tor-relays

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31 participants
4812 discussions

Tor relay system & uptime requirements
by Goulven Guillard 02 Feb '12

02 Feb '12

Hi all, I am considering setting up a tor relay. However my configuration is not powerful and I failed to find precise informations about the hardware system requirements. I believe it would be useful to have such informations in the FAQ, along with graphs of the needed RAM & CPU as a function of the allocated bandwidth. Anyway, I would use a Sheevaplug (Marvell 1.2 GHz CPU, 512 MB DDR2 @ 400 MHz) running Debian Squeeze. It already serves as a small webserver (~200 visits/month, <10 MB bandwidth/month), and 150 MB of RAM are allocated to flashybrid (which helps preserving the SD card life by keeping /var/log/* and such data in RAM and write it down only once in a while). First questions : would it be eligible as a tor relay ? As a tor exit ? Or should I rather go for a bridge ? I guess my bandwidth will be limited by the hardware, how much would you suggest ? On the same network is my personal computer which is much more powerful but down most of the day, so I guess it would be unworthy to make use of it ? I have also thought about using the PC of my parents as a bridge (smaller bandwidth), but again it is online only a few hours a day, would it be worth it ? Thanks. Regards, G.

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0.2.3.10-alpha / .11-alpha
by Sebastian Urbach 02 Feb '12

02 Feb '12

Hi, I was wondering if one of you had a message in the log from 0.2.3.10-alpha which was that he coul not access the AES hardware engine and is using software instead. I upgraded to .11-alpha a day later and the message seems to be gone. Does anybody know how to check if he can access the AES hardware engine now or is the feature just disabled in the new version ? Normally he sould be able to access the feature because the Intel CPUs in the system support it, Thanks in advance -- Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Yours sincerely Sebastian Urbach -------------------------------------------------------- Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines. -------------------------------------------------------- Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872-1970), British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic.

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Re: [tor-relays] Thoughts on InspecTor?
by Scott Bennett 02 Feb '12

02 Feb '12

On Thu, 2 Feb 2012 00:25:19 -0500 Roger Dingledine <arma(a)mit.edu> wrote: >On Wed, Feb 01, 2012 at 11:36:57PM -0500, Steve Snyder wrote: >> This application claims to identify bad Tor nodes for the purpose of >> excluding them from use: >> >> http://xqz3u5drneuzhaeo.onion/users/badtornodes/ >> >> Anyone have any thoughts on this? > >In general it is a poor plan to change your routing strategy in a way >that makes you different from most Tor users. If you change it enough, >you end up making a signature for your behavior where an attacker can >say "hey, that's the guy who never uses German relays". The result is >that you harm your anonymity. Nobody has really researched how much harm >comes from how much difference -- and we recommend against doing things >that are poorly understood. > >> The sum of bad-exit-flags (8), > >As far as I can tell, >http://xqz3u5drneuzhaeo.onion/users/badtornodes/overview.html#blocking >are all tiny relays so it doesn't much matter whether you badexit them >(you're probably never going to encounter them in practice anyway). > >For the question of exit relays in Iran, see >https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/4207 >https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/4923 > The latter ticket's discussion section is quite interesting. After reading through it, it seems to me that the problem in Roger's point C would be best dealt with in vidalia without regard to IP address or presumed country. When asking whether the user wishes to run a relay, vidalia's dialog could include an instruction something like this: "Before you decide to run a tor relay, please consider whether the government of the country where you live and/or would like to operate a relay might target you for any kind of abuse if that government noticed that you were running a tor relay." As long as the people who have volunteered to provide translations for vidalia's and/or tor's textual interactions with users have sufficient skills to provide such a cautionary note in all of the most necessary languages plus two or three languages spoken widely around the world, then that should take care of the matter. I share the concerns of both Roger and Sebastian regarding undesirable potential results of automating the rejection of entire countries of relays. Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG ********************************************************************** * Internet: bennett at cs.niu.edu * *--------------------------------------------------------------------* * "A well regulated and disciplined militia, is at all times a good * * objection to the introduction of that bane of all free governments * * -- a standing army." * * -- Gov. John Hancock, New York Journal, 28 January 1790 * **********************************************************************

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Thoughts on InspecTor?
by Steve Snyder 02 Feb '12

02 Feb '12

This application claims to identify bad Tor nodes for the purpose of excluding them from use: http://xqz3u5drneuzhaeo.onion/users/badtornodes/ Anyone have any thoughts on this? The sum of bad-exit-flags (8), exit nodes that alter payload (4), and long-term-misconfigured (27) suggests excluding 39 nodes within the Tor config file. Is this reasonable? Are these exclusions appropriate for relays, or for end users, or neither, or both?

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torrc "permission denied" warning
by tony 26 Jan '12

26 Jan '12

In the Tor logs for a relay, I get the following message: Dec 19 19:42:23.662 [notice] Renaming old configuration file to "/etc/tor/torrc.orig.1" Dec 19 19:42:23.662 [warn] Couldn't rename configuration file "/etc/tor/torrc" to "/etc/tor/torrc.orig.1": Permission denied I've played around with file permissions but it doesn't help. Tor seems to be working. Does the error matter? Running Tor on a Ubuntu Server 10.04 LTS Feedback much appreciated.

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This is what you get....compile problem OSX10.4
by Geoff Down 24 Jan '12

24 Jan '12

Can anyone help with this please? % sudo ./configure --with-libevent-dir=/opt/local/lib/ && make && make install -> checking for libevent directory... configure: WARNING: We found the libraries for libevent, but we could not find the C header files. You may need to install a devel package. % port contents libevent ->Port libevent contains: /opt/local/bin/event_rpcgen.py /opt/local/include/evdns.h /opt/local/include/event.h /opt/local/include/event2/buffer.h /opt/local/include/event2/buffer_compat.h /opt/local/include/event2/bufferevent.h /opt/local/include/event2/bufferevent_compat.h /opt/local/include/event2/bufferevent_ssl.h /opt/local/include/event2/bufferevent_struct.h /opt/local/include/event2/dns.h /opt/local/include/event2/dns_compat.h /opt/local/include/event2/dns_struct.h /opt/local/include/event2/event-config.h /opt/local/include/event2/event.h /opt/local/include/event2/event_compat.h /opt/local/include/event2/event_struct.h /opt/local/include/event2/http.h /opt/local/include/event2/http_compat.h /opt/local/include/event2/http_struct.h /opt/local/include/event2/keyvalq_struct.h /opt/local/include/event2/listener.h /opt/local/include/event2/rpc.h /opt/local/include/event2/rpc_compat.h /opt/local/include/event2/rpc_struct.h /opt/local/include/event2/tag.h /opt/local/include/event2/tag_compat.h /opt/local/include/event2/thread.h /opt/local/include/event2/util.h /opt/local/include/evhttp.h /opt/local/include/evrpc.h /opt/local/include/evutil.h /opt/local/lib/libevent-2.0.5.dylib /opt/local/lib/libevent.a /opt/local/lib/libevent.dylib /opt/local/lib/libevent.la /opt/local/lib/libevent_core-2.0.5.dylib /opt/local/lib/libevent_core.a /opt/local/lib/libevent_core.dylib /opt/local/lib/libevent_core.la /opt/local/lib/libevent_extra-2.0.5.dylib /opt/local/lib/libevent_extra.a /opt/local/lib/libevent_extra.dylib /opt/local/lib/libevent_extra.la /opt/local/lib/libevent_openssl-2.0.5.dylib /opt/local/lib/libevent_openssl.a /opt/local/lib/libevent_openssl.dylib /opt/local/lib/libevent_openssl.la /opt/local/lib/libevent_pthreads-2.0.5.dylib /opt/local/lib/libevent_pthreads.a /opt/local/lib/libevent_pthreads.dylib /opt/local/lib/libevent_pthreads.la /opt/local/lib/pkgconfig/libevent.pc /opt/local/lib/pkgconfig/libevent_openssl.pc /opt/local/lib/pkgconfig/libevent_pthreads.pc I'm flying blind here - should libevent be a binary or just a load of source files? I've only a vague idea of what the error messages mean, let alone how to fix them. GD -- http://www.fastmail.fm - A no graphics, no pop-ups email service

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Do bridges care about DNS?
by Steve Snyder 24 Jan '12

24 Jan '12

Do bridges have a need for name resolution, or it it just a matter of passing a packet from one IP address to another (i.e. from user to Tor node)? Thanks.

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Re: [tor-relays] How can I tell if my bridge is working?
by Scott Bennett 22 Jan '12

22 Jan '12

On Sun, 22 Jan 2012 05:58:45 -0500 Roger Dingledine <arma(a)mit.edu> wrote: >On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 08:35:30PM -0500, Steve Snyder wrote: >> New operator of a Tor bridge here. How can I tell that it is being used? >> >> With a regular relay I can look up the stats on TorStatus, or I can see >> that there are n current connections. But a bridge won't be published, >> and the lower volume of traffic means that there may not be many active >> connections at any given time. >> >> So how do I know if it is working? I mean beyond the absence of any >> errors logged? > >Answer 1: absence of any errors logged. Then just trust. :) > >Answer 2: Use a Tor controller. Vidalia has a "who has used my bridge >lately?" button you can push to learn by-country statistics. Or try >'arm' if you prefer command-line controllers. > >Answer 3: We publish sanitized bridge descriptors on the metrics site: >https://metrics.torproject.org/data.html#bridgedesc >We're working on usable interfaces to let you look up the descriptor >for your bridge (including the usage statistics that it publishes). Stay >tuned. > Answer 4: this isn't exactly what you want, yet it still provides relevant information. Use the HeartbeatPeriod command in your torrc file to provide usage information on a periodic basis with your choice of period. The message logged gives the uptime in days and hours and a rounded figure for bytes sent and bytes received since initialization, so if your node is *only* used as a bridge, these messages will give you rough idea of your bridge's usage. Note, of course, that some of the traffic will be stuff that your node needs for its operation, e.g., a consensus file. Be advised that each period incurs about 1 s of delay in logging the information, so if you want information every hour exactly, for example, you need to specify a period of 3599 s, not 3600 s. Note, too, that the default period is 21,600 s, or 6 hr. Again, "HearbeatPeriod 21599 seconds" should yield a message logged every six hours exactly. Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG ********************************************************************** * Internet: bennett at cs.niu.edu * *--------------------------------------------------------------------* * "A well regulated and disciplined militia, is at all times a good * * objection to the introduction of that bane of all free governments * * -- a standing army." * * -- Gov. John Hancock, New York Journal, 28 January 1790 * **********************************************************************

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Tor Status graphs
by Geoff Down 22 Jan '12

22 Jan '12

Hi, the read/write graphs in my relay's TorStatus.blutmagie.de page have been broken for some time (flat-lined) but I assumed that was down to my old software. However, I see that all the relays' pages are the same. Is this data no longer available? I had a quick look in the archives for an answer. GD -- http://www.fastmail.fm - IMAP accessible web-mail

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How can I tell if my bridge is working?
by Steve Snyder 22 Jan '12

22 Jan '12

New operator of a Tor bridge here. How can I tell that it is being used? With a regular relay I can look up the stats on TorStatus, or I can see that there are n current connections. But a bridge won't be published, and the lower volume of traffic means that there may not be many active connections at any given time. So how do I know if it is working? I mean beyond the absence of any errors logged? Thanks.

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