- tor-relays - lists.torproject.org

Help setting up an exit relay on CentOS linux
by Chuck Bevitt 28 Apr '14

28 Apr '14

Hello all, I've run an exit node from my home in the past using my consumer ISP service (Time Warner) and Windows 8, I'm pretty much of a Windows guy (I make my living building business applications with Microsoft tools) but now I have an opportunity to run an exit node on a hosted server running CentOS linux. I've loaded CentOS at home to test it out and the problem I'm having is that I can't get the Vidalia control to run. The browser bundle works OK - I can open FireFox and make a Tor connection. As far as I know I've downloaded the correct files for CentOS linux and I have the Vidalia start icon. However nothing happened when I try to open the Vidalia icon. Since I'm not familiar with linux, I don't know where to start looking. I had assumed that I would just open Vidalia and set up my exit relay the same way I did on Windows 8. I greatly appreciate help with this especially from someone who's configured a relay on CentOS. Thanks, Chuck Bevitt

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Bridge Operators - Heartbleed, Heartwarming, and Increased Help
by Matthew Finkel 26 Apr '14

26 Apr '14

Hi All, Below is an email we sent last week to almost all of the bridge operators who provided contact information for their bridge(s). For those operators we missed and for those we couldn't contact, this hopefully provides some useful information. All the best, Matt ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Tor Bridge Relay Operator! Unfortunately this email must begin with bad news, but it gets better. Due to the recent Heartbleed OpenSSL vulnerability that was disclosed earlier this week, we are reaching out to you to ask that you install an updated version of OpenSSL. The vulnerability has the potential to decrease the security of your bridge as well as the anonymity of any user connecting to your bridge. As a result of this, we also ask that you generate a new identity key due to the possibility that your current one was leaked. The process to upgrade your version of OpenSSL depends greatly on your operating system. Please ensure you are using a version that was released within the past four days, see the Heartbleed website[0] for more details on the vulnerability and for which versions are affected. Please do this before you regenerate your identity key. When this is done, you will need to restart Tor. At this point you can ask us to retest your bridge to confirm that it is not vulnerable anymore. Next, to regenerate your identity key simply stop Tor and delete the current key. This is done by opening Tor's Data directory and removing the contents in the keys/ directory. Tor's Data directory is located at /var/lib/tor, by default. Let us know if you have trouble locating it. When this is complete, start Tor and it will automatically create a new identity for you. See the recent blog post for many more details: https://blog.torproject.org/blog/openssl-bug-cve-2014-0160 Now that the bad news was said, we want to take this opportunity to thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for volunteering to run a bridge relay. We know we do not say it often, but it is really appreciated! Please let us know if you have any question, concerns, or suggestions, especially related to how we communicate with you and how bridge relay operators can be more involved. Lastly, if you are not already running the obfsproxy pluggable transport[1] (i.e. obfs3) on your bridge, please follow the Debian instructions[2] (for a Debian-based system) on the website and install it. Your bridge is a great contribution to the Tor network, however as censorship on the internet increases around the world users are forced to use a pluggable transport. Tor does not understand how to communicate with them by default, though. Therefore we are asking that all bridge operators install obfsproxy and help as many users as possible. In addition, also consider subscribing to the tor-relays mailing list[3], if you are not already; we will be posting instructions on how to maximize the contribution of your bridge on that list every now and then. [0] http://heartbleed.com [1] https://www.torproject.org/docs/pluggable-transports.html.en [2] https://www.torproject.org/projects/obfsproxy-debian-instructions.html.en#i… [3] https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays Again, thank you for running a bridge relay and sorry for the bad news. Let us know if you have any questions or if you have any suggestions. All the best, Matt The Tor Project

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Relay reading more than it writes??
by Rupert Roe 26 Apr '14

26 Apr '14

Hi All, I recently started running these two relays on raspberry Pis in the UK: http://torstatus.blutmagie.de/router_detail.php?FP=515a9887a426c1dc2bb4b9b1… http://torstatus.blutmagie.de/router_detail.php?FP=e3e6a7de02caa12ac5712884… Both of my relays seem to consistently read more from the network than they write, and I can't figure out why. Are my relays dropping loads of packets? If so is that harming the speed or reliability of the network? Why are my relays doing this when other ones seem to have a perfect read / write balance?? If anyone has any ideas why this is happening or how I could troubleshoot the issue I'd be really grateful! Thanks, Rupert

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Please need urgent help with the DNS resolver of a fast exit relay
by s7r＠sky-ip.org 25 Apr '14

25 Apr '14

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 Hi, The servers from my ISP are not stable or good enough to handle the traffic for this Tor exit router. I get this in the log very often: Apr 24 15:14:07.000 [notice] Circuit handshake stats since last time: 91633/91636 TAP, 15962/15962 NTor. Apr 24 17:40:45.000 [warn] eventdns: All nameservers have failed Apr 24 17:40:45.000 [notice] eventdns: Nameserver <ip>:53 is back up Both nameservers fail and come back after 1 second, or less. I don't know what impact will this have on the exit node. Is it any problem at all? I have decided also to setup my own DNS resolver and not use the ones from ISP, so I have installed named. What I need help is, for your someone to tell me exactly how do i have to edit named.conf in order to: 1. Enable DNSSEC, for the clients who want to use it. Not make it a requirement, just enable it and prefer it over normal DNS if and when possible. 2. Be able to resolve all TLDs as described here: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/DnsResolver#DNSResolverSe… Now I can clearly understand the message from that post but there is no instruction anywhere about how to do it, those links for Alt Roots are broken. Is this a requirement? Who needs to resolve silly TLDs not supported by IANA / ICANN anyway? 3. Cache the records for as long as possible - my relay is already using a lot of traffic so I have to spare as much as I can. Please provide me with a good named.conf and description of settings so I can properly configure a good DNS resolver for my relay. Thank you in advance! -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (MingW32) iQEcBAEBCAAGBQJTWTnUAAoJEIN/pSyBJlsRtN8IAJK8ndrb6IdW+PRpynTu5gzH /6ID3k3uO+EX1jKDSrSMzUlfaOZT0UIVXX/KKxqJSa4YQH4MMGcWfCYXkv+bdFC0 s3ABvAWOeklX5KxUwGWaEJJND+Zu4nstIcVTFpjKpbiFJ7mdzjlDVSCsZFXYBVoV tOY7amgAoQCxNsG0aBKUKeArRSJ03jcicD/92PkL8ro2IB6FItusp5Qywcp12Nhq mXEJdD8l/5jSS1epaaZJ6LzDFyyZsVKsxK8EkBxkYtblkk8WxUnkz4gXrP88cnMC rHb8gqLBvHqjLUn1fKtmJbxJ/J1qEa+2PyoJpzkh4hQxXSZ52TskWKSi0eR7j5E= =675a -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Exit node rejection of special IPv4 blocks
by Zack Weinberg 24 Apr '14

24 Apr '14

I'd like a sanity check on this list of special-purpose IPv4 blocks which I'm currently forbidding in the CMU exit node's policy. I'm most uncertain about denying access to multicast (224.0.0.0/4) and 6to4 router anycast (192.88.99.0/24) -- I *think* there are no scenarios where someone would actually need to get at either of those via Tor, but I could be wrong. # Reserved IPv4 addresses, sorted by RFC and then numerically reject 255.255.255.255/32:* # RFC 0919: "limited broadcast" reject 224.0.0.0/4:* # RFC 1112: multicast reject 240.0.0.0/4:* # RFC 1112: future addressing modes reject 0.0.0.0/8:* # RFC 1122: "This host" source address reject 127.0.0.0/8:* # RFC 1122: Loopback reject 10.0.0.0/8:* # RFC 1918: private use reject 172.16.0.0/12:* # " " " reject 192.168.0.0/16:* # " " " reject 198.18.0.0/15:* # RFC 2544: test environments reject 192.88.99.0/24:* # RFC 3068: 6to4 relay anycast (???) reject 169.254.0.0/16:* # RFC 3927: link-local reject 192.0.2.0/24:* # RFC 5737: documentation reject 198.51.100.0/24:* # " " " reject 203.0.113.0/24:* # " " " reject 100.64.0.0/10:* # RFC 6598: "shared space"/"carrier grade NAT" reject 192.0.0.0/24:* # RFC 6890: future special purposes TIA, zw

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Bridges included in Tor Browser -- should they regen keys because of Heartbleed?
by David Fifield 24 Apr '14

24 Apr '14

I wondered whether operators of bridges that are included in the browser bundle should generate new identity keys after upgrading their OpenSSL. The argument for generating new keys is that old keys may have been compromised by Heartbleed. The argument against is that a new fingerprint will prevent existing browser bundle users from using the default bridges, because the fingerprint is built into the browser: https://gitweb.torproject.org/builders/tor-browser-bundle.git/blob/HEAD:/Bu… What I heard from some developers is that it would be good to set up new bridges with new keys (could be on the same IP address), and give the new information to the browser devs so they can put it in the bundles. Leave the old ones running for a while until usage drops off. A question is how to actually do this, running two copies of tor on the same IP. Offhand I would say that using a separate DataDirectory will be enough, but I don't know for sure. David Fifield

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Grouping cloud relays running within same provider
by mr.curtis＠urssmail.org 23 Apr '14

23 Apr '14

Many people are running Tor relays on virtual servers "in the cloud", using VPS providers like Amazon EC2, Rackspace, Linode, etc. Most major VPS providers offer virtual servers in multiple geographical locations, but they are still controlled by one entity, which of course ultimately have total access to any storage (RAM and disk) of any customer VPS, easily compromising any crypto key material. I don't think it is necessarily that bad to trust VPS providers (and they often are a great way to get excellent bandwidth cheaply), but I feel it would be important to somehow make sure Tor users don't end up having circuits that all go through relays running on e.g. EC2. Same way you're supposed to group your own relays with MyFamily. Is there any way currently to do this, or are there already some safeguards in place?

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Strange behaviour on Atlas output after Key rotation
by Geri 22 Apr '14

22 Apr '14

Good evening all! I just have a question regarding my relay's status on Atlas. Approx. 5 days ago i have rotated all my keys (deleted /keys dir) after Roger's advice for doing so for best security. Since then i am obersing a strange behaviour. From time to time i am checking my relay's status at the Atlas webpage which i have done after the key rotation. But now all my relays are listed twice - other than that also the old relays with the old fingersprints are still listed as "running". Is anybody aware of that strange situation? It seems that on the other Tor Status page (torstatus.rueckgr.at) the new relays are listed correctly. thanks for any advice! Cheers, Geri

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Relay not gettings flags, changing IP
by Niels Hesse 22 Apr '14

22 Apr '14

I updated OpenSSL, removed my keys and restarted the Tor service on my Debian relay. Now I have been running it for 3 days and I still haven't gotten any flags and the relay is not visible in Atlas. Arm keeps saying: "[NOTICE] Our IP Address has changed from 141.101.117.220 to 141.101.116.220; rebuilding descriptor (source: METHOD=RESOLVED HOSTNAME= tor-relay.onlineprivatliv.dk)." Here's a screenshot: http://puu.sh/8hBlM/71bbcb5aff.png I am not sure what is going on here. Do you have any idea? Thanks in advance.

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Announcing the removal of Tor v0.2.2.x relays
by Nusenu 21 Apr '14

21 Apr '14

Hi, as Roger mentioned in a side note [1], tor relays running Tor v0.2.2.x have been removed from the consensus (#11149) [2]. Even if relay operators with ContactInfo were contacted directly I think this information would be worthwhile to be mentioned on tpo's twitter feed and blog. This might increase the likelihood that people still running ancient tor versions get to know about it. (even if people running such old tor versions are unlikely subscribers of either news feed ;) Question arisen from looking at the relays by version graph: If you look at that graph you see that on 2014-04-08 the number of relays (in the consensus) running 0.2.2.x were about zero, and now (2014-04-21) we are back at about 170 v0.2.2.x relays. https://metrics.torproject.org/network.html#versions Why is that? Has the decision postponed/revisited due to the concurrent reduction of relays (heartbleed)? One (fast) v0.2.2.x relay as an example: https://atlas.torproject.org/#details/F499B62325DA32EEAA6451ABF0764E096C8CC… [1] https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2014-April/004362.html [2] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/11149 [3] https://twitter.com/torproject

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