[tor-relays] Home broadband - worth running a relay?

[Thomas Hand]

Hi Nick,
I was in a similar boat to you for a while. Also UK based with adsl and a
dynamic IP. I found that running a non-exit relay node is fine so long you
limit bandwidth usage in torrc. Wouldn't recommended exit relay unless you
want to deal with your ISP.
If you only run a relay then the censorship list doesn't matter since all
connections between nodes are encrypted, any exit node would suffer
restrictions. I have heard UK ISP s like to monitor protocol and port usage
and sometimes block certain ports. You can always change the port usage in
torrc if you find certain ports blocked. If you find running relay uses too
much bandwidth then going back to running the bridge is very useful for
helping censored users and uses much less bandwidth. A dynamic IP in my
experience can cause the node to become unresponsive and it may need to be
restarted every few days or every week. I have a script set up which emails
me when my afsl node goes down for example.
Hope this helps.

T
 On Jul 11, 2013 9:42 PM, "Nick" <tor-relays at njw.me.uk> wrote:

> Hi there,
>
> I have a reasonable ADSL connection, and a little always-on server.
> The bandwidth is in the region of 2Mib/s down, something less up
> (maybe 256Kib/s). Is it useful for me to run a tor relay with this
> bandwidth? I'd like to run one which isn't an exit, at least for
> now.
>
> If not, am I correct in thinking that a bridge is an appropriate
> help? That's what I'm doing currently, but if a relay would be more
> useful I'd be very happy to do that.
>
> One other unrelated(ish) question: I'm in the UK, where the idea of
> censorship isn't resisted as strongly as it ought to be, and as a
> result my internet connection is subject to a smallish amount of
> censorship: whatever is on the secret IWF blacklist plus the pirate
> bay. Does this mean that running an exit node from a home connection
> here at some point in the future would not be helpful? Or only if
> all HTTP(S) was blocked (as the IWF blacklist is secret there's
> presumably no way to tell the tor network what is inaccessible from
> this node).
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Nick
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