- tor-relays - lists.torproject.org

Tor Performance on Xen vs KVM
by Conrad Rockenhaus 30 Jun '19

30 Jun '19

Hello, I’m just curious on how people feel about relay performance on Tor nodes running on Xen vs KVM. I’ve noticed on Xen I have increased network performance and I do like the improved modular architecture of Xen vs KVM (right now I’m working on an experimental OpenStack w/ XCP-ng environment). I was wondering if any others on the list had experience running high performance Tor nodes on Xen and KVM and have a preference for one over the other… I’m just trying to compare and contrast here. Of course, I built a XCP-ng pool with a compute VM, then I have a regular KVM compute instance running under the Openstack framework. Thanks, Conrad Rockenhaus http://www.greyponyit.com/

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BridgeDB currently up but non-functional?
by Rick Huebner 29 Jun '19

29 Jun '19

Hi, all. While skimming /r/tor on Reddit I saw a couple of posts saying they hadn't been able to get any usable bridges for several days, and thought I'd check into it. I downloaded & installed a fresh copy of the Windows TBB 8.5.1 and had it ask for bridges via Moat, and received 2 (not 3?) obfs4 bridge lines. Here's the Tor log from the "copy to clipboard" button that popped up on the TBB "connecting" dialog when it stalled at about 3/4th of the progress bar: 6/19/19, 10:46:16.735 [NOTICE] DisableNetwork is set. Tor will not make or accept non-control network connections. Shutting down all existing connections. 6/19/19, 10:46:16.735 [NOTICE] Switching to guard context "bridges" (was using "default") 6/19/19, 10:46:16.735 [NOTICE] DisableNetwork is set. Tor will not make or accept non-control network connections. Shutting down all existing connections. 6/19/19, 10:46:16.736 [NOTICE] DisableNetwork is set. Tor will not make or accept non-control network connections. Shutting down all existing connections. 6/19/19, 10:46:16.736 [NOTICE] Opening Socks listener on 127.0.0.1:9150 6/19/19, 10:46:16.736 [NOTICE] Opened Socks listener on 127.0.0.1:9150 6/19/19, 10:46:16.736 [NOTICE] Renaming old configuration file to "C:\Downloads\Tor Browser 8.5.1 - Copy\Browser\TorBrowser\Data\Tor\torrc.orig.1" 6/19/19, 10:46:23.608 [NOTICE] Bootstrapped 5%: Connecting to directory server 6/19/19, 10:46:23.611 [NOTICE] Bootstrapped 10%: Finishing handshake with directory server 6/19/19, 10:46:24.558 [NOTICE] Bootstrapped 15%: Establishing an encrypted directory connection 6/19/19, 10:46:24.748 [NOTICE] Bootstrapped 20%: Asking for networkstatus consensus 6/19/19, 10:46:24.954 [NOTICE] new bridge descriptor 'eldritchworld' (fresh): $<BRIDGE 1 FINGERPRINT REDACTED>~eldritchworld at <BRIDGE 1 IP REDACTED> 6/19/19, 10:46:25.589 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:26.781 [NOTICE] Bootstrapped 25%: Loading networkstatus consensus 6/19/19, 10:46:28.291 [NOTICE] I learned some more directory information, but not enough to build a circuit: We have no usable consensus. 6/19/19, 10:46:28.482 [NOTICE] Bootstrapped 40%: Loading authority key certs 6/19/19, 10:46:28.997 [NOTICE] The current consensus has no exit nodes. Tor can only build internal paths, such as paths to onion services. 6/19/19, 10:46:28.997 [NOTICE] Bootstrapped 45%: Asking for relay descriptors for internal paths 6/19/19, 10:46:28.997 [NOTICE] I learned some more directory information, but not enough to build a circuit: We need more microdescriptors: we have 0/6440, and can only build 0% of likely paths. (We have 100% of guards bw, 0% of midpoint bw, and 0% of end bw (no exits in consensus, using mid) = 0% of path bw.) 6/19/19, 10:46:28.997 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:28.997 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:28.997 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:28.997 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:28.997 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:28.997 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:29.275 [NOTICE] Bootstrapped 50%: Loading relay descriptors for internal paths 6/19/19, 10:46:29.463 [NOTICE] The current consensus contains exit nodes. Tor can build exit and internal paths. 6/19/19, 10:46:29.463 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:29.463 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:29.463 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:29.514 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:29.514 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:29.672 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:29.672 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:29.672 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:30.283 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:30.283 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:30.283 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:30.636 [NOTICE] Bootstrapped 57%: Loading relay descriptors 6/19/19, 10:46:30.636 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:30.636 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:30.636 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:30.636 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:30.636 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:30.684 [NOTICE] Bootstrapped 64%: Loading relay descriptors 6/19/19, 10:46:30.684 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:30.733 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:30.733 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:30.733 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:30.873 [NOTICE] Bootstrapped 73%: Loading relay descriptors 6/19/19, 10:46:30.873 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:30.873 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:30.881 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:30.881 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:30.881 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:30.937 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:30.969 [NOTICE] Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet. 6/19/19, 10:46:44.618 [WARN] Proxy Client: unable to connect to <BRIDGE 2 IP REDACTED> ("general SOCKS server failure") It looks like bridge 1 (eldritchworld) gave me bad/incomplete relay info which prevented making circuits, and then Tor failed to connect to the fallback bridge 2 at all. Checking Relay Search, it shows that eldritchworld is a normal healthy-looking bridge that's been up for months with plenty of connections and data being transferred, so I don't know what's wrong there. So, since the Moat bridges didn't work, I went to the BridgeDB request web page to try that. Clicking the "Just give me bridges" button and doing the captcha returned "Uh oh, spaghettios! There currently aren't any bridges available... Perhaps you should try going back and choosing a different bridge type!". What, no vanilla bridges available at all? Seriously? (As a side note, cutesy errors are pretty annoying when things are failing. Just sayin'.) And as usual the Metrics page still shows about 1000 bridges, so something's badly broken. I know the new bridgedb release doesn't give out ORports if there's a secure PT offered, but last I checked the majority of bridges were just vanilla, so surely there must be enough to put some into whichever bridge pool ring my request was pulled from. I then tried asking for obfs4 bridges instead, and it did give me one (again, not 3?). With another fresh install of the TBB and entering that bridge line, the log shows: 6/19/19, 10:59:43.912 [NOTICE] DisableNetwork is set. Tor will not make or accept non-control network connections. Shutting down all existing connections. 6/19/19, 10:59:43.912 [NOTICE] Switching to guard context "bridges" (was using "default") 6/19/19, 10:59:43.912 [NOTICE] DisableNetwork is set. Tor will not make or accept non-control network connections. Shutting down all existing connections. 6/19/19, 10:59:43.912 [NOTICE] DisableNetwork is set. Tor will not make or accept non-control network connections. Shutting down all existing connections. 6/19/19, 10:59:43.912 [NOTICE] Opening Socks listener on 127.0.0.1:9150 6/19/19, 10:59:43.912 [NOTICE] Opened Socks listener on 127.0.0.1:9150 6/19/19, 10:59:43.912 [NOTICE] Renaming old configuration file to "C:\Downloads\Tor Browser 8.5.1 - Copy\Browser\TorBrowser\Data\Tor\torrc.orig.1" 6/19/19, 10:59:50.761 [NOTICE] Bootstrapped 5%: Connecting to directory server 6/19/19, 10:59:50.762 [NOTICE] Bootstrapped 10%: Finishing handshake with directory server 6/19/19, 11:00:11.767 [WARN] Proxy Client: unable to connect to <BRIDGE 3 IP> ("general SOCKS server failure") So this 3rd bridge also failed to connect at all. With the Moat and website requests both returning bad/dead bridges (if any), the last thing to try was the email request channel. I sent "request bridges" to bridges(a)torproject.org and it replied back "Here are your bridges: None, None, None". Well, okay then. Maybe if I try again later, which should give me different bridges to use? According to the bridgedb config file checked into the git repo, the rotation periods for the Moat and website bridge pool query positions are both 3 hours. So I waited 3.5 hours and tried those tests again on another fresh TBB install copy, and both Moat and the website returned back to me the exact same bridges as before, which then failed in the same ways as before. Maybe the running server isn't using the checked-in config settings? Waiting another 8 hours (11.5 total since the first try), Moat gave me the same first bridge but finally a different second bridge (still not 3), but that one also failed to connect at all with the same "general SOCKS server failure". The website still claims there are no vanilla bridges available at all, and gives me back the same single obfs4 choice as before, which still won't connect at all. I don't know if it's the link between the bridge authority and the bridgdb server, or the new bridgedb release that just came out or what, but something's badly broken and the bridgedb appears to be pretty much useless right now. My test environment is very standard, just Windows 10 Pro using only IPV4 from a normal US ISP (Frontier FIOS near Portland, OR) with no proxy, running a fresh copy of the current TBB build. The TBB works fine if I don't use a bridge or if I manually enter the bridge info for a private bridge relay I temporarily set up, and I have no other internet issues. Could someone else check if they see similar problems? Other people should supposedly get different bridgedb results pulled from the other bridge pool rings, but even if it's somehow only affecting one pool ring, that's like 20-25% of the bridgedb's users left with no viable results. Looking at the Metrics site I don't see any drop in current bridge user counts (actually it's in an uptrend, along with all tor user counts lately) but I'd assume most bridge users already have working bridge lines cached, so this would only affect new users or those whose old choices have gone down, but both of those categories will only grow with time.

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An easy self-DoS and how to avoid it
by j4c4l4 28 Jun '19

28 Jun '19

Hi there, I have been operating a non-exit relay and a bridge for about one week now. I discovered by chance a quite silly self-DoS which could be triggered by using a NIDS (Network Intrusion Detection System) on relays. I don't know if it is known, but I thought it was worth reporting it here. In many Linux distributions, several NIDSs come with a default policy that blocks all the traffic from offending IPs after they have reached a threshold score. The offending IPs are normally put into a separate firewall chain/table that DROPs all the traffic originating from them, and then re-enabled after a period that could vary between 30 minutes and a few hours (again, depending on the config). Now, this could be potentially used to periodically shut down relays. In fact, an attacker could perform something as simple as an ssh login scan *through tor*, which is among the "attacks" monitored by most of the NIDS out there. But since the login attempts appear to originate from the tor exit relay, this effectively flags *the exit* as an "offending" host, and triggers the corresponding firewall rule (which is normally a blind "DROP", to save on rule processing). Once an exit node is flagged as "offending" and put in the firewall rule, any traffic between the relay and the exit node is effectively forbidden, until the firewall rule is removed or the tables flushed. If performed on a large scale, this can potentially shut down all the relays which run a NIDS with such policy on ssh logins. The same is true for other simulated attacks on other protocols (but ssh monitoring and blind DROPs are so much common to be the ones of most concern, maybe). I don't know how many relays run a NIDS (I suspect several do, actually), but it would be better to be aware of this potential self-DoS attack. The easy solution (apart from not using any IDS on relays) is to make sure that all the incoming traffic to the ORPort is always accepted, e.g. introducing an ad-hoc firewall first rule that accepts all TCP stuff from the ORPort, before processing NIDS-managed rules. Sorry if this was known already, but I couldn't find anything related by looking at the recent topics in the ML archives, and I thought it coud be useful to share. Regards

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Best practice for tor-exit node when I switch internet providers?
by Chris Dagdigian 28 Jun '19

28 Jun '19

Hello, I've been running a tor exit node in the US since 2014 when I paid way too much for a comcast business internet circuit that came with static IPs and a TOS that allowed me to run servers at home. It looks like I'm going to switch providers in a month or so as there is a fiber service I can get with symmetric bandwidth, the static IP count I want and theoretically also a TOS that is also amenable to server hosting. What is the best practice if I want to keep my tor exit going but switch upstream carriers and IP addresses? I'm guessing this is going to trip a bunch of tor monitoring alerts if I just bring the server up at a new IP address. Should I change the nickname? Totally wipe and reinstall tor itself? The goal is to bring back the same exit node but not set off any alarms when the exit node with the same IP for many years suddenly shows up with a new address. -Chris

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torrelays have no bandwith
by TorGate 28 Jun '19

28 Jun '19

Hi to all, i have issues with my 3 relays, there is no bandwith ?! i have not changed the config only updatet the tor software. In nyx can i see there are smal bandwith connections 1-100 kbs. All 3 relays have a 5mbit up/down connection. https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#search/torgate

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Interesting Reddit Post for Tor Relay Operators on Verizon FiOS (Verizon blocks Verizon.com on Tor Relay IP Addresses Including Non-Exit Relays)
by neel＠neelc.org 27 Jun '19

27 Jun '19

Hi tor-relays@ mailing list, If you are running Tor relays on FiOS, or run Tor relays and are considering joining FiOS, here's an interesting Reddit Post: Title: Verizon blocks Verizon.com on Tor Relay IP Addresses (Including Non-Exit Relays) URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/c5whh5/verizon_blocks_verizoncom_… -Neel Chauhan === https://www.neelc.org/

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TCP SACK PANIC type kernel vulnerabilities: logging some packets
by tor＠t-3.net 26 Jun '19

26 Jun '19

As of last week there wasn't a new kernel out for our relay's distro, so I implemented an IPTables-based mitigation in our relay as such: -A INPUT -p tcp --tcp-flags SYN SYN -m tcpmss --mss 1:500 -j LOG --log-prefix "TCP_SACK_PANIC: " -A INPUT -p tcp --tcp-flags SYN SYN -m tcpmss --mss 1:500 -j DROP Over the weekend we logged hits to this rule. I checked a few of the source hosts, and they were not relays at least as they are listed in https://check.torproject.org/cgi-bin/TorBulkExitList.py?ip=1.1.1.1 . I'll pull the rule out once the kernel is patched, but yeah. Things that make you go hmm.

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Re: [tor-relays] Tor memory leak (0.3.5.7)?
by starlight.2018q2＠binnacle.cx 25 Jun '19

25 Jun '19

Hi, No leaks. The VM has 1GB, very light for moderate busy relay. Should be 4GB, perhaps 3DB would do. Settings should include: AvoidDiskWrites 1 DisableAllSwap 1 MaxMemInQueues 1024MB # perhaps 1536MB My relays run about 800MB to 1.2GB. A nice way to view memory usage is with egrep '^Vm' /proc/$(cat /var/run/tor.pid)/status which might show something like VmPeak: 871696 kB VmSize: 710152 kB VmLck: 710148 kB VmHWM: 810872 kB VmRSS: 649328 kB VmData: 492052 kB VmStk: 93 kB VmExe: 4704 kB VmLib: 104724 kB VmPTE: 1044 kB Notice that current VmSize usage is less than VmPeak, indicating that memory was release by glibc malloc. Tor consumes substantial skbuf memory in the kernel, which accounts for some of the difference in reported size for VmRSS and VmSize and total memory consumption.

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Build problem
by dns1983＠riseup.net 25 Jun '19

25 Jun '19

Hello, I'm trying to build tor for from source on a x86 Debian stretch machine. I first installed all dependencies, but when I launch the "./configure" command I see the following error: configure: WARNING: Unable to find liblzma. configure: WARNING: Unable to find libzstd I installed, among the others liblzma-dev, lzma, libzstd-dev and zstd. I'm working through ssh. What I'm doing wrong? Could It be caused by a wrong environment variables settings? Cheers Gigi

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obfs4proxy installation from deb.torproject.org says Release file expired
by s7r 25 Jun '19

25 Jun '19

Hello, Trying to spin some new obfs4bridges. I am using: deb.torproject.org/torproject.org obfs4proxy main in /etc/apt/sources.list -- I hope this is correct. I get this: E: Release file for https://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/dists/obfs4proxy/InRelease is expired (invalid since 1d 15h 7min 11s). Updates for this repository will not be applied. Just recently saw Yawning's release notification, is it somehow related? Thanks.

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