- tor-relays - lists.torproject.org

Question On Running A Tor Bridge Relay
by Keifer Bly 13 Aug '18

13 Aug '18

Hi All, So given that I am running my relay off of a home internet router (a Netgear Orbi Router) I am considering switching to running an obfuscated bridge. I am not sure I will do this, but have noticed that when my relay (torland at http://torstatus.blutmagie.de/router_detail.php?FP=db1af6477bb276b6ea5e7213…) Gets a lot of use, this can cause my computer I am running it on to get hot (It is a mid 2011 iMac with 8GB Ram running Mac OS High Sierra). It does not happen often, but does from time to time. I have also noticed that not often but occasionally when my relay is running, my router will lock up either for a few minutes or until I restart it. I do not know if this is related to my relay (I checked with Netgear support and was told the router is capable of about 60,000 simultaneous connections, 65,000 being the absolute maximum). The ISP is Charter Communications, and the internet speed generally alternates between 500-800 kb/s. I will maybe try running a bridge to cut down on the maximum number of connections I get, and have three questions. I have been running a public relay off my listed ip for some time but have a Dynamic IP so it should change from time to time. 1. What would be the most helpful PT to run? Obfs4 is the one I would most likely choose, and what countries are these being used in the most? 2. I looked on the tor website and could only find the instructions for installing PT on Linux at https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/PluggableTransports/obfs4…. Is there currently a way to install the PT for Obfs4 on Mac OS High Sierra (this would be installed via homebrew)? 3. Would it be possible to keep my current relay fingerprint? Thanks very much.

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Could/should I run a bw scanner authority?
by gustavo panizzo 12 Aug '18

12 Aug '18

Hello I run a relay (milanese) and an exit (sorrentini), both are located in Asia so the bw authority measures of their bw are not great. In one of the sites where i run this relays i have spare bandwidth to use (and i can't run an exit there) I'm thinking on running a bw authority to help mine and other's relays in Asia It is feasible to do that? Could a "regular" relay administrator run bw auth? Would somebody running a directory auth would scan my bw auth to check the results? How hard is the maintenance of this service? The setup is more complex than a relay but nothing that i cannot handle. However i wonder about the ongoing maintenance. I'd run it on a VM on Linode, I don't have access to physical hw thanks! -- IRC: gfa GPG: 0X44BB1BA79F6C6333

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public relay stats
by nusenu 11 Aug '18

11 Aug '18

Hi, if you are publishing traffic/bandwidth stats for your relays, please send me a pointer to them (off-list) thanks, nusenu -- https://twitter.com/nusenu_ https://mastodon.social/@nusenu

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Re: [tor-relays] [tor-talk] anonymous file storage was "freehaven question".
by Lluís 09 Aug '18

09 Aug '18

Maybe "anonymous file storage" is a better subject ? I'm posting it on tor-talk too, and we can follow the discussion there. And back to the topic, maybe it would be possible to set up a pilot-test so one could see how many use cases free haven could properly solve. If I didn't understand from "freehaven.net", just cyphering and splitting a file among many servers could be useful. Lluís grarpamp: >> The project called Free Haven never got finished, because of the hard >> research questions described on the front page: >> https://www.freehaven.net/ > > Where does (or should) the line or guidepath go on such projects > in the space between say bulletproof (for all, most, or some use cases), > and good enough for same? > > When does (or should) movement occur from one reasonably well > explored technology path, onto another exploration path combining > newer research / architecture / tech even if wholesale, when the former > is thought may no longer meet current / evolving threats for all, most, > or some use cases, as may have been rightly thought for the former > at its formative time in the past? > > Feel free to quote and rethread with a better subject > as this one is probably not a good fit. >

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Help us get recent cached consensuses from your relay
by teor 08 Aug '18

08 Aug '18

Hi, Due to a recent CollecTor outage, we are missing consensuses from 2018-08-04 19:00 to 2018-08-05 17:00 UTC. We can recover about 16 of the missing consensuses, but we are still looking for the older 7. If your relay is: * running 0.3.1.1-alpha or later, and it is only using gzip compression, * or it is running on Windows, then it might have some of these consensuses in the diff-cache directory in its DataDirectory (or CacheDirectory). You can run the following command to count the cached consensuses: $ cd diff-cache; cat * | grep -a ^document-type | sort | uniq -c 66 document-type consensus 190 document-type consensus-diff If you have more than 68 consensus files, please take a copy of the diff-cache directory, and let us know where we can download it. Your relay will delete 2 old consensuses every hour. If you’re reading this email N hours after it was sent, your relay needs 68 + 2*N consensuses. T -- teor Please reply @torproject.org New subkeys 1 July 2018 PGP C855 6CED 5D90 A0C5 29F6 4D43 450C BA7F 968F 094B ----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Strange Traffic behaviour
by Tobias Sachs 06 Aug '18

06 Aug '18

Hey folks! My relay which is currently hibernating shows something strange. Hibernation is set to 19 TB’s of outgoing Traffic. Hetzner Cloud shows ~16TB outgoing traffic and the relays log itself 38TB. vnstat reports exactly 20.38 TiB tx so in conclusion Hetzner can not count there Bits and Bytes or the same as protection is not correct. Because if Hetzner’s stats are correct i would have send 3 TB’s of Traffic to other Tor servers and clients internally. Because internal traffic is not counted. I guess that a Juniper routers net flow tool is correct so how can i look at this? Because my second relay in Helsinki does have this too with a difference of 2 TB’s. "Heartbeat: Tor's uptime is 27 days 1:39 hours, with 0 circuits open. I've sent 38486.76 GB and received 38489.42 GB. We are currently hibernating.“ When i divide that by two this gives me 19 TB’s of outgoing Traffic. So i guess that this is a bug? Thanks! Tobias

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contact for 'kommissarov'
by nusenu 05 Aug '18

05 Aug '18

Hi, please drop me an email if you are the operator of: https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#details/D1E99DE1E29E05D79F0EF9E083D1… thanks, nusenu -- https://twitter.com/nusenu_ https://mastodon.social/@nusenu

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Canned Abuse Response
by conrad＠rockenhaus.com 05 Aug '18

05 Aug '18

Hello, I'm just curious, does anyone happen to have a canned abuse response that contains the safe harbor provisions of the DCMA? I figured I would ask before I wrote up a really long email. Thanks, Conrad -- Conrad Rockenhaus Fingerprint: 8049 CDBA C385 C451 3348 776D 0F72 F2B5 26DA E93F Public Key: https://pgp.key-server.io/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x0F72F2B526DAE93F https://www.rockenhaus.com ------ Get started with GreyPony Anonymization Today! https://www.greyponyit.com

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Emails
by conrad＠rockenhaus.com 04 Aug '18

04 Aug '18

I'm suddenly without my tor-relays emails and I'm beginning to withdrawal.... test 1...2...3? Thanks, Conrad -- Conrad Rockenhaus Fingerprint: 8049 CDBA C385 C451 3348 776D 0F72 F2B5 26DA E93F Public Key: https://pgp.key-server.io/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x0F72F2B526DAE93F https://www.rockenhaus.com ------ Get started with GreyPony Anonymization Today! https://www.greyponyit.com

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Tor exit is running but persistently listed as offline by Relay Search
by Ralph Seichter 03 Aug '18

03 Aug '18

Folks, I can't figure out why Relay Search is listing the FreeBSD Tor exit node with fingerprint DB00AF98D21464157AF37BE071F858C56F5220F3 as offline. I have last rebooted the node approx. 24 hours ago, and according to the logs Tor is alive (and 'ps' shows Tor is consuming CPU cycles). I have verified IPv4 and IPv6 connectivity and cannot spot any trouble. Any ideas? The sister exit node (Debian) with near-identical config is chugging along fine. -Ralph

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NTP and tor
by Michael Brodhead 03 Aug '18

03 Aug '18

I brought up my first relay over the weekend and I am waiting for traffic to ramp up. In a few places I've read the suggestion to use NTP to keep the relay's clock in sync. Fair enough, but now there is a problem... I've been reading up on NTP a bit and using ntpdate to occasionally update the system time is now deprecated. We're supposed to run ntpd. Ntpd docs make it sound like ntpd needs to run a listener to function at all. I'd rather not add additional attack surface to my relay. Those of you who run relays, how are you keeping your system clock in sync? My relay is on FreeBSD 11. Thanks, ---mkb

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dir port on non exit
by TorGate 02 Aug '18

02 Aug '18

Hi again, is the dir port on a nonexit node a god ide ? TorGate torgate(at)linux-hus.dk

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Question regarding variables in torrc
by conrad＠rockenhaus.com 02 Aug '18

02 Aug '18

Hello All, I haven't had a chance to experiment with it yet, but can I source a variable from the tor startup script, let's say the IPv6 address of an instance, and define that within torrc as follows ORPort [$Instance_IPv6_ADDR]:443 I'm sure if it's possible it would of already been done. I just wanted to see if there was an easy fix for simplifying templates for end users. Thanks, Conrad -- Conrad Rockenhaus Fingerprint: 8049 CDBA C385 C451 3348 776D 0F72 F2B5 26DA E93F Public Key: https://pgp.key-server.io/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x0F72F2B526DAE93F https://www.rockenhaus.com ------ Get started with GreyPony Anonymization Today! https://www.greyponyit.com

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ExtOrPort settings for obsf4, obfs3 and firewall
by Cristian Consonni 02 Aug '18

02 Aug '18

Hi, Form the instructions to install obsf4: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/PluggableTransports/obfs4… --- ``` ExtORPort auto ``` [...] ``` [notice] Registered server transport 'obfs4' at '[::]:46396' ``` Remember the random port associated to your bridge needs to be open for incoming connections. You can find it from the logs: it's 46396 in this example. --- I can assume that using `ExtORPort auto` would mean that potentially any time Tor is restarted or reload a new port will be picked. Furthermore, in this thread[1] it is said: --- [...] ExtORPort tells tor to open a local-only (bound to localhost) socket for getting information from / communicating with obfsproxy --- So, if I want to be sure to know in advance which firewall port I should let open it is better that I choose a fixed port. Also, that port needs only to accept connections from localhost, i.e. the loopback interface? The only port that needs to be reachable from anywhere is the ORPort? Also, in this answer on Tor Stack Exchange[2] it is said that is possible to run both obfs3 and obfs4 from the same bridge. Is this useful/recommended? Also, in the answer: --- I had to make port forwards for the given obfs ports in iptables (easy with gufw) as well as in my hardware (internet-)firewall to make things work. So I am not so sure that the ExORPort is for local connections only as mentioned by Rodger (please let me know if I am wrong here). --- Thanks in advance (I am sorry for the flood of stupid question, but I prefer to ask a stupid question that having things not work and not understanding why...) C [1]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2014-February/003909.html [2]: https://tor.stackexchange.com/a/6735

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Re: [tor-relays] AS awareness
by Isaac Grover, Aileron I.T. 02 Aug '18

02 Aug '18

Hi Conrad, Back in 2017 I used atlas to find lowly represented ASs and countries with regards to exits, sought out hosting providers in those areas, contacted each of them to determine if Tor exits were allowed per their TOS, and based on those responses, set up four exits with a restrictive policy all in different countries with different providers, and they were all shut down within two months. When asked why, each of them basically responded the same: 'we didn't know what a Tor exit was when you first asked'. So the challenge isn't necessarily that exits are or aren't allowed, but rather the providers haven't been properly educated or use a boilerplate TOS without proper vetting. Make your day great, Isaac Grover, Senior I.T. Consultant Aileron I.T. - "Practical & Proactive I.T. Solutions" Office: 715-377-0440, Fax:715-690-1029, Web: www.aileronit.com

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new fingerprint
by TorGate 01 Aug '18

01 Aug '18

Hi, what is the best solution to change the tor fingerprint ? TorGate torgate(at)linux-hus.dk

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DirCache on low-memory hosts
by Michael Brodhead 01 Aug '18

01 Aug '18

Those of you running relays on low-RAM hosts, what do you do about DirCache? When I first brought up my relay I noticed this message in the logs: [warn] Being a directory cache (default) with less than DIRCACHE_MIN_MEM_MB MB of memory is not recommended and may consume most of the available resources, consider disabling this functionality by setting the DirCache option to 0. When I DirCache to 0 I see another warning: [warn] DirCache is disabled and we are configured as a relay. This may disqualify us from becoming a guard in the future. As it turns out I can increase my VMs memory for free so that’s no big deal. Still, I’m curious. What do people do with relays without much memory? Skip DirCache? Are there ways to reduce the memory footprint and still cache directory info? Thanks, —mkb

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greyponyit.com free trial report
by Dmitrii Tcvetkov 29 Jul '18

29 Jul '18

Since 25.07.2018 I'm running Tor exit relay BBF17F784433635FA28E7E585D05FE3B15A31A6B on FreeBSD VPS. Although AS16276 is quite crowded, fact that IP address space is SWIPed to Conrad Rockenhaus means that I, as relay operator, don't need to deal with a torrent of abuse complaints because of usual exit activity. This allows to run relay with default exit policy. The VPS has OS FreeBSD 11.2 on KVM hypervisor (hypervisor maybe different for newer VPS though), storage is ZFS on GPT. The relay is too young to reach it's full potential, I may post updates in the future.

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3-hourly pattern in network load of my Tor exit relay
by Toralf Förster 29 Jul '18

29 Jul '18

I do run 2 exits at the same hardware [1] and do use systat [2] to monitor system data. 2 questions: A) Since a while (months) I do observe a periodic pattern in the network load. An example is the graph (SVG format, made with [3]) of the data from yesterday. Is this typical? I did not observe such a pattern in the last few years. B) htop shows me, that the Tor exit relay listening on ORPort 443 consumes typically 30% more CPU time than the second Tor exit relay listing on ORport 9001. Boths however have nearly identical configs, bandwith weights and amount of connections (typical values are 4300 and 4500 respectively, 3700 and 3900 of them are connections to relays, the delta are exit connections). Does this explains the delta in CPU time? [1] https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#search/family:D11D11877769B9E617537B… [2] http://sebastien.godard.pagesperso-orange.fr/ [3] svg=/tmp/graph.svg; sadf -g -T ~/tmp/sa/sa28 -O skipempty,oneday -- -n ALL > $svg && konqueror $svg -- Toralf PGP C4EACDDE 0076E94E

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theonionbox
by TorGate 29 Jul '18

29 Jul '18

Hi i have found an issue on the freebsd startupscript. The theonionbox.py is in the /bin dir not in the theonionbox dir OLD: # That's out script command="${theonionbox_dir}/theonionbox.py --mode=service --config='${theonionbox_conf}'" start_cmd="/usr/sbin/daemon -u ${theonionbox_user} -p ${pidfile} ${command}" NEW: # That's out script command="${theonionbox_dir}/bin/theonionbox --mode=service --config='${theonionbox_conf}'" start_cmd="/usr/sbin/daemon -u ${theonionbox_user} -p ${pidfile} ${command}" Hope this help any Relayoperator :-) TorGate torgate(at)linux-hus.dk

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Nyx 2.0.4-4 on armhf - Python3 error
by Paul 28 Jul '18

28 Jul '18

I try to run Nyx on Linux 4.9.80-Re4son-v7+ #1 SMP Thu Apr 26 17:45:16 CDT 2018 armv7l getting following after start: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/nyx", line 11, in <module> load_entry_point('nyx==2.0.4', 'console_scripts', 'nyx')() File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 476, in load_entry_point return get_distribution(dist).load_entry_point(group, name) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 2700, in load_entry_point return ep.load() File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 2318, in load return self.resolve() File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 2324, in resolve module = __import__(self.module_name, fromlist=['__name__'], level=0) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/nyx/__init__.py", line 46, in <module> import distutils.spawn ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'distutils.spawn' Could somebody show me a way to solve this and get Nyx running? Thanks Paul

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torrelay on wan
by TorGate 28 Jul '18

28 Jul '18

Hi to all, is it a god ide to setup torrelays directly on WAN port ? Yes there are an firewall, but direkt in the torserver. So no extern firwall. I have freebsd TorGate torgate(at)linux-hus.dk

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YATR - Yet another tor relay
by zimmer linux 28 Jul '18

28 Jul '18

Hi, I too now have a shiny new exit relay, gifted by Conrad Rockenhaus for a one month trial on one of his freebsd virtual servers. I have zero background with freebd but use Mint linux on a daily basis. It's my second experience with running a relay, I ran a bridge for about a year on a home machine, but my first with an exit relay. Conrad was very helpful and supportive which enabled me to get the system and relay up and running much faster than without the personal support. It's early days yet and the server may take a while to pick up enough traffic to determine its ability. If you are wondering about trying Conrads offer, I say go ahead - you have nothing to lose except the time and input required to enable a relay. I am not an IT professional but it can be done without too much difficulty. If you have any questions about my experience to help you decide whether to run your own relay, please feel free to contact me off list. My relays Fingerprint 7D2A3BD99441CE8F104ADCB02590262ECDFEEF1C https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#details/7D2A3BD99441CE8F104ADCB02590… Thanks, Zim

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Something strange noticed on tor metrics
by Keifer Bly 28 Jul '18

28 Jul '18

Hello, So today I w as checking my relay on tor metrics https://metrics.torproject.org/networksize.html I noticed something strange, according to the graph, the number of bridges seems to have suddenly completely dropped to zero (the bridges line just after “2018-07”) and now slowly climbing back up. I am wondering did something happen that knocked all of the bridges offline? It seemed strange so I just thought I would report. Thank you.

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Relay operators meetup @ Onionspace, Berlin (in solidarity with Torservers)
by Vasilis 27 Jul '18

27 Jul '18

Dear Tor friends and relay operators, This Saturday (21/07) a Tor relay operators meetup will take place at Onionspace, Berlin. When: Sat., 21 July 2018, 13:00 Where: Gottschedstrasse 4, Entrance 4, 13357 Berlin (U Nauener Platz) Map: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/52.54978/13.36991 Event link: https://blog.torproject.org/events/egypcio-vasilis-and-others-tor-friends-a… Hope to see many of you there. Cheers, ~Vasilis -- Fingerprint: 8FD5 CF5F 39FC 03EB B382 7470 5FBF 70B1 D126 0162 Pubkey: https://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x5FBF70B1D1260162

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