problems setting up a relay node on win XP

[Michael_google gmail_Gersten]

My advice is to open incoming port 9001 at your hardware firewall.

An account with dyndns is not needed. You do not need a fixed DNS name
-- as far as I can tell, tor doesn't need any of that. My system
doesn't.

> > -postponed opening any ports (explaination below)
> >
> > 1) opened an account with dyndns to create a static ip address/host name
> >
> > 2) configured my hardware firewall (BT Home Hub) with the dyndns account
> > details
> >
> >
> > the vidalia message log presented me with my tor server indentity key
> > fingerprint & informed me:
> >
> > "Now checking whether ORPort XX.XXX.XXX.XXX:9001 is reachable..."

Did you verify that these numbers are correct? (your address)

> > With regard to port forwarding/opening ports - whilst I've been running tor
> > as a client I've had no problems just allowing it via zone alarm & my
> > hardware firewall (BT Home Hub) hasn't required me to give tor any special
> > permission, tor has just worked. In the set-up that I've described here,
> > Zone Alarm informed me that Tor was attempting to act as a server & I gave
> > it permission to do this. I haven't received any warning messages apart from
> > the one I've detailed already.

Talking as a client needs no incoming connections. Nothing is needed
at the BT Home Hub. For server, this needs to permit incoming 9001
connections (default port).

> > 1) Now that I want to run Tor as a server, do I need to make any changes to
> > zone alarm and my hardware firewall (BT Home Hub) to allow specific ports?
> > In the article I mentioned at the beginning of this mail, the author refers
> > to opening ports 443 & 80.

For now, keep the default -- open port 9001 on the hub. After you get
that working, you can consider switching your tor server to port 80.


> > The options I have for configuring applications on the BT Hub are:
> >
> > protocol (tcp/udp)
TCP

> > port range
9001 for normal, 80 for "Look like a web server".

> > translate to internal (local network) port range
No entry -- no special translation.

> > trigger protocol (tcp/udp)
> > trigger port

I don't know what these are for, so I can't say. I *think* this means
"Once these ports have been used locally, to talk to the world, then
enable this incoming port." If so, you want to leave them
blank/unused.


> > 2) I've used the vidalia console to configure tor as a server. Do I need to
> > make any other changes to the Torrc file (i.e those detailed on the wiki -
> > "Complete Tor walkthrough for Windows users") or is the configuration I've
> > made with the vidalia console sufficient? The settings I've made on the
> > vidalia server settings console remain commented-out on the Torrc file.

Vidalia does a fine job of getting it going. You can do more stuff
later if you want, but the basics that it does are fine.