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.
Which distribution strategy the bridgedb service picks for your bridge will influence how much use it sees. https://metrics.torproject.org/data.html#bridgeassignments But you shouldn't necessarily be worried if it sees low usage: a bridge with high usage is probably going to be blocked soon, whereas a bridge with low usage can remain useful for longer. We need both kinds. Also also, the need for bridges comes in waves, so today's demand isn't a good predictor of next month's demand.
Hope that helps, --Roger