- tor-relays - lists.torproject.org

Re: [tor-relays] GoodBadISPs revamp?
by mikael ball 13 Oct '14

13 Oct '14

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 had to create a new thread because i had digests turned on. oh well. On Mon, Oct 13, 2014, Thomas White wrote: > As a community I think we should also be more transparent in > communications with the ISP's in question. For example, rather than > stating a yes/no instead we find a tidy way to paste their exact > response and link it in the table so we know exactly who they talked > to, waht their question was and the reason they disallowed it. i agree with this. in addition, we should ask for all of the ASN and/or IP blocks from the customer service reps, query onionoo for nodes running within those and display a list of them. (how?) in regards to the EFF partnership idea: i support this. getting the name of a respectable entity who has experience in PR (what kind?) might help with getting the ISPs on board. - -- mikael ball 0xB1910271AE8587F4 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJUO0GdAAoJELGRAnGuhYf0KbMP/RWYW8P5wkY2pZwV6pARoQOq i9C5RH+AXXceihZEdaxF5kXMaXGA3Xndck74DZ8O06dEmJzztMBFqR6342qgOwe0 d+oyb2DjCQPd8d/FJEPwrgJKcyKSi3EDgJt7KqUA7bMbcyh3cn4s+clVQzCeYkZK TWuzv2gzOUdL05t+N0MTAQG4tTCaFSH1Y3cC4zca764kAreds4DLRX/Ju4+wYUBe QdlxpKl11o6x7LF1nT7kNsxGdNY9VB5t6mbWDDjIBRA6lCbIIvAfqajDB9yuAqy8 yY230fhZ1PU4eU+eJdsxh3U9yI4t3Z5dKeKI0LAHe8agNoLP6IqmWJRV2odri/vb U7BpuY9v5zpQ5gs4U7ppwtgIWagdXe1YC4ULpdabW09InVnC2D0u6/ncUu7gVg08 2qIf+kWxLItaNVJr+4xH1tsJZfNuTK6sUjDm43LJP9WH9nuiveiLo+7MGb5vf1Aw PfdghSA+8J291hJv8X51SmvgEgl9b6SeV4WyBQQVsyFcomjOpBIQmXLt0+D1BhUd G7WNfRf584Ts372Brmtf8UfZqT0niMaHh3BEg14NvCpnaKZ8X8mwRSMHreaIvSpr /wlV8Dy62rpqcsrqp7srLYSsPA9AOP6DsHl52qEjZ4cbeSPY6/ir+RDXn1nJ3BHx 51PhadTMMRybDbNfv1Xv =Xniq -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: [tor-relays] Question on running bridge nodes
by teor 12 Oct '14

12 Oct '14

On 12 Oct 2014, at 09:32 , tor-relays-request(a)lists.torproject.org wrote: > Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2014 23:25:47 +0100 > From: Tor externet co uk <tor(a)externet.co.uk> > To: tor-relays(a)lists.torproject.org > Subject: [tor-relays] Question on running bridge nodes > Message-ID: <49c1abc0aa88e1bf8425fdc8e482402d(a)nodataavailable.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed > > Hi, > > I've set up a bridge node in the previous few weeks, but have had to put > a bandwidth limit on, as I only have 10TB of traffic per month before my > ISP will start throttling me to 100k/sec. > > I wondered whether it was more helpful to the Tor network as a whole to > have have a very fast node which hibernated every 12-15 hours, or if I > throttled Tor traffic, so that the node was more stable. > > I'll confess that I'm far more au fait with the politics of Tor than I > am of the exact ins and outs of how the technology works. Any help would > be gratefully received. > > Thanks > L For relays, where pathing is quite dynamic, we recommend speed + hibernation over uptime. But for bridges, users obtain only 3 bridge descriptors at a time, usually via some difficult or dangerous method. We'd want to make sure at least 1 stays up at all times (2 for reliability), which would favour throttling. teor pgp 0xABFED1AC hkp://pgp.mit.edu/ https://gist.github.com/teor2345/d033b8ce0a99adbc89c5 http://0bin.net/paste/Mu92kPyphK0bqmbA#Zvt3gzMrSCAwDN6GKsUk7Q8G-eG+Y+BLpe7w…

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Re: [tor-relays] Slow relay speeds for Australian geographic location(s)
by teor 12 Oct '14

12 Oct '14

On 12 Oct 2014, at 18:06 , tor-relays-request(a)lists.torproject.org wrote: > Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 18:06:42 +1100 > From: Mathew <wired.kid(a)gmail.com> > To: tor-relays(a)lists.torproject.org > Subject: Re: [tor-relays] Slow relay speeds for Australian geographic > location(s) > > Thanks for the in depth post, Teor. I had read the lifecycle article but > was concerned when people were posting that their relay was soaking all > their bandwidth after a day or two. This makes sense now, given the > oversupply and location. It was also worrying when the advertised bandwidth > was fluctuating so much and was only advertising a fraction of what > actually is available. > > The Windows server is using very minimal resources at the moment, and TCP > connections are around 250. The router will definitely be able to handle > the load, I run a pfSense APU. > > TPG doesn't have any bandwidth constraints specifically. They run a lot of > their own infrastructure including their own undersea PPC-1 cable > https://www.tpg.com.au/about/networks.php. No connection is ever shaped by > TPG and I have unlimited bandwidth. > > Amsterdam - http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3825961515 > LA - http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3825963543 > Boston - http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3825964878 > London - http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3825966771 > > So you think it isn't detecting all of my available bandwidth due to > distance and location and such? Is it just one of those things? > > torrc http://pastebin.com/GcTswhQx Actually, I think it's a matter of waiting on a stable IP and network connection for a month or two. (Your torrc looks fine.) I was just trying to list all possible factors, however unlikely. The instability is likely due to the bandwidth authorities (there's only a small number, which doesn't help stability). It will stabilise over time. But I don't think your overall level is caused by the authorities. Now that I think about it, as far as I recall, the "observed bandwidth" is a notional figure, not an actual bandwidth measurement. Because middle relays are in oversupply, their bandwidths get weighted down. (My middle relays are listed at about 50% of their advertised/link bandwidth.) Australian middle relays that are getting similar results to yours are: Aquinas DC5E2202E0148A53379F68A04207E04FFA7B4B2D (default) - Windows 8 terranullius - Windows 8 CoD Australian middle relays that are getting almost their exact advertised bandwidth: Serversaurus If you can pick the difference, I'm sure we'd be glad to know why! teor pgp 0xABFED1AC hkp://pgp.mit.edu/ https://gist.github.com/teor2345/d033b8ce0a99adbc89c5 http://0bin.net/paste/Mu92kPyphK0bqmbA#Zvt3gzMrSCAwDN6GKsUk7Q8G-eG+Y+BLpe7w…

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Re: [tor-relays] Slow relay speeds for Australian geographic location(s)
by Mathew 12 Oct '14

12 Oct '14

Sorry about that test. Thanks for the in depth post, Teor. I had read the lifecycle article but was concerned when people were posting that their relay was soaking all their bandwidth after a day or two. This makes sense now, given the oversupply and location. It was also worrying when the advertised bandwidth was fluctuating so much and was only advertising a fraction of what actually is available. The Windows server is using very minimal resources at the moment, and TCP connections are around 250. The router will definitely be able to handle the load, I run a pfSense APU. TPG doesn't have any bandwidth constraints specifically. They run a lot of their own infrastructure including their own undersea PPC-1 cable https://www.tpg.com.au/about/networks.php. No connection is ever shaped by TPG and I have unlimited bandwidth. Amsterdam - http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3825961515 LA - http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3825963543 Boston - http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3825964878 London - http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3825966771 So you think it isn't detecting all of my available bandwidth due to distance and location and such? Is it just one of those things? torrc http://pastebin.com/GcTswhQx Thanks again.

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Re: [tor-relays] Slow relay speeds for Australian geographic location(s)
by Mathew 12 Oct '14

12 Oct '14

Test

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Question on running bridge nodes
by Tor externet co uk 12 Oct '14

12 Oct '14

Hi, I've set up a bridge node in the previous few weeks, but have had to put a bandwidth limit on, as I only have 10TB of traffic per month before my ISP will start throttling me to 100k/sec. I wondered whether it was more helpful to the Tor network as a whole to have have a very fast node which hibernated every 12-15 hours, or if I throttled Tor traffic, so that the node was more stable. I'll confess that I'm far more au fait with the politics of Tor than I am of the exact ins and outs of how the technology works. Any help would be gratefully received. Thanks L

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Re: [tor-relays] Slow relay speeds for Australian geographic location(s)
by teor 12 Oct '14

12 Oct '14

On 12 Oct 2014, at 09:32 , tor-relays-request(a)lists.torproject.org wrote: > Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 06:19:16 +1100 > From: Mathew <wired.kid(a)gmail.com> > To: tor-relays(a)lists.torproject.org > Subject: [tor-relays] Slow relay speeds for Australian geographic > location(s) > > Hello all, > > I run a non-exit relay in Australia. My relay has been running for almost > 15 days and has seen very little traffic. > I have a 100/40 fibre connection and bandwidth is set at 2MB/s and 2.5MB/s > burst. > > The mean read/write is 3.22kb/s and the advertised bandwidth constantly > varies between 100-800kb/s which is obviously a fraction of my available > bandwidth. > > Do relays located in less tor frequented countries see much less traffic or > something? I have ports set at 443 and dirport 9030, is this an optimal > port setting? > > Anyone with helpful information would be appreciated. My relay is 1337m8 if > anyone wants to look at the traffic. > > Thanks A few hints: 1. The Tor network currently has an oversupply of non-exit relays. Therefore, your relay will never be fully utilised unless it is incredibly fast and stable over the longer term (months). 2. Your relay doesn't have the Guard flag yet. When it gets it, there will be a drop in traffic as your relay changes roles from middle to guard, then an increase overall. [-1] 3. If you look at the graphs for your relay on Atlas [0], there is a gradual increase in bandwidth. This should keep gradually increasing, apart from the guard transition in point #2. 4. It's unlikely your relay is compute-bound (at 100% CPU) or network-bound (saturating any network links). But it might be resource-bound (again, this seems unlikely at the levels you're seeing). Can your NAT box handle ~5000 simultaneous TCP connections/open files/NAT translations? (Mine can't, it reboots occasionally.) Can your Windows server handle ~5000 simultaneous TCP connections? 5. Most of the Tor network is outside Australia. How is TPG's international bandwidth for the NBN? Are the coping? Or are they shaping international transfers? (Please feel free to correct my ISP and network assumptions.) What do you get if you use an online bandwidth test server located in the US or Europe? What are your typical upload speeds on the link? 6. The bandwidth authorities are outside Australia. This appears to produce greater bandwidth measurement variance. To measure bandwidth, the authorities build a circuit between it, your router, and another router with similar bandwidth. More than likely, the authority and other router are a long way away from Australia. My experience has been variance between 50 - 120 KB/s on a 120KB/s set bandwidth. (Which is a little too low for a Tor relay, by the way.) And to answer your questions: A. Tor is country-agnostic, but network-aware by default. Faster, stable relays get priority. B. In my experience, 443 gets more bandwidth than the Tor default port of 9001. You could try setting up another instance on 9001, and see if it experiences the same issues after a few weeks. You could also try paste-binning your torrc, and we'll look for specifics. [-1]: https://blog.torproject.org/blog/lifecycle-of-a-new-relay [0]: https://atlas.torproject.org/ teor pgp 0xABFED1AC hkp://pgp.mit.edu/ https://gist.github.com/teor2345/d033b8ce0a99adbc89c5 http://0bin.net/paste/Mu92kPyphK0bqmbA#Zvt3gzMrSCAwDN6GKsUk7Q8G-eG+Y+BLpe7w…

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Few questions about relaying
by Blaise Gagnon 11 Oct '14

11 Oct '14

Hi and many thanks for developping this project ! I have a dedicated 200Mb (25 MB) fiber optics connection and a dedicated quad-core Linux server (64). What is the best setup to get maximum bandwidth usage ? I'm still stuck at 46.4Kb measured speed and 3,51MB advertised bandwidth. The server has direct connection to the Internet. Fingerprint : 5EF740BB88C75915F8316DFEC8F1C8631FF26F12 Should I run multiple relays on the same machine/IP ? Thanks !

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introduction
by Mirimir 11 Oct '14

11 Oct '14

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 I don't know whether introductions are hopelessly old school on this list, but here's a brief one. Although I've used Tor for many years, it's been just about a year since I decided to understand it better. I've also been catching up on the literature. Now I'm considering the possibility of running some relays. I've read some of the instructions on torservers.net, and have a few questions about security. I'm presuming that this is the best place to ask them. I won't be signing all of my list messages, by the way. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJUNy7oAAoJEGINZVEXwuQ+GPQH/imif4StAJPp6io3zBEkt3iu rNN94iZw+EukXnCbVMTKW686H/6l0NbQ+0iHQ+RkUeX7xUcvV7+rqB9E+nIB7bx/ DOXCDvyqOP2uUeYmxgkTxKz33jD3eMV+MGprB/9oCdMozur4yJmKjf+oYY+6+PT5 WO9Xf7rBbL9KuBqOY7iLCpRtLTvg31vkjz8o3pQFeJYm+aKKRnUjcNcwtroxxdUD c8xe5r8CtFkLL0OX8NuaRX2y3WXeu2GS/8fEEv95J3yqFPTCJ6K9hxmwRfbjG7QT wi/SZ2FEfdAzdvXwT3qd4E5CYMB8RKXVqArlsvmKs7EHbZSVzEqbTbzKBYBvckc= =P0Ua -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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questions about attacks involving single-end measurements of available bandwidth
by Mirimir 10 Oct '14

10 Oct '14

In planning how to configure Tor relays, I've been considering various known attacks. Most involve systemic issues about design and implementation, and so aren't relevant to relay configuration. But there is one that seems relevant, and addressable. I've been reading the work of Sambuddho Chakravarty and coworkers, in particular his thesis and a technical report on LinkWidth.[0],[1] What seems relevant here are deanonymization attacks on clients and hidden services that rely on traffic watermarking in conjunction with single-end measurements of available relay bandwidth. I am somewhat dubious about real-world workability. Fast relays simultaneously handle numerous connections, and so it's arguable that no single connection substantially perturbs available bandwidth. But on the other hand, it takes months for traffic through new relays to ramp up, and perhaps they are easier to scope while relatively idle. Regardless, Tor relays are very specialized. And so it should be trivial to craft iptables rules that prevent responses to LinkWidth and other tools for single-end bandwidth measurement, but don't interfere with anything essential. However, I haven't come across anything that seems relevant. Has this threat been addressed? Or am I missing something that complicates the response? Or conversely, is it not something to worry about? [0] Chakravarty (2014) Traffic Analysis Attacks and Defenses in Low Latency Anonymous Communication (PhD thesis) http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~angelos/Papers/theses/sambuddho_thesis.pdf [1] Chakravarty et al. (2008) LinkWidth: A Method to Measure Link Capacity and Available Bandwidth using Single-End Probes http://academiccommons.columbia.edu/download/fedora_content/download/ac:110…

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