[tor-relays] OS diversity of tor relays (was Re: Relay uptime versus outdated Tor version)

[Ybslik]

Hi all,

             I have been following the emails with intrigue. I run a 
Windows10 system at home through Virgin Media Hub, my package with them 
is the 300Mbps one. I recently had  cause to research what Tor was 
about. I decided upon that research to run a Middle Relay.

  So I purchased my computer parts (I self Build my machines)  and 
obtained the help of a friend to load Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. It's not a super 
machine but it runs on a AMD A4-6300 APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics × 2 
- OS 64bit - with an SSD hard drive.

I followed the instructions on how to load the relay and set it up, took 
me more than a week or so as I am no genius on Linux.

slow learning curve but we got there.

My relay is called Ybslik - it's been up and down due to my inability to 
understand how to configure things within the terminal.

But with the help from StackExchange I have been able to complete some 
tasks.

My small relay is now working ok and I hope adding to the Diversity of Tor.


Ybslik


Steve Bishop


On 19/08/17 17:01, Scott Bennett wrote:
> Zack Weinberg <zackw at cmu.edu> wrote:
>
>> Relay diversity and client diversity are two different things. Last I heard
>       People who run relays usually started out as people running clients.
> They liked tor and decided to help out by running a relay, *too*.  Do you
> really believe they would choose to install some OS other than what they
> already use just to help diversify the relay population?  I haven't used the
> tor browser bundle for Windows in a long time.  Does its controller's GUI
> still offer the option of running a relay in addition to being a client while
> tor is up and running?  Some of us only run one computer.  Are you suggesting
> that we spin up a VM to install an unfamiliar OS on which to run a relay,
> just to help with relay diversity?  What current client-user will leap at
> the idea of learning to do all that and do it safely in order to run a relay,
> which he also will need to learn to do safely, when he could instead just run
> a relay on a system he already knows, thereby reducing his learning load to
> only the stuff he needs to know about tor?  The volume of material needed to
> learn an OS vastly exceeds what a new relay operator needs to know about tor,
> after all.
>
>> it was a bad idea to run a relay on the same computer as a client, so I
>       It's arguably a bad idea to do that if your relay is an Exit, but then
> it's usually an even worse idea to run an Exit at home.  Some people think
> it's a bad idea to run tor outside of a jail, too.  (Unfortunately, most OS
> do not have jails.)
>
>> don't think Tor Browser for server OSes like Solaris is a great use of
>> developer effort.
>       I suggest you ponder more on the matter of where relay operators come
> from and what they might be willing to do or have the resources to devote to
> running OS foreign to their normal uses for their computers.  Either you
> want to recruit for diversity or you just want to serve the OS that are
> already most abundantly running relays.  If you want to recruit for diversity,
> then you need to consider how you're going to do that successfully.  I contend
> that that generally means recruiting people who are already running those OS.
> That, in turn, means getting them to learn about tor by giving them something
> they can use to try it out.  Telling them, "We'd like you to run a tor relay
> on your Bitrig system, though you won't be able to get much use out of it
> yourself, not even to try it out", doesn't seem to me to be very likely to cut
> it.  That idea also seems to be corroborated by the current relay diversity,
> which is the situation that has brought us to the current discussion.
>       Running a relay safely and smartly has a significant learning curve to
> climb at the outset.  Making it appealing enough to them to climb it is
> called recruiting.
>> Windows is certainly the highest-value target for client diversity efforts.
>       How so?  (Unless by target you mean client users to be eliminated?  That
> would certainly be *an* approach to increasing client OS diversity, but not
> an acceptable one, IMHO.)  It already has the most clients.  Anyway, we're
> not discussing increasing client OS diversity in this thread, but rather
> increasing the OS diversity of relays.  Please stop to consider what
> diversification and diversity actually mean, which is the opposite of what
> you argue for here.  They don't mean piling most of the resources into
> growing the dominant subpopulation.  The same applies to LINUX.
>
>> I hear the Brave company is hiring someone to work specifically on Tor
>> integration, maybe you want to apply: https://brave.com/jobs/?gh_jid=781438
>       Windows is already running a huge percentage of the tor relay population.
> How are you going to recruit Windows users to run relays on an OS they don't
> already use?  I contend that you won't.  Instead, you must recruit current
> users of such OS.
>> In my opinion, the best way to improve relay diversity would be to work on
>> system administration automation. For instance, as far as I know there is
>> no equivalent of Debian's 'unattended-upgrades' tool for any of the BSDs,
>> or even for most Linux distributions.
>>
>       Are you kidding?  Debian's "unattended-upgrades" tool must be something
> spectacular then.  Please tell us what it does that isn't handled by, say,
> freebsd-update for the base OS and "pkg upgrade --yes" for the installed
> packages like tor?  IIRC, DragonflyBSD uses pkg, too.  Or how about pkgsrc
> on NetBSD?  I've forgotten what OpenBSD uses, but it may well be pkgsrc.  As
> for how the other BSDs perform binary updates of their base OS, I couldn't
> tell you, but I'd be astonished if they didn't have something for that.  Just
> use crontab entries to run these tools unattended and periodically.  On
> FreeBSD, if you build your ports from source via the ports tree, you could
> run "svn update /usr/ports" and either use portmaster or poudriere to build
> them and install the newly built versions.  A lot of people do something
> similar for updating the base system from source in the other BSDs.  The
> FreeBSD developers are in the process of setting up large blocks of the base
> OS as packages that can be automatically updated just like any packages built
> from ports, although I don't think that's quite ready for prime time yet.
> NetBSD may already have this capability; I just don't recall.
>       Relay operators do not come into existence like virtual particle pairs
> from a vacuum.  We're talking about humans, and those come from real-life,
> individual contexts.  If you want to recruit them, then understanding and
> accepting that fact are critical to doing it successfully.
>
>
>                                    Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
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