April 2021 - tor-relays - lists.torproject.org

Questions about consensus votes
by Tobias Höller 22 Apr '21

22 Apr '21

Hi, I have only recently started operating relays (Family:008196DC449482C73CFA9712445223917F760921) and have some trouble with reliably getting the "Fast" and "HSDir" flags for my relays. Right now they regularly obtain and loose these flags and I would like them to be more stable To figure out what was going wrong, I took a look at the archived votes at https://collector.torproject.org/archive/relay-descriptors/votes/ Unfortunately, I still don't understand why some things are happening, so I'm hoping you can help me out: 1. The "Fast" flag is assigned by either measurements (if the DirAuth is also a Bandwidth Auth) or the reported bandwidth. On my relays I noticed that if I set the "BandwidthRate" close to the fast threshold (105KB/s) I would not get the fast flag, unless I configure a much higher bandwidth burst rate (>5MB/s). Even more confusing, different bandwidth auths seem to require different burst rates. While for example Moria1 started voting me fast with a Bandwidth Burst rate of 5Mbit/s, maatuska did not do so until I increased the BandwidthBurst to 100Mbit/s (my complete internet uplink). What I'd like to know: Is that something that only affects me or have you also experienced it? And are there any recommendations how high the bandwidth burst should at least be compared to the desired bandwidth rate? 2. I am confused about the HSDir flag: According to https://gitweb.torproject.org/torspec.git/tree/dir-spec.txt#n2500 it should require the relay to be fast+stable+ uptime>MinUptimeHidServDirectoryV2 (by default 96 hours). So, if an authority votes my relay to be Running+Stable+Fast for 100 consecutive votes, it should vote for "HSDir" in the last 4 votes, right?. Because moria1 for example, votes my relays to be fast+stable+running constantly, but never votes for the HSDir flag. Is there another condition for becoming HSDir that I am not aware of, or can you think of an other reason why this is happening? Lastly, I'd be curious to learn if I am the only operator who has trouble to maintain flags on their relays, or if you have also experienced similar problems to mine. If yes, how did you solve them. kind regards Tobias -- DI Tobias Höller Institute of Networks and Security Johannes Kepler University Linz Altenbergerstraße 69 4040 Linz

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Running a bridge via google cloud
by Keifer Bly 17 Apr '21

17 Apr '21

Hi all, So I am well aware, google cloud is too expensive to run a relay on, but I wonder are they expensive to run a bridge? They are on 1GB eqauls a few cents model. Thank you. --Keifer

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Relay Control
by Kathi 16 Apr '21

16 Apr '21

What actually controls the tor relay? TORRC or nyx? I realize NYX is a 'monitor'. However nyx allows for command line changes; i.e bandwidth/ports etc. thanks

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[RFC] Draft: Expectations for Relay Operators (deadline: May 10, 2021)
by gus 13 Apr '21

13 Apr '21

Dear relay operators, In the last years, during Tor meetups, assemblies, workshops, mailing lists threads, and other gatherings with relay operators, we have discussed topics like relay operational security and good practices, code of conduct, transparency, sustainability, and many more important topics. We believe that it's time and necessary to have an explicit document with these topics to foster and guide good practices in the Tor relay community. This document aims to set some expectations of maintaining the Tor network infrastructure, i.e., Tor relays. To give you an overview of the proposal, it has five topics: 1. Keep users safe 2. Maintain good system op-sec 3. Make sure your relay isn't broken 4. Sustainability 5. Community You can read the draft proposal here: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/team/-/wikis/Expectations-for-R… And submit your feedback in this ticket: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/relays/-/issues/18 ## Deadline We are opening the document for community consultation and feedback today, April 13, 2021, and you can submit your contribution until May 10, 2021. After closing this public call, we will evaluate and incorporate the relevant feedback into this document's final version. The Expectations for Relay Operators will be published on the Community portal[1] and used to guide our community. ## How to contribute and give feedback After reading the proposal, you can request a GitLab account[2]. If you want to contribute anonymously, you can submit your contribution using Anon-Ticket, which does not require you to create an account. ### Contributing using Anon-Ticket 1. Visit the website: https://anonticket.onionize.space/ 2. Click on "Create Identifier." 3. Save your unique identifier and click on "Login with This Identifier." 4. Select "See a list of all projects" > The Tor Project / Community / Relays > Look for issue #18 > Click on "New Note". 5. Write your feedback and click "Create Note". 6. Finally, a moderator will approve your feedback. Feel free to discuss and reach out to the relays operators community on IRC (irc.oftc.net #tor-relays) or the tor-relays mailing list. Thanks for running relays! Gus ## Notes [1] Community portal Relay Operations: https://community.torproject.org/relay [2] GitLab account creation: https://anonticket.onionize.space/user/gitlab-account/create/ Or https://gitlab.onionize.space/ -- The Tor Project Community Team Lead http://expyuzz4wqqyqhjn.onion/

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tor relay issue on windows 10
by Keifer Bly 13 Apr '21

13 Apr '21

Hi all, So I am attempting to start a new relay on Windows Server 2019. The issue is though for an unspecified reason, the tor process just quits when starting the relay: Here is the log file: [image: image.png] And then once it gets to "now checking if qr port is reachable from the outside" the tor process suddenly quits. Im running it as administrator I am wondering why the process would suddenly stop for no apparent reason on reaching this? Here is the torrc, though it seems to read that no issue: SocksPort 0 ORPort 4555 Nickname testrelay ContactInfo kk(a)gmail.com Log notice file c:\notices.log ControlPort 9051 ExitPolicy reject *:* Though it seems to read the torrc file without any issue. Thanks. --Keifer

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TOR relays killing internet speed
by John Csuti 13 Apr '21

13 Apr '21

Hello everyone, I am hosting 3 VM's limited at 10Mbps all together. Each VM is limited to 1Mbps via proxmox. I have noticed if i have these relays running it kills a 10Gbps fiber optic line. All the way down to 50Mbps or worse depending on what the time of day. Any idea what i can try? I noticed this happen over the past few months maybe its increased usage on the relays not sure. According to TOR relay search the demand has spiked recently. I wondering why/how it could bypass the limits on both proxmox and pfsense. Thanks, John Csuti (216) 633-XXXX

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Relay Name Change
by Kathi 10 Apr '21

10 Apr '21

I changed the name of my relay nick name from <UnNamed> to (Correct Name) after I got it to operate correctly. The relay was in operation when I did the change. I went into the menu in NYX, clicked reset tor. The relay has been up eighteen hours as of this writing. Its flags are: Fast, Running, V2Dir, Valid.1,911 circuits open and 2709 outbound, 20,670 connections on Ivp4 Tor Metrics shows <Unnamed> only (Correct Name) isn't shown when searched How long does it take for the name change to take effect? sysop

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Possible to give something I made to tor? (message for roger digeldine and other tor project heads)
by Keifer Bly 10 Apr '21

10 Apr '21

Hi all, So for the sake of diversity, as well as helping out Windows users who want to contribute to tor, this is a tool I have created which makes running tor relays on Windows very easy. The features are: Auto installs tor and keeps it up to date. Easy relay configuration with provided torrc file. Can configure to start relay on OS boot. The drawbacks is it configures the Windows Defender Firewall to allow the relay traffic but can't auto configure any other firewalls, and only supports vanilla bridges currently. I am wanting to give this tool to tor project to list on the website for those looking to run relays on Windows networks (networks running Windows Server, etc). I've made this GUI open source with a GitHub link, if interested. Thanks. --Keifer

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IPv4 AND IPv6 Relay
by ML Tor 09 Apr '21

09 Apr '21

Hi to all. I have recently created 4 TOR relays on two different ISPs (frantech.ca and yourserver.de). They work smoothly with IPv4. Now I wanted to add IPv6 as well, as both ISPs provide a / 64 address. In my torrc file I have inserted these two lines: ORPort nnnn.nnnn.nnnn.nnnn: 8001 ORPort [2605: 6400: 10: 55c: 199: 195: 250: 83]: 8001 But I get this error: "[NOTICE] Unable to find IPv6 address for ORPort 8001. You might want to specify IPv4Only to it or set an explicit address or set Address." Then only the IPv4 address is enabled. I have done various tests but I cannot find the solution. Can you tell me the correct configuration? :-) -- F1D75392BBB9E8D165A918F7DC8E270BCA67D720 9EA17159838F930F4D63757692AC2CE06C45D30E F02D242E78E099DFA30AE9C90E47D61C170EE97C 3160C0AA71A17811246FDCEAB246326C7D9ED754

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Fallback Directories - Upcoming Change
by David Goulet 08 Apr '21

08 Apr '21

Greetings! This is to announce that the Tor Project network team will soon change how fallback directories are selected as we are about to update that list. As a reminder, here is the fallback directory definition from the tor man page: When tor is unable to connect to any directory cache for directory info (usually because it doesn’t know about any yet) it tries a hard-coded directory. Relays try one directory authority at a time. Clients try multiple directory authorities and FallbackDirs, to avoid hangs on startup if a hard-coded directory is down. Clients wait for a few seconds between each attempt, and retry FallbackDirs more often than directory authorities, to reduce the load on the directory authorities Previously, we would ask this list for volunteers and then start a lengthy process over weeks to add/remove volunteers from an official list and then make sure the volunteered relays were matching a certain set of criteria. This process was very time consuming for our small team and so we are making a change to be more efficient and avoid to slip on the updates like we did in the previous versions. We will now select at random relays to become fallback directories that match those requirements: - Fast flag "Fast" -- A router is 'Fast' if it is active, and its bandwidth is either in the top 7/8ths for known active routers or at least 100KB/s. - Stable flag "Stable" -- A router is 'Stable' if it is active, and either its Weighted MTBF is at least the median for known active routers or its Weighted MTBF corresponds to at least 7 days. - DirCache is set to 1 (default) - As been around for at least 90 days. The above corresponds to more than 4000 relays at the moment in the consensus and so we'll randomly pick 200 from those at each release so we can have regular rotation and shift load over time over the entire network. Over time, we will remove or add more relays at each minor release if the set of fallback directories not working reaches a 25% threshold or more. Finally, it is very possible that we'll change those requirements over time as we assess this change. We'll do our best to inform this list in time. Thanks! Tor Network Team -- fegt0kLbq3rSb5UY2KTCr5TVsjOd2mko2FRZAZic23Q=

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