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

[Samuel Walker]

Bridges ideally have very stable IPs, as their addresses aren't stored in an hourly consensus, but are instead handed out as needed. This isn't such an issue with normal relays as they ill drop out of the consensus after an hour - but it does depend how frequently / predictably the IP address changes. IT would be hard to build up a stable flag for example.

On 22 Jul 2013, at 10:14, Nick <tor-relays at njw.me.uk> wrote:

> Thanks for the advice everyone, I ended up setting up a bridge node.
> 
> However I just noticed in looking at the logs that my ISP seem to 
> disconnect me to reassign my IP address several times a day. Which 
> seems like rather terrible service. Presumably that makes my bridge 
> a lot less useful, as the IP address has such a short lifespan?
> 
> I tested my broadband speed today and it's around 6.5Mib/s down, 
> 410Kib/s up, so somewhat faster than I originally guessed. But with 
> so unstable a connection I suppose even a regular relay may not be 
> worthwhile. Am I correct? It did seem to do well at sending and 
> receiving plenty of traffic when I set it as a normal relay, but if 
> it's also the cause of lots of dropped connections then maybe it 
> wouldn't be worth it.
> 
> I know I should look into a VPS thing, I've just never used them and 
> like the idea of putting my home server and bandwidth to more use.
> 
> My ISP is the post office, on the "broadband extra" package. I chose 
> it mainly because it's cheap if you use their phone service too, but 
> the regular disconnections, plus their soon-to-come-into-effect new 
> AUP, make me unsure about whether that was a good idea. I don't know 
> of any good and vaguely affordable ISP in the UK anymore, though, 
> now that Be have gone away.
> 
> Nick
> 
> Quoth Richard Edmondson:
>> Hi Nick,
>> 
>> I'm not sure whether the stories are true or not but I have heard of
>> people having their computer kit confiscated for running an exit node.
>> 
>> I'd go for a non-exit relay and see how that works. You can limit the
>> bandwidth the node will use, so if you find it eats up all your resource,
>> you can lower it.
>> 
>> Just out of interest, which ISP do you use. I'm on Talk Talk and I'm
>> having a lot of hassle setting up a non-exit relay. Just can't seem to get
>> it to stay on-line.
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Richard
>> 
>> 
>>> 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
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> tor-relays mailing list
>>> tor-relays at lists.torproject.org
>>> https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Best Wishes,
>> Richard
>> 
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>> 
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