- tor-relays - lists.torproject.org

Which OS gives usually the best performance for a relay?
by Farid Joubbi 08 Sep '16

08 Sep '16

Hello, I am thinking of setting up a new relay. I know that the hardware in the server is going to be the bottleneck, not my Internet connection. I have a problem deciding on which OS to use for the relay. A few years ago when I had a similar relay going, I had it running on OpenBSD first. Then I changed the OS to FreeBSD and the performance got about 20% better. I have no idea if this would be the case today too. So I think that maybe it's either FreeBSD or Debian that would be "best", but I have nothing concrete to base that decision on unless I try them both. I am going to use a Via C7 board in this specific case. So I suspect that it's the maturity of the VIA drivers in the OS that is going to make the difference. Still I would like to know how to think in similar situations in the future even for other hardware. Has anyone any concrete experience of the tor relay speeds on different operating systems? I don't want to start a flame war of religious beliefs, but I suspect that OSes differ in how optimized they are for different tasks. Thankful for any constructive input on this. Regards, Farid

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Tor and Diplomatic Immunity
by Kenneth Freeman 08 Sep '16

08 Sep '16

Do embassies and consulates run Tor nodes? AFAIK no studies have been done on this, but diplomatic immunity and Tor would seem to be a match made in Heaven.

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Re: [tor-relays] tor-relays Digest, Vol 68, Issue 22
by daniel boone 07 Sep '16

07 Sep '16

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Re: [tor-relays] tor-relays Digest, Vol 68, Issue 21
by daniel boone 07 Sep '16

07 Sep '16

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write-history for exit relays only?
by Philipp Winter 06 Sep '16

06 Sep '16

I want to learn how many bytes exit relays forwarded. I assume that the write-history that is published in a relay's extra-info document includes bytes that were relayed as part of the exit's guard and middle role? If so, is there a way to learn how many bytes were written by the relay in its exit role only? I suspect that one could approximate this number by accounting for the probability of all exits being selected as guard, middle, and exit, but I would prefer a simpler and more reliable approach.

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Re: [tor-relays] tor-relays Digest, Vol 68, Issue 16
by daniel boone 06 Sep '16

06 Sep '16

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Tor bridge and obfs4proxy
by Arisbe 05 Sep '16

05 Sep '16

I need someone's bridge experience. I had an HD crash and lost one of my Tor bridges. So, I'm rebuilding on a leased VPS. First I tried with Debian 8 and then with ubuntu 16.04 when Debian didn't work. With both operating systems I get a warning message when I start Tor. Tor is the latest version as is obfs4proxy: Sep 04 13:39:41.641 [warn] Strange ServerTransportPlugin type 'obfs4' Sep 04 13:39:41.641 [warn] Failed to parse/validate config: Invalid server transport line. See logs for details. There are no log entries. Apparently Tor starts without the proxy. I have configured torrc as follows: ServerTransportPlugin obfs3 obfs4 exec /usr/bin/obfs4proxy ExtORPort auto /usr/bin/ does contain the obfs4proxy file. Does anyone know my problem? Is there a 'tell-all' explanation of obfs4proxy? Thanks, Arisbe

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Useful metrics for relay operators
by Alison 05 Sep '16

05 Sep '16

Hello all, After Roger's recent checkin emails to this list, some of the folks from the community and metrics teams have started to brainstorm ways that we could use Onionoo data [1] to give better support and recognition to the relay operators. For example, a weekly mail of all the relays that just passed the "earned a tshirt" threshold, or some other threshold about how much bandwidth they've pushed over a period of time. The community team would then contact the operator(s) and congratulate them, thank them for their service, see if we can offer them help in any other ways, and so forth. I'd like to hear directly from relay operators about what kinds of metrics they might like to see involved in a project like this. Have you achieved milestones with your relays that you wished Tor Project would have given you some recognition for? Have there been specific times you'd wished for a checkin email, like the one Roger sent (eg 3 months after starting a new relay)? Anything else that you think Onionoo could measure that would be valuable for you as an operator? Thank you so much for running relays! Looking forward to hearing from you. Alison [1] https://onionoo.torproject.org/

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Re: [tor-relays] tor-relays Digest, Vol 68, Issue 12
by daniel boone 05 Sep '16

05 Sep '16

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Guard vs Exit Bandwidth
by Tristan 05 Sep '16

05 Sep '16

Looking at the advertised bandwidth vs bandwidth history from Tor Metrics[1], it appears that guard relays see much more traffic than exit relays. I think it might be partially because guard-only, guard-middle and guard-exits aren't separated, but would it really skew the numbers that much? [1]http://rougmnvswfsmd4dq.onion/bandwidth-flags.html -- Finding information, passing it along. ～SuperSluether

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Re: [tor-relays] tor-relays Digest, Vol 68, Issue 14
by daniel boone 04 Sep '16

04 Sep '16

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Re: [tor-relays] tor-relays Digest, Vol 68, Issue 15
by daniel boone 04 Sep '16

04 Sep '16

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Re: [tor-relays] tor-relays Digest, 3 questions on torcc file
by daniel boone 04 Sep '16

04 Sep '16

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BeagleBoard-X15
by jchase 04 Sep '16

04 Sep '16

Hello, At least a year ago someone recommended the BeagleBoard-X15 as a Tor relay, partly due to its speed. The X15 does not seem to be available in the Netherlands (according to Mouser electronics). Are there any other comparable boards available in the Netherlands? Thanks, James Chase

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Re: [tor-relays] tor-relays Digest, Vol 68, Issue 12-UPDATE
by daniel boone 04 Sep '16

04 Sep '16

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Re: [tor-relays] tor-relays-strike-snowden
by daniel boone 03 Sep '16

03 Sep '16

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Re: [tor-relays] tor-relays Digest, Vol 68, Issue 6
by daniel boone 03 Sep '16

03 Sep '16

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total relay bandwidth
by jensm1 03 Sep '16

03 Sep '16

Hi, (rather new relay operator here, so excuse me, if this is a dumb question) I just saw this (https://metrics.torproject.org/bandwidth.html) graph, which shows that the advertised relay bandwidth in the whole network is more than double the actually used bandwidth. While it's certainly nice to have a bit of breathing space to absorb load spikes, I'm wondering, if new relays (i.e. non-exits) are actually helpful at this point, or if they simply don't make a difference. Am I missing something obvious? Thanks, Jens

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#torstrike
by Marcel Krzystek 02 Sep '16

02 Sep '16

What are the thoughts of relay operators on this? https://ghostbin.com/paste/kmnzz I can be persuaded otherwise, and perhaps i'm being naive, but i believe that operation of the network should remain independent from the politics within the organization. mk

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tor 0.2.8.x did not make it into OpenBSD 6.0?
by nusenu 01 Sep '16

01 Sep '16

Hi Pascal, did I understand it correctly that tor 0.2.8.x did not make it into OpenBSD 6.0 because tor 0.2.8.x has been released to recently? thanks, nusenu

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New tor relay not showing up on Atlas
by Marina Brown 01 Sep '16

01 Sep '16

Hi All: I've set up a new relay and it is not showing up on Atlas. This is the Log output. Sep 01 03:52:27.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 90%: Establishing a Tor circuit Sep 01 03:52:27.000 [notice] Tor has successfully opened a circuit. Looks like client functionality is wor king. Sep 01 03:52:27.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 100%: Done Sep 01 03:52:27.000 [notice] Now checking whether ORPort 78.47.167.67:9001 is reachable... (this may take up to 20 minutes -- look for log messages indicating success) Sep 01 03:52:27.000 [notice] Self-testing indicates your ORPort is reachable from the outside. Excellent. Publishing server descriptor. Sep 01 03:53:28.000 [notice] Performing bandwidth self-test...done. ## Configuration file for a typical Tor user ## Last updated 9 October 2013 for Tor 0.2.5.2-alpha. ## (may or may not work for much older or much newer versions of Tor.) ## ## Lines that begin with "## " try to explain what's going on. Lines ## that begin with just "#" are disabled commands: you can enable them ## by removing the "#" symbol. ## ## See 'man tor', or https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-manual.html, ## for more options you can use in this file. ## ## Tor will look for this file in various places based on your platform: ## https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq#torrc ## Tor opens a socks proxy on port 9050 by default -- even if you don't ## configure one below. Set "SocksPort 0" if you plan to run Tor only ## as a relay, and not make any local application connections yourself. #SocksPort 9050 # Default: Bind to localhost:9050 for local connections. #SocksPort 192.168.0.1:9100 # Bind to this address:port too. ## Entry policies to allow/deny SOCKS requests based on IP address. ## First entry that matches wins. If no SocksPolicy is set, we accept ## all (and only) requests that reach a SocksPort. Untrusted users who ## can access your SocksPort may be able to learn about the connections ## you make. #SocksPolicy accept 192.168.0.0/16 #SocksPolicy reject * ## Logs go to stdout at level "notice" unless redirected by something ## else, like one of the below lines. You can have as many Log lines as ## you want. ## ## We advise using "notice" in most cases, since anything more verbose ## may provide sensitive information to an attacker who obtains the logs. ## ## Send all messages of level 'notice' or higher to /var/log/tor/notices.log #Log notice file /var/log/tor/notices.log ## Send every possible message to /var/log/tor/debug.log #Log debug file /var/log/tor/debug.log ## Use the system log instead of Tor's logfiles #Log notice syslog ## To send all messages to stderr: #Log debug stderr ## Uncomment this to start the process in the background... or use ## --runasdaemon 1 on the command line. This is ignored on Windows; ## see the FAQ entry if you want Tor to run as an NT service. #RunAsDaemon 1 ## The directory for keeping all the keys/etc. By default, we store ## things in $HOME/.tor on Unix, and in Application Data\tor on Windows. #DataDirectory /var/lib/tor ## The port on which Tor will listen for local connections from Tor ## controller applications, as documented in control-spec.txt. #ControlPort 9051 ## If you enable the controlport, be sure to enable one of these ## authentication methods, to prevent attackers from accessing it. #HashedControlPassword 16:872860B76453A77D60CA2BB8C1A7042072093276A3D701AD684053EC4C #CookieAuthentication 1 ############### This section is just for location-hidden services ### ## Once you have configured a hidden service, you can look at the ## contents of the file ".../hidden_service/hostname" for the address ## to tell people. ## ## HiddenServicePort x y:z says to redirect requests on port x to the ## address y:z. #HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/ #HiddenServicePort 80 127.0.0.1:80 #HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/other_hidden_service/ #HiddenServicePort 80 127.0.0.1:80 #HiddenServicePort 22 127.0.0.1:22 # XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/XXXXXXXXX/ HiddenServicePort 80 127.0.0.1:80 ################ This section is just for relays ##################### # ## See https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-doc-relay for details. ## Required: what port to advertise for incoming Tor connections. ORPort 9001 ## If you want to listen on a port other than the one advertised in ## ORPort (e.g. to advertise 443 but bind to 9090), you can do it as ## follows. You'll need to do ipchains or other port forwarding ## yourself to make this work. #ORPort 443 NoListen #ORPort 127.0.0.1:9090 NoAdvertise ## The IP address or full DNS name for incoming connections to your ## relay. Leave commented out and Tor will guess. #Address noname.example.com ## If you have multiple network interfaces, you can specify one for ## outgoing traffic to use. # OutboundBindAddress 10.0.0.5 ## A handle for your relay, so people don't have to refer to it by key. Nickname greedygertie ## Define these to limit how much relayed traffic you will allow. Your ## own traffic is still unthrottled. Note that RelayBandwidthRate must ## be at least 20 KB. ## Note that units for these config options are bytes per second, not bits ## per second, and that prefixes are binary prefixes, i.e. 2^10, 2^20, etc. RelayBandwidthRate 100 KB # Throttle traffic to 100KB/s (800Kbps) RelayBandwidthBurst 200 KB # But allow bursts up to 200KB/s (1600Kbps) ## Use these to restrict the maximum traffic per day, week, or month. ## Note that this threshold applies separately to sent and received bytes, ## not to their sum: setting "4 GB" may allow up to 8 GB total before ## hibernating. ## ## Set a maximum of 4 gigabytes each way per period. #AccountingMax 4 GB ## Each period starts daily at midnight (AccountingMax is per day) #AccountingStart day 00:00 ## Each period starts on the 3rd of the month at 15:00 (AccountingMax ## is per month) #AccountingStart month 3 15:00 ## Administrative contact information for this relay or bridge. This line ## can be used to contact you if your relay or bridge is misconfigured or ## something else goes wrong. Note that we archive and publish all ## descriptors containing these lines and that Google indexes them, so ## spammers might also collect them. You may want to obscure the fact that ## it's an email address and/or generate a new address for this purpose. #ContactInfo Random Person <nobody AT example dot com> ## You might also include your PGP or GPG fingerprint if you have one: #ContactInfo 0xFFFFFFFF Random Person <nobody AT example dot com> ContactInfo 0x4D9C031B Marina Brown <catskillmarina(a)gmail.com> ## Uncomment this to mirror directory information for others. Please do ## if you have enough bandwidth. #DirPort 9030 # what port to advertise for directory connections ## If you want to listen on a port other than the one advertised in ## DirPort (e.g. to advertise 80 but bind to 9091), you can do it as ## follows. below too. You'll need to do ipchains or other port ## forwarding yourself to make this work. #DirPort 80 NoListen #DirPort 127.0.0.1:9091 NoAdvertise ## Uncomment to return an arbitrary blob of html on your DirPort. Now you ## can explain what Tor is if anybody wonders why your IP address is ## contacting them. See contrib/tor-exit-notice.html in Tor's source ## distribution for a sample. #DirPortFrontPage /etc/tor/tor-exit-notice.html ## Uncomment this if you run more than one Tor relay, and add the identity ## key fingerprint of each Tor relay you control, even if they're on ## different networks. You declare it here so Tor clients can avoid ## using more than one of your relays in a single circuit. See ## https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq#MultipleRelays ## However, you should never include a bridge's fingerprint here, as it would ## break its concealability and potentionally reveal its IP/TCP address. #MyFamily $keyid,$keyid,... ## A comma-separated list of exit policies. They're considered first ## to last, and the first match wins. If you want to _replace_ ## the default exit policy, end this with either a reject *:* or an ## accept *:*. Otherwise, you're _augmenting_ (prepending to) the ## default exit policy. Leave commented to just use the default, which is ## described in the man page or at ## https://www.torproject.org/documentation.html ## ## Look at https://www.torproject.org/faq-abuse.html#TypicalAbuses ## for issues you might encounter if you use the default exit policy. ## ## If certain IPs and ports are blocked externally, e.g. by your firewall, ## you should update your exit policy to reflect this -- otherwise Tor ## users will be told that those destinations are down. ## ## For security, by default Tor rejects connections to private (local) ## networks, including to your public IP address. See the man page entry ## for ExitPolicyRejectPrivate if you want to allow "exit enclaving". ## #ExitPolicy accept *:6660-6667,reject *:* # allow irc ports but no more #ExitPolicy accept *:119 # accept nntp as well as default exit policy ExitPolicy reject *:* ## Bridge relays (or "bridges") are Tor relays that aren't listed in the ## main directory. Since there is no complete public list of them, even an ## ISP that filters connections to all the known Tor relays probably ## won't be able to block all the bridges. Also, websites won't treat you ## differently because they won't know you're running Tor. If you can ## be a real relay, please do; but if not, be a bridge! #BridgeRelay 1 ## By default, Tor will advertise your bridge to users through various ## mechanisms like https://bridges.torproject.org/. If you want to run ## a private bridge, for example because you'll give out your bridge ## address manually to your friends, uncomment this line: #PublishServerDescriptor 0 # more fingerprint greedygertie 27376BCE3867E999330C53981FA0A226870F042F greedygertie is not showing up on atlas --- Marina

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Any users of FlashProxy, any servers?
by grarpamp 01 Sep '16

01 Sep '16

On 8/31/16, Kenneth Freeman <kencf0618(a)riseup.net> wrote: > Flash proxy may be of some utility here Being not outside the tor ecosystem it's not really something all that different to explore (regarding topics of the other thread). It's basically a pluggable transport with unique 'nodes as middleware' function to get around otherwise need for direct bridge or relay connection. > although to the best of my > knowledge it is not in wide use. On the other hand, yes there should be some way to gauge... a) if any users use or need to use flash proxies as a client. and b) if there are any flash proxy 'servers' running out there, or alternative facilitators. So if either of those describe you, speak up. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_proxy https://crypto.stanford.edu/flashproxy/ https://blog.torproject.org/blog/combined-flash-proxy-pyobfsproxy-browser-b… http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/08/a-portable-router-tha…

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newer version of tor
by shraptor 31 Aug '16

31 Aug '16

I am running an rpi3 with devuan. How to I get a more recent tor package on there? Could I use https://deb.torproject.org or do I have to setup a tool chain for armhf and build it from source? /scooby

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Wrong mode on /var/run/tor
by Alexander Dietrich 31 Aug '16

31 Aug '16

Hello, I just had a tor instance exit with these error messages: [warn] Failed to parse/validate config: Failed to bind one of the listener ports. [err] Reading config failed--see warnings above. For usage, try -h. [warn] Restart failed (config error?). Exiting. Above that, the log contains an endless stream of these errors: [warn] Permissions on directory /var/run/tor are too permissive. [warn] Before Tor can create a control socket in "/var/run/tor/control", the directory "/var/run/tor" needs to exist, and to be accessible only by the user and group account that is running Tor. (On some Unix systems, anybody who can list a socket can connect to it, so Tor is being careful.) When I checked, the /var/run/tor directory had the mode "rwxr-sr-x". After removing the permissions for "other", tor started without problems. Did anyone else see this? I'm using Ubuntu packages from the deb.torproject.org repository. Best regards, Alexander -- PGP Key: https://dietrich.cx/pgp | 0x52FA4EE1722D54EB

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new relay package for Ubuntu 16.04+
by Chad MILLER 31 Aug '16

31 Aug '16

tl;dr: $ sudo apt install snapd; sudo snap install tor-middle-relay Hi. Ubuntu has been working on a new kind of software package* that aims for isolation from the rest of the system, so 1) anyone can create packages for others without review, 2) security is better, and 3) it can be the basis for lots of supposedly single-purpose systems like cars, watches, home security systems, etc. The packages work for desktop and server too. The upshot is that soon, they hope, many devices will run the miniature Ubuntu plus the single package that makes the device do what it does to act like that device. If the mfr doesn't restrict it, we users can add other things that they never intended to make our device do more. Your Wifi Router could also be your print server. Why not? I made a tor-middle-relay package, so the TVs, Wifi Routers, Toasters, Self-driving Cars, Phones... of the world that are running that new kind of Ubuntu (or other OS that implements this package system!) can also help the Tor network. The code that enables that new package system is already in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, so even existing desktops and servers can already use it. So, if you use Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, this should get you a Tor relay $ sudo apt install snapd $ sudo snap install tor-middle-relay (The ARMHF architecture has an open bug where the new package security rejects the "personality" syscall that Tor calls, so ARMHF doesn't work out of the box right now.) Once you have it installed, try $ sudo /snap/bin/tor-middle-relay.configure to bump up your bandwidth limit over the conservative defaults. There are a few dozen users already. https://atlas.torproject.org/#search/UbuntuCore I'd be happy to have an explosion of devices all over the world. Please send bug-reports privately, not to this list. - chad * https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/snappy/ http://snapcraft.io/ -- Chad Miller chad.org c2c3 0e6c a4ce d49e 79cf 06c61 a806 deac 3042 0066

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