and the distribution of relays from a topological perspective. I'm inclined to want a non-US relay because the highest bandwith relays locations are skewed toward the US, which biases the Tor traffic though that jurisdiction. (Today's Tor Metrics report shows 17.55% of traffic coming from the US.) Is this a reasonable approach? Thanks.

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could not access my own hidden service
by cmeclax-sazri 21 Nov '11

21 Nov '11

I run Torchat and Onioncat. For at least an hour last night, my Torchat showed that I was not online, but someone else was, implying that he could see me online. I have a laptop which also has Tor, but it's just a client. I verified with Onioncat that two hidden services on the same box could not contact each other, but the laptop could contact both of them. The relay is running 0.2.2.34; the laptop is running 0.2.1.30. My Torchat now sees that I'm online, without having restarted Tor. What could cause this? cmeclax

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exit atlgonyovLi
by Geoff Down 11 Nov '11

11 Nov '11

Will the owner of exit atlgonyovLi please turn off OpenDNS site blocking. -- http://www.fastmail.fm - Or how I learned to stop worrying and love email again

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Middleman/guard nodes raided in the Netherlands
by David 10 Nov '11

10 Nov '11

I just wanted to let everyone know that my two Tor nodes have been raided (+all my computer equipment and everything that could store data). I'm not sure what triggered all this unwanted attention, but I suspect that it's the local police department trying to make a score after tor getting some media attention. It doesn't look to be a very 'high-tech' operation because I got a call asking me for the root password to the tor servers that are on unencrypted disks... Let this be a warning to everyone running middlemans in the Netherlands, I found out the hard way. Nicknames of the servers where AIVD and MIVD, no clue what the public key was. But consider them compromised. Best regards, David

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v3 directory
by Sebastian Urbach 08 Nov '11

08 Nov '11

Hi, Does anybody run a v3 directory relay ? I read about a long term key in the documentation. Are there any others things to consider ? I would be happy if somebody would share his config :-) Thanks -- Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Yours sincerely Sebastian Urbach -------------------------------------------------------- Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines. -------------------------------------------------------- Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872-1970), British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic.

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Re: [tor-relays] bad validity timestamps on authority certificates
by Scott Bennett 05 Nov '11

05 Nov '11

On Sat, 5 Nov 2011 02:14:43 -0400 Roger Dingledine <arma(a)mit.edu> wrote: >On Fri, Nov 04, 2011 at 06:06:41PM -0500, Scott Bennett wrote: >> Nov 04 15:51:00.273 [warn] Certificate not yet valid: is your system clock set incorrectly? >> Nov 04 15:51:00.274 [warn] (certificate lifetime runs from Nov 5 04:26:47 2011 GMT through Nov 4 04:26:47 2012 GMT. Your time is Nov 04 20:51:00 2011 GMT.) >[snip] >> My system's clock gets adjusted to the network timeservers' values once per >> hour. I've checked the logs and found that the each adjustment has been less >> than 71 ms during this time. >> So the question is why are the authorities putting out new certificates >> with valid time periods beginning six or more hours in the future? Also, when >> will the authorities be corrected? > >These aren't directory authorities. These are just random relays that >you're connecting to who have clocks more than an hour off, and an >over-active log message. Oh, okay. I had thought that only the authorities passed out "certificates", which then got stored into cached-certs. I didn't know that just any old relay could do so, too. > >See >https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/4370 >https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/4371 Thanks for the explanation, Roger. BTW, those messages seem to have stopped a few hours ago. > >This is the alpha Tor, with a shiny new (and still somewhat >sharp-around-the-edges) v3 link handshake. I'm glad this one doesn't >crash, like the last one did. :) > Yup. After seeing the notes about that bug, I just waited an extra day or two to upgrade, skipping 0.2.3.6-alpha and going straight to 0.2.3.7-alpha when it became available. :-) Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG ********************************************************************** * Internet: bennett at cs.niu.edu * *--------------------------------------------------------------------* * "A well regulated and disciplined militia, is at all times a good * * objection to the introduction of that bane of all free governments * * -- a standing army." * * -- Gov. John Hancock, New York Journal, 28 January 1790 * **********************************************************************

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bad validity timestamps on authority certificates
by Scott Bennett 05 Nov '11

05 Nov '11

For the last day or so, my relay has been logging messages like these: Nov 04 15:51:00.273 [warn] Certificate not yet valid: is your system clock set incorrectly? Nov 04 15:51:00.274 [warn] (certificate lifetime runs from Nov 5 04:26:47 2011 GMT through Nov 4 04:26:47 2012 GMT. Your time is Nov 04 20:51:00 2011 GMT.) Nov 04 17:28:37.359 [warn] Certificate not yet valid: is your system clock set incorrectly? Nov 04 17:28:37.361 [warn] (certificate lifetime runs from Nov 5 06:26:47 2011 GMT through Nov 4 06:26:47 2012 GMT. Your time is Nov 04 22:28:37 2011 GMT.) Nov 04 17:56:47.782 [warn] Certificate not yet valid: is your system clock set incorrectly? Nov 04 17:56:47.782 [warn] (certificate lifetime runs from Nov 5 06:26:47 2011 GMT through Nov 4 06:26:47 2012 GMT. Your time is Nov 04 22:56:47 2011 GMT.) My system's clock gets adjusted to the network timeservers' values once per hour. I've checked the logs and found that the each adjustment has been less than 71 ms during this time. So the question is why are the authorities putting out new certificates with valid time periods beginning six or more hours in the future? Also, when will the authorities be corrected? Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG ********************************************************************** * Internet: bennett at cs.niu.edu * *--------------------------------------------------------------------* * "A well regulated and disciplined militia, is at all times a good * * objection to the introduction of that bane of all free governments * * -- a standing army." * * -- Gov. John Hancock, New York Journal, 28 January 1790 * **********************************************************************

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