On Fri, Sep 12, 2014 at 7:46 AM, Moritz Bartl moritz@torservers.net wrote:
Hi Jeremy,
On 09/12/2014 05:02 AM, Jeremy Olexa wrote:
My question: If I want to "try" being an exit node and add allowed exit ports slowly, does that help the network or not? For example, month 1: allow port 22, month 2: allow IRC ports, and so-on. How does the client path selection work in this case - is it smart enough to pick my exit when needed?
Yes and no. You can slowly add more ports, but unless you allow port 80, 443 and 6667 your relay won't get the Exit flag. [1] Tor clients preemptively open some circuits to such exits by default, and will use existing circuits unless none of the existing circuits allow the destination address or port. So, if you want to help "best", you should open at least these three ports. It is a fine strategy to then add more and more ports over time, but the other way round is also quite reasonable (starting with the Reduced Exit Policy and remove ports on complaints).
That is a great idea, thanks for the background info on the Exit flag. It looks like you need 2 of those 3 ports according to the spec.
The Reduced Exit Policy is most helpful in reducing DMCA complaints for Bittorrent traffic: Bittorrent by default picks a random port, and it largely reduces the probability of your exit being picked if you just allow ~200 instead of 65534 ports.
Makes sense, I'll be experimenting with the exit policy soon.
Thanks, -Jeremy