June 2020 - tor-relays - lists.torproject.org

Please help us find a working alternative to using MaxMind's GeoLite2 databases
by Karsten Loesing 14 Jul '20

14 Jul '20

Hi relay operators, as you might have heard, MaxMind has changed access and use of their GeoLite2 databases: https://blog.maxmind.com/2019/12/18/significant-changes-to-accessing-and-us… This affects Onionoo and tor, and I'm trying to find a working alternative on the following ticket: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/32978 Today I think I found a possible alternative by using data from another provider. But before I name it here, I'd first want to find out how accurate it is. I tried resolving relay IP addresses of relays that have been running in the past week and compared that to our existing lookups using MaxMind's October database. The result is that 7669 relays (93%) had the same country code and ASN. I put the remaining 7% on the following wiki page: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/MetricsGeoipComparison I'd like to hear from you which data source is right and which is wrong (or if both are wrong). If you'd like to help, please leave comments on the ticket or in the "Comment" column on that wiki page by February 19, 2020. Thanks for helping! All the best, Karsten

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Hardware specs for a high-bandwidth Tor exit?
by Christian Pietsch 09 Jul '20

09 Jul '20

Dear Tor friends, the NGO I am volunteering for (Digitalcourage e.V.) has been running modest Tor exits for many years. Now we finally have the opportunity to run a high-bandwidth exit relay because we found a data center with a nice internet connection (20 Gbit/s) we may use. My question is: What kind of hardware should we buy to utilize this bandwith? I am told that we need an SFP+ networking card to connect to the fibre optics cable, but what CPU and mainboard would you recommend nowadays? It should fit into a 1 height unit 19" enclosure. If you prefer to tell me in person: I will attend the Tor meetup in Brussels on Friday <https://blog.torproject.org/events/tor-meetup-brussels> and the subsequent Freedom Not Fear event <https://www.freedomnotfear.org/>. Cheers, Christian -- Christian Pietsch | volunteering for Digitalcourage e.V., Germany Digitalcourage e.V.: https://digitalcourage.de/ BigBrotherAwards Germany: https://bigbrotherawards.de/ Betting living without Google: https://pad.foebud.org/google-alternatives

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Authority Nodes
by Vitor Milagres 06 Jul '20

06 Jul '20

Hi, I see the Authority Nodes are located only in North America and Europe. I would like to contribute to the TOR network as much as possible. I am currently running a node and I would like to make it an Authority Node as well. I am from Brazil and I believe it would possibly be a good idea to have a new Authority Node in South America. What are the requirements? What should I do to become one of them? FYI, the node I am running is 79DFB0E1D79D1306AF03A4B094C55A576989ABD1 Thanks, Vitor Milagres

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Exit Relay throughput
by torix＠protonmail.com 20 Jun '20

20 Jun '20

Dear List, How important is the throughput on an exit relay? I realize that more is always better, making it harder to associate exit packets with input ones at the other end. My numbers: For the same price I can buy 2 exit relays that run about 3500 to 4000 connections or one that runs about 4300 to 4700 connections. The actual daily throughput varies a good deal, but the cheaper ones show about 15-20% less throughput, at around 330 GiB/day when I look at vnstat. Can I assume 2 is almost always better than one? Or is there a threshold below which packets are too easily tracked? I have no common sense about this. TIA, --Torix Sent with [ProtonMail](https://protonmail.com) Secure Email.

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"/var/tor/diff-cache" full!
by Salvatore Cuzzilla 18 Jun '20

18 Jun '20

Hi Folks, I'm running a non-exit relay (v0.4.2.7) on OpenBSD 6.7. The amount of files within "/var/tor/diff-cache" is steadily increasing. Up to almost 6G fulfilling the /var partition to the max. Is this an expected behavior? I there any solution to overcome it? ------- :wq, Salvatore.

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directory servers working on updates?
by Paul Geurts 16 Jun '20

16 Jun '20

hi, anything up this weekend? [image: image.png] gr. Paul

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ymkeo changing ISP coming Thursday
by René Ladan 14 Jun '20

14 Jun '20

Hi, I'm in the process of switching ISPs and if all goes well this should be complete by coming Thursday. So my relay (ymkeo, 4E8CE6F5651E7342C1E7E5ED031E82078134FB0D) will change its external IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. It is listed as a fallback directory mirror but currently not acting as one, so someone will have to update that list :) New IPv4: 185.238.129.9 /32 New IPv6: 2a10:3781:116:: /48 Regards, René

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Consensus weight/Advertised bandwidth low on "Gigabit" ISP, despite ISP equipment upgrades
by Neel Chauhan 14 Jun '20

14 Jun '20

Hi tor-relays@, I run a FreeBSD-based Tor relay across two instances on "Wave G", a Gigabit ISP in the Seattle metro. You may also know them as CondoInternet or CascadeLink, but I joined only this year on a Wave-branded service. These relays have had low consensus weights since I got the service in January. The instances are below: * https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#details/8FABF4D266DF95216F6C646C6D6D… * https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#details/CE06BA1EA45FD32A79EAF7FE6A3B… My server and router are fine, I am in the single digits in terms of CPU use on both. The same exact server and router on Verizon FiOS in New York never gave me this issue. There was an underlying ISP performance issue impacting me which led consensus weight values to be low, but my ISP has since upgraded their equipment in my building. In general, my Internet performance has improved by magnitudes. However, my consensus weight has stayed more or less flat since the equipment upgrade, instead of jumping higher. What gives? How long would it usually take for the bandwidth scanners to measure the higher bandwidths? Should I re-key my relays and start from scratch? About switching ISPs, I'm not switching to Comcast for obvious well-documented reasons, and neither CenturyLink nor Frontier/Ziply Fiber serve me, not even copper. Best, Neel Chauhan === https://www.neelc.org/

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IPv6 Port
by Josh Lawson 11 Jun '20

11 Jun '20

I currently have my IPv6 connection running on port 9001. From an anti-surveillance perspective, would I be better changing the port to 80? I have IPv4 running on 443. I appreciate it!

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[NYX_NOTICE] Relay unresponsive -- how to troubleshoot?
by Davin Mertens 11 Jun '20

11 Jun '20

I keep getting NYX_NOTICEs about "Relay unresponsive". They happen every few hours, and last for minutes or sometimes a couple of hours before I get a "relay resumed" message. But, I don't see anything in the actual Tor logs to indicate that anything is wrong. Does anyone know how best to troubleshoot this? I *think* it's impacting my consensus weight and making it drop, and is keeping me from getting the Guard flag. This is the relay: https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#details/94626BD21119568EB301D1E7677B… Thanks for any tips!

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