I Have Worked Out An (Experiemental) Way To Run A Relay Or Obfuscated Bridge On Windows And Update On Relay "Torland"
Hi all, I wanted to report a method I have found of running a tor relay on Windows, as well as an obfuscated bridge.
So when I switched over to Windows, I had to start a new relay as my signing keys were lost in the transit.
I decided to switch over to running a bridge, as I am running on a home router to cut down on connections, etc.
For setting up a new relay on Windows, these are the steps that worked (cmd says I have generated a fingerprint).
Step 1: Download the tor expert bundle from here https://www.torproject.org/download/download
Step 2: Extract the tor expert bundle to the desktop.
Step 3: Run “tor.exe” as administrator (doing so will create the folders were going to be running tor from later.
Step 4: Open the “run” command. Using this, open “C:\Users\keife\AppData\Roaming\tor” (Where is says “keife” you will need to type your username).
Step 5: Go back to the folder that the tor expert bundle was extracted to formerly. Open the folder called “Tor” and copy / paste all of the contents of it over to the roaming/tor folder you just opened using the run command.
Step 6: Right click inside the folder, and select New -> Text Document, name the text file “torrc” and open it using notepad.
Step 7: In the torrc text file just created, type nothing else but the configuration for your relay, for example Nickname torland SocksPort 0 ORPort 9002 ExitRelay 0 ContactInfo keifer dot bly at gmail dot com ExitPolicy reject *:*
Change the nickname to what you want your relay to be called, ORPort to what port you are forwarding on, ContactInfo to your email address, etc. Go file -> save then close notepad.
Step 8: To start a middle relay, do not click tor.exe as it will not recognize torrc in txt file format. Instead we will use Windows Command Prompt to ask “tor.exe” to read the torcc file. Open cmd, and type “cd”, then a space, then “C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Roaming\tor”. This will point command prompt to the directory where tor is.
Step 9: in CMD, type “tor.exe -f torrc.txt” This will send a command to tor to read the file called “torrc.txt” in the file directory, and start a relay.
Now, I will go to how tonight I was able to start an obfs4 obfscated bridge on Windows (at least to where it says I have a fingerprint and a “registered server transport ‘obfs4’).
Step 1: After doing all of the things above, download the tor browser from https://www.torproject.org/download/download
Step 2: Install tor browser, then navigate to the folder you installed tor browser to.
Step 3: In the folder tor browser was installed to, above the “start tor browser” button, there will be a folder called “Browser”. Open this folder, open “TorBrowser” folder, then open “Tor” folder. Right click the folder called “pluggable transports” and copy / paste it to the “roaming/tor” folder.
Step 4: Now to edit the torrc file to run the obfuscated bridge. Here is a somewhat example torrc file (my current one)
Nickname torland SOCKSPort 0 # no local SOCKS proxy ORPort 9002 # public bridge must have an open ORPort ExtORPort auto # configure ExtORPort for obfs4proxy ExitPolicy reject *:* # no exits allowed BridgeRelay 1 # relay won't show up in the public consensus PublishServerDescriptor 1 # publish to the bridge authority ContactInfo keifer dot bly at gmail dot com
# use obfs4proxy to provide obfs4 on port 80 ServerTransportPlugin obfs4 exec C:\Users\keife\AppData\Roaming\tor\PluggableTransports\obfs4proxy.exe ServerTransportListenAddr obfs4 0.0.0.0:9002.
To try running any kind of obfusacted bridge, try editing “ServerTransportPlugin obfs4 exec C:\Users\keife\AppData\Roaming\tor\PluggableTransports\obfs4proxy.exe” to the exe of the pluggable transport you want to run.
Doing this, after starting it about an hour ago, has resulted in this output from tor, it is a picture on a google drive link as the list does not allow photos and there is now way to edit copy text from command prompt. Cheers.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1aPVIYox5ZD_JwpqnRGFk-bGxDjRDc_OL
--- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus
Forgot to mention notes.
This is only listed on Windows 10, it SHOULD work on Windows 8 and Windows 7 as well (as in I can’t see why it wouldn’t) , but is only tested on Windows 10.
I am still working on finding a way to convientantly update tor and the obfuscate package using this method, the only way I have now is to redownload the obfuscate packages and tor expert bundle when a new version of tor is released, and have not yet found a better way to do it. Thanks.
From: Keifer Bly Sent: Friday, October 5, 2018 9:12 PM To: tor-relays@lists.torproject.org Subject: I Have Worked Out An (Experiemental) Way To Run A Relay Or ObfuscatedBridge On Windows And Update On Relay "Torland"
Hi all, I wanted to report a method I have found of running a tor relay on Windows, as well as an obfuscated bridge.
So when I switched over to Windows, I had to start a new relay as my signing keys were lost in the transit.
I decided to switch over to running a bridge, as I am running on a home router to cut down on connections, etc.
For setting up a new relay on Windows, these are the steps that worked (cmd says I have generated a fingerprint).
Step 1: Download the tor expert bundle from here https://www.torproject.org/download/download
Step 2: Extract the tor expert bundle to the desktop.
Step 3: Run “tor.exe” as administrator (doing so will create the folders were going to be running tor from later.
Step 4: Open the “run” command. Using this, open “C:\Users\keife\AppData\Roaming\tor” (Where is says “keife” you will need to type your username).
Step 5: Go back to the folder that the tor expert bundle was extracted to formerly. Open the folder called “Tor” and copy / paste all of the contents of it over to the roaming/tor folder you just opened using the run command.
Step 6: Right click inside the folder, and select New -> Text Document, name the text file “torrc” and open it using notepad.
Step 7: In the torrc text file just created, type nothing else but the configuration for your relay, for example Nickname torland SocksPort 0 ORPort 9002 ExitRelay 0 ContactInfo keifer dot bly at gmail dot com ExitPolicy reject *:*
Change the nickname to what you want your relay to be called, ORPort to what port you are forwarding on, ContactInfo to your email address, etc. Go file -> save then close notepad.
Step 8: To start a middle relay, do not click tor.exe as it will not recognize torrc in txt file format. Instead we will use Windows Command Prompt to ask “tor.exe” to read the torcc file. Open cmd, and type “cd”, then a space, then “C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Roaming\tor”. This will point command prompt to the directory where tor is.
Step 9: in CMD, type “tor.exe -f torrc.txt” This will send a command to tor to read the file called “torrc.txt” in the file directory, and start a relay.
Now, I will go to how tonight I was able to start an obfs4 obfscated bridge on Windows (at least to where it says I have a fingerprint and a “registered server transport ‘obfs4’).
Step 1: After doing all of the things above, download the tor browser from https://www.torproject.org/download/download
Step 2: Install tor browser, then navigate to the folder you installed tor browser to.
Step 3: In the folder tor browser was installed to, above the “start tor browser” button, there will be a folder called “Browser”. Open this folder, open “TorBrowser” folder, then open “Tor” folder. Right click the folder called “pluggable transports” and copy / paste it to the “roaming/tor” folder.
Step 4: Now to edit the torrc file to run the obfuscated bridge. Here is a somewhat example torrc file (my current one)
Nickname torland SOCKSPort 0 # no local SOCKS proxy ORPort 9002 # public bridge must have an open ORPort ExtORPort auto # configure ExtORPort for obfs4proxy ExitPolicy reject *:* # no exits allowed BridgeRelay 1 # relay won't show up in the public consensus PublishServerDescriptor 1 # publish to the bridge authority ContactInfo keifer dot bly at gmail dot com
# use obfs4proxy to provide obfs4 on port 80 ServerTransportPlugin obfs4 exec C:\Users\keife\AppData\Roaming\tor\PluggableTransports\obfs4proxy.exe ServerTransportListenAddr obfs4 0.0.0.0:9002.
To try running any kind of obfusacted bridge, try editing “ServerTransportPlugin obfs4 exec C:\Users\keife\AppData\Roaming\tor\PluggableTransports\obfs4proxy.exe” to the exe of the pluggable transport you want to run.
Doing this, after starting it about an hour ago, has resulted in this output from tor, it is a picture on a google drive link as the list does not allow photos and there is now way to edit copy text from command prompt. Cheers.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1aPVIYox5ZD_JwpqnRGFk-bGxDjRDc_OL
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. www.avast.com
--- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus
Yes. As I can see, the bridge is successfully published: https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#details/148BD64BED9F2C27637D986DE032E...
As it is still in measuring phase there isn’t much information yet, but it does say running.
One thing is it says it’s running on Windows 8 (it’s actually running on Windows 10), not sure if this is an issue? I can also report that obfs4 is the only obfuscation that works via this method, as when I tried to launch the meek client, I just got an error saying it failed to launch. Is obfs4 used in China?
Thanks.
From: marvel Sent: Saturday, October 6, 2018 4:47 AM To: tor-relays@lists.torproject.org Subject: Re: [tor-relays] I Have Worked Out An (Experiemental) Way To Run ARelay Or Obfuscated Bridge On Windows And Update On Relay "Torland"
You can remove the '.txt' part of the filename through the command prompt using the 'ren' command.
E.g.
ren "C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\tor\torrc.txt" torrc
On 06/10/18 05:12, Keifer Bly wrote:
do not click tor.exe as it will not recognize torrc in txt file format
tor-relays@lists.torproject.org
-
Keifer Bly -
marvel