[tor-relays] tor relay issue on windows 10

[Matt Traudt]

On 4/7/21 23:15, Keifer Bly wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> So I am attempting to start a new relay on Windows Server 2019. The
> issue is though for an unspecified reason, the tor process just quits
> when starting the relay:
> 
> Here is the log file:
> 
> image.png
> 
> And then once  it gets to "now checking if qr port is reachable from the
> outside" the tor process suddenly quits. Im running it as administrator
> I am wondering why the process would suddenly stop for no apparent
> reason on reaching this? Here is the torrc, though it seems to read that
> no issue:
> 
> SocksPort 0
> ORPort 4555
> Nickname testrelay
> ContactInfo kk at gmail.com <mailto:kk at gmail.com>
> Log notice file c:\notices.log
> ControlPort 9051
> ExitPolicy reject *:*
> 
> Though it seems to read the torrc file without any issue. Thanks.
> --Keifer
> 

Hi

I'm not a windows user, and especially not a
run-things-as-a-service-on-windows user.

My first thought was you somehow unknowingly had RunAsDaemon set to 1.
But after reading the man page[0] and checking your command line in the
picture, I don't think this is it.

But in the same spirit of the above: are you *sure* tor isn't
successfully running in the background? You could check by seeing if
anything is listening on its ORPort, by checking if the log file is
getting newer lines than the console, and by the process explorer or
whatever. (Aside: consider adding a "Log notice stdout" for debugging)

What's the DataDirectory that Tor is trying to use? Maybe it's unable to
create it and failing silently? I think silent failure would be
considered a bug. Maybe set DataDirectory in the torrc.

Finally, the last thing that stood out to me is the GeoIP lines in the
log output. I've never seen "<default>" and I'm guessing
C:\Users\Administrator\<default> doesn't exist. Perhaps there's a bad
bug where Tor crashes (silently?) if the GeoIP files don't exist. It
would be crazy if that existed, IMO, but maybe less crazy if it's a bug
on Windows systems only. Running little-t tor manually--as a client or
even as a relay--is much less common on Windows. The thing to try here
is to specify GeoIPFile and GeoIPv6File in the torrc with the paths to
the GeoIP files tor ships with (don't try getting a random database off
the Internet: tor has its own format).

Hope something here was helpful.

Matt

[0]:

       RunAsDaemon 0|1
           If 1, Tor forks and daemonizes to the
           background. This option has no effect on
           Windows; instead you should use the
           --service command-line option. Can not
           be changed while tor is running.
           (Default: 0)