Is the tor software successfully launched? Try simply launching the tor software just by opening a terminal window and typing “tor” in the Debian command line. This will start the tor software. If the bridge becomes successfully useable, you will see a message which will read “Self testing indicates your QRPort is reachable. Excellent. Publishing server descriptor” (I am not sure what the exact confirmation messages is for bridges but if the tor software manages to confirm your bridge is useable you should see a message that read something like that). ➢ Tail-f /var/log/tor/log Try navigating to /var/log/tor/. This is where tor will normally save the log files to. See if there is a tor log text file there. If you have not started your relay, tor might not have created the log file yet. Try starting the tor software then see if the file appears after that. From: I Sent: Monday, June 25, 2018 4:51 PM To: tor-relays@lists.torproject.org Subject: Re: [tor-relays] bridge installation help please Keifer, thanks for the swift answer, ! shift work I followed https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/PluggableTransports/obfs4p... on a vps with Debian 9 the torrc reads RunAsDaemon 1 ORPort 9001 BridgeRelay 1 ServerTransportPlugin obfs4 exec /usr/bin/obfs4proxy ExtORPort auto DataDirectory /var/lib/tor ContactInfo <p at gmail dot com> Nickname <name> from root this   tail -F /var/log/tor/log brought this tail: cannot open '/var/log/tor/log' for reading: No such file or directory Rob

Try signing into the root account on your Linux. This should these issues. Let me know. From: I Sent: Monday, June 25, 2018 5:37 PM To: tor-relays@lists.torproject.org Subject: Re: [tor-relays] bridge installation help please Keifer, thanks, Try navigating to /var/log/tor/. This is where tor will normally save the log files to. See if there is a tor log text file there. If you have not started your relay, tor might not have created the log file yet. Try starting the tor software then see if the file appears after that. As it showed before there is no /var/log/tor. I thought I installed it from root but typing tor as root brought  /var/lib/tor is not owned by this user (root, 0) but by debian-tor (107) Failed to parse/validate config: Couldn't create private data directory "/var/lib/tor" Rob

Ok. It could be possible your tor installation was somehow corrupted. Try completely uninstalling tor with this command As root: apt-get remove tor This should completely uninstall tor I am saying this as it could be that somehow one of your tor files was accidentally deted or moved. Doing this will unfortunately mean that you will have to go through these steps again 1. In the terminal root window type “apt install tor”. This will tell Linux to install the tor relay packages. 2. In the root terminal window, type “gedit /etc/tor/torrc” This sould open the file so you can add the bridge configuration. 3. If Linux yells at you for trying to install unrecognized  packages in installing tor, do the following things listed  here: https://www.torproject.org/docs/debian.html.en Please, I would ask, run pluggable transport bridge as opposed to a vanilla bridge (which is what your setting up), as pluggable transport bridges are more difficult to detect for network censors. Find how to do that here: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/PluggableTransports/obfs4p... Let me know how it goes. Cheers. From: I Sent: Monday, June 25, 2018 5:53 PM To: tor-relays@lists.torproject.org Subject: Re: [tor-relays] bridge installation help please Keifer, That was from root. That is what is odd as I only install things from root and use them as a user. Rob

Hi Rob, The default log location on Debian changed some time ago to be your syslog instead of a file in /var/log/tor. If you would like to have tor log to a specific file, please add the following to your torrc and restart tor: Log notice file /var/log/tor/log I will get this page updated right away to reflect these changes, sorry for the confusion and thank you for running bridges.

On Jun 25, 2018, at 6:51 PM, I <beatthebastards@inbox.com> wrote:

Keifer, thanks for the swift answer,

! shift work

I followed https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/PluggableTransports/obfs4p... <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/PluggableTransports/obfs4proxy>

on a vps with Debian 9 the torrc reads

RunAsDaemon 1 ORPort 9001 BridgeRelay 1 ServerTransportPlugin obfs4 exec /usr/bin/obfs4proxy ExtORPort auto DataDirectory /var/lib/tor ContactInfo <p at gmail dot com> Nickname <name>

from root this

tail -F /var/log/tor/log

brought this

tail: cannot open '/var/log/tor/log' for reading: No such file or directory

Rob _______________________________________________ tor-relays mailing list tor-relays@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays

Generally, if a VPS is cheap it probably means that they don’t have much bandwidth. What you might want to consider doing is contacting the VPS provider (sending an email to their support email address, or contacting them via their contact tab on their website, and asking them how much bandwidth they are providing your account with and also ask weather they allow tor (and ask if they allow port forwarding). Generally, bridges require less bandwidth then public relays do as they are mostly only used in areas where the tor network is blocked, whereas the public relays handle every bit of traffic sent through the network (from guard or bridge relays to exit nodes, and exit nodes back to guard or bridge relays). Contact them (the vps provider) with these questions and tell us what they said. If you’d kindly provide us with the name of the VPS provide I’ll try to find some information. Thank you. From: I Sent: Monday, June 25, 2018 8:59 PM To: tor-relays@lists.torproject.org Subject: Re: [tor-relays] bridge installation help please Thank you. There do seem to be a few faults and missing bits in the help stuff. As nothing has worked I'll reinstall Deb9 and start again. I wonder whether cheap VPS operators might have something to do with the problems.  Rob