[tor-relays] Tor being blocked by mayor ISP in Mexico?

Test This emu.x86.64 at gmail.com
Fri Jan 15 22:08:00 UTC 2016


Tor being blocked by mayor ISP in Mexico?

I've been running an exit relay for about 2 years. Since new year's day, I
noticed that my relay went down and was no longer listed in Globe or Atlas.
Just like Fabian Bustillos Vega reported here:
https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2016-January/008491.html
a few days ago.

Software version at the time: (was running without problems for almost five
months)
Tor: 2.6.10
openSSL: 1.0.1i
libevent: 2.0.21
running on Linux

At first, I thought it was a configuration error, so I double checked the
TORRC file manually and with software (Vidalia and ARM). Everything was OK.

I check the log file and found something very unusual, when trying to
connect to the Tor network, there were several openSSL connection errors.
Eventually after a while and several attempts, Tor connection was
successful.
Here's the error:
*[warn]* 8 connections died in state connect()ing with SSL state (No SSL
object)
*[warn]* 1 connections died in state handshaking (Tor, v3 handshake) with
SSL state SSL negotiation finished successfully in OPEN
*[warn]* Problem bootstrapping. Stuck at 50%: Loading relay descriptors.
(Connection timed out; TIMEOUT; count 11; recommendation warn; host
7BE683E65D48141321C5ED92F075C55364AC7123 at 193.23.244.244:443)
This happened for other host as well.
Link to complete log <http://pastebin.com/vUXkfXNf>. *See note at bottom.

I thought maybe some Tor's Directories went down or my router was dropping
packets for some reason.
Several hours later I restarted my router and tried to connect again. I got
the same error.

I went to the tor project website and read the release notes, I found that
new versions were using a new *elliptic-curve* Diffie-Hellman function, so
I decided to update Tor to version 2.7.6.
The error appeared once again.

I tried with The Tor Browser and again, it took a while to establish a
connection. I had to abort and reconnect several times in order to
establish a successful connection.
With these results I tried some other software; *TAILS* (Linux distro),
*Fire.Onion* (Android browser).
Both got stuck as well while bootstrapping.
TAILS with no intervention is able to connect after a long long while, just
like my Relay.
Fire.Onion just like the Tor Browser are unable to connect unless I abort
and reconnect several times.

Back to my Relay... When it finally connects:
*[notice]* Bootstrapped 90%: Establishing a Tor circuit
*[notice]* Tor has successfully opened a circuit. Looks like client
functionality is working.
*[notice]* Bootstrapped 100%: Done
*[notice]* Now checking whether ORPort XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX:9001 and DirPort
XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX:9030 are reachable... (this may take up to 20 minutes --
look for log messages indicating success)
*[notice]* Self-testing indicates your DirPort is reachable from the
outside. Excellent.
*[notice]* Self-testing indicates your ORPort is reachable from the
outside. Excellent. Publishing server descriptor.
*[notice]* Performing bandwidth self-test...done.

So I Waited a couple of hours and check in Atlas and Globe again. No luck.
In the log I also get:
*[notice]* Heartbeat: It seems like we are not in the cached consensus.

The DIR and ONION ports are open as showed by the log, I also manually
checked them using port scanners.
I used other people's networks, the Tor Browser and TAILS to connect to my
XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX:9030 port. In every case I got the DirPortFrontPage (html)
served by Tor.
As indicated by the log I have client connectivity and the Relay seems to
be in order but in reality the Relay is dead.

It is also worth mentioning that after a successful connection the openSSL
errors no longer appear in the Relay's log. Maybe Tor is skipping those
(previously faulty) servers. I can only guess.
A similar thing happen with the Tor Browser, if I open it frequently, it
connects fast (after a successful connection), but if is not used in days,
when I launch it, it gets stuck while bootstrapping.
Since TAILS is a “live” distro I can't reproduce this behavior.

My Relay, the Tor Browser and Fire.Onion have a higher possibility to get
stuck while bootstrapping at 0, 5, 20%. Once passed the 50~60% it get
faster.
My assumption is that my ISP is blocking or at least randomly dropping
packets to and from well known Tor Authorities (IP blocking).
I don't suspect DPI, as client functionality is working.
Using bridges was not necessary when trying client functionality. I was
able to connect (abort and retry). As reported by Fabian Bustillos as well.

Other Observations:
Tor Project <https://www.torproject.org/> website, TAILS
<https://tails.boum.org/> website and other Tor related pages are visible
without tor.
Once connected the Tor Browser is able to fetch updates.
Instead of ports 9001 and 9030 I also tried 443 (OR) and 80 (DIR).
*For the log, I deleted the Data directory in order to reproduce all the
errors, this includes; keys, logs and cached* files.
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