problems setting up a relay node on win XP

[Stephen]

--- Original Message ---
From: keybounce at gmail.com
To: or-talk at freehaven.net
Subject: Re: problems setting up a relay node on win XP

Thank-you Michael & Ringo for your advice!

Michael: I've followed your advice re: opening ports on the hub & doubled-checked some other issues you highlighted. Well, the vidalia message log says "Self-testing indicates your ORPort is reachable from the outside" and now a bandwidth self-test is underway, a seemingly lengthy process (2.3 hrs so far) I'm assuming that this is normal? My node is now acknowledged in the tor servers list. Thanks again for taking the time to help!

Regards,

Stephen

> 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.
>