- tor-relays - lists.torproject.org

Mass-email sent to relay operators
by Zachary 10 Feb '25

10 Feb '25

Hello my fellow relay operators, I just received an email that was sent to many relay operators' contact emails. The content is as follows: // Start message Hello to all the relays operators. My name is Zakwan Kalb. I'm investigating a possible ongoing end-to-end confirmation attack run by the Torproject. Please reply to me if you have encountered one of the following and provide as much information as possible: 1. Your relay has been removed by the Torproject. (You've seen something like that in your log files: "http status 400 ("Fingerprint and/or ed25519 identity is marked rejected ...") 2. The Torproject added flags it's not supposed to add to your relays (BadExit, MiddleOnly) 3. You have been asked by the Torproject to install unknown software, spy on users or do something else that's suspicious 4. You know something about the ongoing attack I have some evidence of the attack: the Torproject doesn't allow people to run relays by removing them from the network or making them unusable as Guard or Exit for no known reason for years. A random person cannot run a Guard or Exit relay. Thus the Tor network is entirely run by the people chosen by the Torproject by unknown criteria. More evidence and details are needed. I think we need to discuss this issue with each other, contact the media and freedom of speech organizations and let people know what's happening. // End message Looking through his mailing list history it looks like he was asking about this same thing back in 2021. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up. It doesn't seem like there's any malicious intent, maybe a bit of schizophrenia perhaps, but I've reached back out simply asking if he has any proof of anything actually going on just to appease my own curiosity. I have no further comment about this. Zachary

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Adding falgs to new relays
by ZK 10 Feb '25

10 Feb '25

I'm asking the Torpoject to publicly answer the question: why do you add BadExit and MiddleOnly flags to new relays? Please don't lie as you did before and list the criteria here

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Web Tunnel Bridges
by gerard＠bulger.co.uk 29 Jan '25

29 Jan '25

Web tunnel bridges Port 443, https I set up three of these. One in UK, one in Australia and one in USA. Only the USA service is attracting traffic. This might be normal. The others are very quiet. Then I look at it on Tor Relay metric it reports Running <https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#search/flag:running> V2Dir <https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#search/flag:v2dir> Valid <https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#search/flag:valid> Additional Flags none First Seen 2025-01-26 14:22:20 Last Restarted 2025-01-28 20:49:38 Platform Tor 0.4.8.13 on Linux Transport protocols Transport protocols supported by this bridge. webtunnel Bridge distribution mechanism Settings <https://bridges.torproject.org/info#settings> The difference between the quiet ones and the active USA server is Bridge Distribution Mechanism it says "settings" rather than HPPTS for my USA one Does this change automatically or do I need to change something? Gerry

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Re: Having trouble with setting up a relay in a censored country.
by George Hartley 22 Jan '25

22 Jan '25

Hi, sorry for the late reply, I was busy working. The only thing that stands out to me immediately is that you configured two separate ControlPort authentication methods: > HashedControlPassword XX:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX > CookieAuthentication 1 You might want to comment out the first line. Otherwise, everything else looks correct. P.S: Since you do not run a bridge, there is no need to un-comment the obfs4 related settings: > ServerTransportPlugin obfs4 exec /usr/bin/obfs4proxy > ServerTransportListenAddr obfs4 0.0.0.0:9002 This will do nothing, unless you actually configure the relay to be a bridge. Try to comment both HashedControlPassword and the obfs4 settings, and restart the relay. nyx should now work - additionally, you might want to check the log using journalctl -u tor. There should be a line stating that your ORPort is reachable from the outside, and that your server descriptor has been published. If that is not the case, then I would conclude that your host / ISP is up to some "funny" business, and you might not be able to run a normal relay. Since I can't find any relay with your specified nickname, I assume that it is still not working. However, you could still run an obfs4 bridge, which should work fine in Russia - if you can do this, please do.. any relay or bridge not run by intelligence agencies or government helps! Regards, -GH On Wednesday, January 15th, 2025 at 3:23 PM, nyyymi <nyyymi(a)protonmail.com> wrote: > Hi, here is my torrc file. Enabling cookieauth didn't change anything >

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All of my nodes have been banned
by petition_tricky750＠simplelogin.com 20 Jan '25

20 Jan '25

Hello, What are some of the most common reasons for relays and exits to be banned from Tor? Had it happen to all of my 5 nodes and I'm currently awaiting response from bad-relays list. They all present this in logs Jan 18 20:41:40 example.com Tor[2439671]: http status 400 ("Fingerprint and/or ed25519 identity is marked rejected -- if you think this is a mistake please set a valid email address in ContactInfo and send an email to bad-relays(a)lists.torproject.org mentioning your fingerprint(s)?") response from dirserver 204.13.164.118:80. Please correct. All of them have been running just fine before 4E1E745FF661657E3D3CE10DF1A1AEEF1D3F7996 2D9D4F0D298C68044F2476DFCB191CEBCE7AC860 078B7B30953A6DA8BB73612035BB876EA90847E3 DE3550EBB205660730900C05B6330B663CEED25434A09907FB89BE444A0A456C12A1A9C54CCF1A8A I'm genuinely curious if others also had it happen to them, and the reason behind it. Thank you.

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Possible attack on servers via Tor Guard relays?
by x9p 19 Jan '25

19 Jan '25

Hi, I am running a relay and other servers. Sometimes doing SSHD over Tor via a hidden service in a VPS in openbsd.amsterdam. In all my other setups, in other providers, I do not see this problem happening. Upon connecting for the first time, I do get a "banner line contains invalid characters" error, and the connection is terminated. (MSG1) Upon connecting for the second time, everything goes smooth. (MSG2) Problem is happening on my 2 servers in openbsd.amsterdam. Any directions into debugging this problem? Both via Tor or via SSHD? Is it possible a bad guard is logging the IPs first connecting, then dropping the connection, and then allowing the connection to succeed later? Any directions would be appreciated to solve the problem. System: uname -a OpenBSD xxxx.yyyy.com 7.6 GENERIC#501 amd64 Tor version: Tor version 0.4.8.13. MSG1 (BAD): localhost:~# torify ssh -v ams02 OpenSSH_9.9p1, OpenSSL 3.3.2 3 Sep 2024 debug1: Reading configuration data /root/.ssh/config debug1: /root/.ssh/config line 284: Applying options for ams02 debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config debug1: /etc/ssh/ssh_config line 22: include /etc/ssh/ssh_config.d/*.conf matched no files debug1: Connecting to ngbjd5vpxamy5d63hcflinghioo2qa5e75uiysscmo4ml5qd4rpaobid.onion [127.42.42.0] port 60113. debug1: Connection established. debug1: identity file /root/.ssh/oams002_2 type 0 debug1: identity file /root/.ssh/oams002_2-cert type -1 debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_9.9 kex_exchange_identification: banner line contains invalid characters banner exchange: Connection to 127.42.42.0 port 60113: invalid format MSG2 (OK): localhost:~# torify ssh -v ams02 OpenSSH_9.9p1, OpenSSL 3.3.2 3 Sep 2024 debug1: Reading configuration data /root/.ssh/config localhost:~# torify ssh -v ams02 OpenSSH_9.9p1, OpenSSL 3.3.2 3 Sep 2024 debug1: Reading configuration data /root/.ssh/config debug1: /root/.ssh/config line 284: Applying options for ams02 debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config debug1: /etc/ssh/ssh_config line 22: include /etc/ssh/ssh_config.d/*.conf matched no files debug1: Connecting to ngbjd5vpxamy5d63hcflinghioo2qa5e75uiysscmo4ml5qd4rpaobid.onion [127.42.42.0] port 60113. debug1: Connection established. debug1: identity file /root/.ssh/oams002_2 type 0 debug1: identity file /root/.ssh/oams002_2-cert type -1 debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_9.9 debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_9.9 debug1: compat_banner: match: OpenSSH_9.9 pat OpenSSH* compat 0x04000000 debug1: Authenticating to ngbjd5vpxamy5d63hcflinghioo2qa5e75uiysscmo4ml5qd4rpaobid.onion:60113 as 'xxxxxxxxxx' debug1: load_hostkeys: fopen /root/.ssh/known_hosts2: No such file or directory debug1: load_hostkeys: fopen /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts: No such file or directory debug1: load_hostkeys: fopen /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts2: No such file or directory debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received debug1: kex: algorithm: sntrup761x25519-sha512 debug1: kex: host key algorithm: ssh-ed25519 debug1: kex: server->client cipher: chacha20-poly1305(a)openssh.com MAC: <implicit> compression: none debug1: kex: client->server cipher: chacha20-poly1305(a)openssh.com MAC: <implicit> compression: none --x9p

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Re: Having trouble with setting up a relay in a censored country.
by Marco Moock 15 Jan '25

15 Jan '25

Am 15.01.2025 um 16:25:42 Uhr schrieb nyyymi: > > Please post your torrc (without comments). > > and the IP addresses of the machine. > Ip is 192.168.1.113. This is a private IPv4 address, unreachable from the internet by design. You need to set up port forwarding in your router to make it reachable. Did you do that? If your ISP provides IPv6, you need to create a firewall rule in your router to allow access. Because that doesn't use NAT, no port forwarding is needed. > I've let the relay run for a bit, errors started > to accumulate. "Problem bootstrapping. Stuck at 5% (conn): Connecting > to a relay. (Connection timed out; TIMEOUT; count 25.." and "25 > connections died in state connect()ing with SSL state (no SSL object)" Please test ncat -v tr.dorfdsl.de 9001 If that doesn't work, those problems must be first fixed. -- Gruß Marco Send unsolicited bulk mail to 1736954742muell(a)cartoonies.org

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Re: Having trouble with setting up a relay in a censored country.
by Marco Moock 15 Jan '25

15 Jan '25

Am Wed, 15 Jan 2025 16:01:44 +0000 schrieb nyyymi <nyyymi(a)protonmail.com>: > Nickname is nyymi. It doesn't show up on the relay search That is an indicator that something isn't working. Please post your torrc (without comments). and the IP addresses of the machine.

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Having trouble with setting up a relay in a censored country.
by nyyymi 15 Jan '25

15 Jan '25

Hello. For the past few days I've been trying to open a tor-relay on my old laptop running arch. The tor service starts fine but when I check nyx no traffic goes through me, both download and upload is 0. Nyx shows Unknown:portnumber. I doubt that the port is closed or somehow unavailable since arch's defaults are wide open. And for some reason my tor version (0.4.8.13) shows up as "unknown" as well. I thought the issue may lie in torproject's ban in Russia but somehow other people run relays just fine? (https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#search/country:ru) I've set up obsf4 as well but It didn't change anything Im quite new in all of this so bear with me. Thanks -Arttu

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Question: Relay speed South Africa
by Carlo P. 15 Jan '25

15 Jan '25

Hello experts, I have, from the same provider, two VPS with same specs (also same port speed of 200MBit/s, verified via speedtest-cli) - one in Germany, one in South Africa. Whilst the German one behaves as expected (two fast relays on it), the two relays in South Africa won't really get up to speed - barely traffic, and advertised bandwidth below 2MB/s . In general, search for country:za on metrics does not really look too impressive. Do you have any idea about the reason, i.e. why, despite the VPS having the bandwidth, the relays do not get up to speed? Thanks - C. -- Sent with https://mailfence.com Secure and private email

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