Osservatorio Nessuno via tor-relays wrote:
our organization is working to add more physical nodes, in our little Italy headquarter[1]. We have reached an agreement with one of the available fiber reseller there, where we will pay for L2 transport to a datacenter, where we will buy our uplink separately and announce and route our public IP addresses independently.
Some uplink providers offer BGP+IPv6+IPv4 in a bundle. (he.net)
Since you can operate 32-40 nodes with 4-5 IPs, this would be an option to start with. With fast CPUs (clock speed), you can do around 10G of traffic. For a /24 then put yourself on the waiting list at RIPE.
It is actually a very nice opportunity to remove a point of trust in the chain and get back control to a part of infrastructure that is usually delegated to commercial ISP. Similarly, as this list knows well, by announcing our IPs we will be the direct recipients of any abuse.
That's good. You'll quickly notice that you can send well over 90% of the abuse directly to /dev/null.
We have now two options: either look for someone willing to lease a /24 to Tor operators, which is not an easy task since the block reputation will be tainted and depreciate the block. We have found someone willing to, for $119/mo, but it is hard to tell how long that will last.
I would ask about IP leasing for Tor exits here: https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/160162/aio-ip-related-ipv4-ipv6-asn-thread...
An alternative would be to buy it, for around ~7k$ (~28-31$ per IP, via a broker). We do not have the budget for this now, but an organization member has offered to lease the money and get paid back without interest at a similar rate that a lease would cost (around $1k year). In all phases, the block will be in the org ownership. We have someone who can LIR sponsor at RIPE so we would not have other recurring expenses.
I would rather try the RIPE waiting list. AFAIK 4-5K for a 24/ You will then get IPv6 for free. It also depends on the taxes that you may not have to pay as an NGO. https://www.ripe.net/manage-ips-and-asns/ipv4/ipv4-waiting-list/ https://www.ripe.net/manage-ips-and-asns/ipv4/how-waiting-list-works/
Write them a sad story, e.g.: You are making free wireless networks for refugee homes. This is more popular than Tor exits and could shorten the waiting time.
Years ago I looked for a /24 1350,- / year https://www.lir.services/ip-address-lease/ https://www.lir.services/blog/asn-setup/
[Off Topic:] With IPv6 only everything would be easier: https://snapserv.net/services/ripe/
NTH mentioned it at the last meetup. IPv6 only nodes must be possible in the future. The reports in recent days have made it clear that the Tor network needs to grow. - Some UNI's or companies can only provide IPv6 for Tor nodes. - Individuals can only pay for IPv6.
In the next 1-2 years, the Tor community should aim to have 70-80% of all nodes dual-stack. Less than 50% of guards and middle nodes have IPv6: https://nusenu.github.io/OrNetStats/#ipv6-relay-stats People using Tor in IPv6 only cellular networks can use *less* than half of the guards. Since the IPv6 setup is different for each provider, it might be helpful if we collect the configs on Gitlab or Github.