- tor-relays - lists.torproject.org

Unused Tor exit nodes capacity
by Dirk Eschbach 16 Dec '15

16 Dec '15

Hello all, we are administrating 2 Tor Exits for privacyfoundation.ch [1]. In the last month we realized that the traffic which is going through our servers / throughput is by far less than the machines and the providers network can handle. We were internally and recently with Moritz from torservers.net looking at this problem but could not find a way to improve throughput. Even on the same machine the throughput between servers varies a lot with out any visible reason. I hope you can help. Our setup is two servers with a maximum of 4 tor processes (exit) each. Looking at CPU, Disk, RAM and so on the machines are not busy at all. Konsole output top - 09:57:49 up 16 days, 11:57, 1 user, load average: 1.14, 0.91, 0.81 Tasks:244 total, 3 running,241 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie %Cpu0 :12.5 us, 3.4 sy, 0.0 ni,79.7 id, 0.0 wa, 0.0 hi, 4.4 si, 0.0 st %Cpu1 :15.9 us, 5.4 sy, 0.0 ni,74.3 id, 0.3 wa, 0.0 hi, 4.1 si, 0.0 st %Cpu2 :14.3 us, 2.7 sy, 0.0 ni,77.0 id, 0.0 wa, 0.0 hi, 6.0 si, 0.0 st %Cpu3 : 9.5 us, 3.4 sy, 0.0 ni,80.3 id, 0.0 wa, 0.0 hi, 6.8 si, 0.0 st KiB Mem: 3877624 total, 2739880 used, 1137744 free, 1288 buffers KiB Swap: 4026364 total, 364264 used, 3662100 free. 10752 cached Mem Looking at the network connection it is without any problem possible to start big downloads without reducing TOR throughput. The servers are connected with 1 Gbit/s each. The big question now is: Why do the machines do not have more throughput ? Is the reason for this the way the distribution through the Tor network works. Moritz hinted it might have to do with the way the tor "bandwidth scanners" measure the ability of a server to handle traffic. Can you explain me / point me to documentation where this process is described and how this can be optimized. What are the criteria for tor exit node server traffic distribution ? How do the clients choose the exit ? I would be very happy if you could provide some answers / documentation which will set me on the right track. Thanks very much for you help. Dirk [1] https://globe.torproject.org/#/search/query=digiges

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Webiron at it again...
by Schokomilch NOC 15 Dec '15

15 Dec '15

Monday we received their usual spam about our exit-node sending spam, and of course instead of implementing the TorDNSEL on their sites, they rather want us to block a whole /24 range. Anyhow, one line caught our eyes: "Tor: Please note as the abuse from Tor has gotten out of hand, we do not give free passes to abuse coming from Tor exits. See the leader board linked below for more details on the issue." They also include a link to some fancy unresolved abuse ranking[1]. From that ranking we can see that they currently have 116 unresolved Tor abuse cases and at least 500 unresolved non-Tor cases. Assuming that 616 cases are enough we can try to calculate with 99% certainty, the true interval of the difference in Tor and non-Tor abuse. We will use 500/616 = 0.812 as an estimate for all non-Tor abuse and we will use 116/616 = 0.188 as an estimate for all Tor abuse. One can easily calculate that there is a difference of 62.3% between the 81.2% non-Tor and 18.8% Tor abuse cases. However this percentage (62.3%) is just one impression of a sample. Imagine we would sample 100 hosters just like webiron and then see what their difference is. And we want to be 99% sure that our measured value is within the interval. The formula can be found here[2]. Then we would receive an interval from 0.51 to 0.73. What this boils down to: If we were to check 100 companies that send abuse reports like Webiron, in 99 cases we would find a difference between Tor and non-Tor abuse to range between 51% and 73%: Two concrete examples: Tor abuse could be as high as 24.5% (lower end of the interval -> 0.51 = 75.5 non-Tor - 24.5 Tor) or as low as 13.5% (higher end of the interval -> 0.73 = 0.865 Non-Tor - 0.135 Tor) I think that having a tiny bit less than 1/4 of all abuse reports originating from Tor is a pretty great value and not "out of hand" at all. P.S.: We are pretty sure that this calculation is correct, but don't take our word for it. Also on a funny note: Their mx server blocks our mx server, so we can't even reply to their email, even though the Tor-exit runs on a different IP than the mx. [1] https://www.webiron.com/abuse_web_leaderboard/ [2] http://www.kean.edu/~fosborne/bstat/06d2pop.html?ModPagespeed=noscript

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Handling abuse request about stopforumspam.com
by Eran Sandler 15 Dec '15

15 Dec '15

Hi guys, One of my tor server seems to be getting a lot of abuse reports from the ISP from stopforumspam.com. http://www.stopforumspam.com/ipcheck/212.47.246.21 Any idea how to reduce those to a minimum in a reasonable way? Thanks, Eran

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uptime "algorithm"
by Dr. Who 15 Dec '15

15 Dec '15

As far as understand it is the flag HSdir given to nodes with a fast enough connection and a long enough uptime. If I keep my tor relay version always up to the current stable version I sometimes do have to restart the process. So I get a drop in my uptime and loose the HSdir flag for several days. Other nodes who don't care about versions keep the flag, despite the fact they might use older/inefficient/insecure/buggy versions. Wouldn't it be better to monitor the reason for a drop in uptime? In case at the same time a restart occurs the version increases it might be given the HSdir flag again? someone understands what I mean?

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Tor Relay Operators Meetup at 32c3: 28.12. 16:45
by Moritz Bartl 14 Dec '15

14 Dec '15

As usual: Let's all gather at 32c3 to discuss Tor relay operation! Monday, 28.12.2015 16:45-18:45 Hall 13 https://events.ccc.de/congress/2015/wiki/Session:Tor_Relay_Operators_Meetup See you there! -- Moritz Bartl https://www.torservers.net/

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Relay isn't getting HSDir flags
by Lucas Werkmeister 13 Dec '15

13 Dec '15

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 Hi all! For some reason, my relay[1] isn't getting the HSDir and V2Dir flags. This is the full config, sans comments (sed '/^#\|^$/d' /etc/tor/torrc): SocksPort 0 DataDirectory /var/lib/tor ORPort 9001 Address 78.46.139.153 Nickname BotIfMuvasfo AccountingMax 7900 GB AccountingStart month 15 00:00 ContactInfo Lucas Werkmeister "6B89 5B8B 11A4 75B1 EC93 1698 FC46 2872 72AE 323F" <mail(a)lucaswerkmeister.de> DirPort 9030 # what port to advertise for directory connections ExitPolicy reject *:* # no exits allowed I reloaded the config several times since I uncommented the DirPort line, and even restarted the relay earlier today just in case enabling DirPort wasn't supported without restart. No luck - both Globe[1] and Atlas[2] don't show the HSDir or V2Dir flags. A few months ago, I had the relay running on a different server. I had enabled the DirPort there for a while, but eventually was forced to disable it since the server couldn't handle the load. But back then, the relay got the flags without any problem. Since I moved to a new server (copying over the torrc and data directories), this doesn't seem to be working anymore. (I am now on Debian 8, tor version 0.2.5.12; the old server was on Debian 7, tor version 0.2.4.27.) Any ideas on what the problem here could be? Thanks a lot, Lucas [1]: https://globe.torproject.org/#/relay/C527AD7D47E9DEC163537A444F4F790433CD67… [2]: https://atlas.torproject.org/#details/C527AD7D47E9DEC163537A444F4F790433CD6… -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJWbfIFAAoJEPxGKHJyrjI/B3AP/18uMBavSAQeHyYDr5D89bBQ JlTmDwWdolNc7SwNeaUTB8w+KYEatyVXJh7uAF4jrjKIS9eplMMU+1rcLS6C2tO4 4hvu9cYGwXepkuh742ikPIXivj7X08BqP+c38GYyXIC/mxdUJ44AZwGa3z4guWEl 6Qb9FtdxJ2NBMdtHjvmyFTUN2qYK0k6qYzoHygCyrf/OyoHjynkMRPKwaoHEgZhG yBIcf8AlOnKUf5+cVwkUZeurZ0l0KPl0hawUNDELciOMkGchMDyb6ui6u7LbCDVL gRiBToU6RJIiPo6vKw7UbAZeNeodNeXalmLMTL7vuKzhJjYgDae1bTJEQvMWdz6i nNxssOLHhBkTwdJosj1Kaw4a+opcqA8bPJY0KeAaZUnvAGro/lOwb0Tc7oDkbg2b Xb5IuQfWpZzpOuGldfisdqXRL1rySsnCaGSsFT9ulrkXaz42UDQE8pyxy8ErqL4j byhGiQF0F04sWldQPy3AjfZEImtBROx9PetESMLLyD6UYWffEGr6JLtIoolPEA0x OjMOGuyq91gJEZ2xIdlN+kJaylmnu/8kGKD6vAJwBxX8wVHWIyD5KbQOyL2RjCT8 gtiSFdIj8mZmvKUR5svWrgxfGoVGc5a76CUyLF+7Jd+d3DPPOlGXX+dJ/WErjgjH JbmjWbI1OIBai6gKvlSE =BmwK -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Webtropia threatening with penalty of 5.100€
by spriver 13 Dec '15

13 Dec '15

Hi, I am (or was) running a Tor Exit Node with about 200-250bmit/s on a VPS at Webtropia for several months with the common reduced exit policy (https://globe.torproject.org/#/relay/D218DF2C542CD1FB57FCF36DB6672A0DE6A8CB…) They never had a problem with the fact of running an exit, from time to time I got an abuse mail to which I responded with the "usual thing" (that I'm running an exit and the connections are not initiated by me. If some party wishes not to be contacted I would restrict acces [exit policy]). On Monday morning my server got shut down. I contacted them by asking, why the server was shut down, they responded that some spam was sent (abuse mailing from courbis.fr, axmo12.de claimed a brute force on SSH and the usual stuff from Webiron) and thus my server was blocked by them. They now claim that they are entitled to contractual penalty of 5.100,- € to be charged because I violate their Terms of Use. Their Terms do not forbid Tor itself, but spamming and other illegal things such as port scanning and DoS-attacks (https://www.webtropia.com/de/unternehmen/agb.html) They also told me that they cannot monitor if the traffic is really Tor traffic and that I should configure my server to prevent such abuse. How should I proceed there? Cheers!

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authority signatures consensus-health
by tor-server-creator＠use.startmail.com 10 Dec '15

10 Dec '15

hi, wondering what happened to consensus lately? weight-drops, list says was missing authority signatures ? thanks

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Crash and obfs error
by Geoff Down 10 Dec '15

10 Dec '15

Hello all, a couple of quick questions. Tor exited with this error: Dec 09 06:35:34.000 [err] descriptor at 0x62ee080 begins with unexpected string "". Is another process running in our data directory? Exiting. I've a vague feeling it's happened once before - anything to worry about? Also, on restarting Tor with Obfsproxy already running, I got Dec 09 14:14:43.000 [warn] Server managed proxy encountered a method error. (obfs3 Could not set up listener (0.0.0.0:xx) for 'obfs3' (Address already in use).) Dec 09 14:14:43.000 [warn] Managed proxy at '/usr/bin/obfsproxy' failed the configuration protocol and will be destroyed. does this mean that Tor is running without obfsproxy now, and I need to stop both and restart? It's quite annoying that Tor doesn't remember its auto-picked port, and I have to change the port-forwarding rule every time. Thanks, GD -- http://www.fastmail.com - IMAP accessible web-mail

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Bridge Accounting Period Resets Stats
by akashic＠sigaint.org 10 Dec '15

10 Dec '15

I'm running some bridges on VPS where I set 10GB monthly limit. I never come close to the quota, but the bridges reset with a new port and new stats every accounting period. This is undesirable because it means people who wrote down my bridge and port will no longer be able to connect. And Atlas take 6 more days to mark the bridge as fast again. I like port diversity, but monthly switch seems excessive if 25% of every month is spent resetting stats. Can I set a longer accounting period, like 6 months? Failing that, what's the risk if I just get rid of the quota? Throttle rate of 200KB/s could add to 4TB/mo in worst case, which will get a VPS account killed. What's a more realistic worst case if I keep 200KB throttle with no monthly accounting?

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