Greetings! I've used tor as a client for a long time & now I'd like to give something back to the network by running a relay server. I've been following the advice on the tor wiki, specifically "Complete Tor walkthrough for Windows users by Steve Topletz" (http://wiki.noreply.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/Tor4Windows) but I'm having some problems! I will attempt to provide an overview of what I have done so far. However, let me be clear, I am NOT in any way a highly advanced computer user & whilst I don't consider this task to be 'beyond me' my lack of technical savvy is almost definitely working against me here (infact this is a learning experience for me), so please bear with me as I attempt to explain my problems.
-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 3) configured tor as a relay server on windows xp using the vidalia server settings console: (I've chosen to disable the "Mirror the server directory - Directory Port 9030" option because vidalia's help section says this uses more bandwidth & I don't have a lot to play with) & I'm not running tor in the background as a windows service. I've just configured all of the typical settings for a relay node. re-started vidalia & tor: 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..." then: "Your server ( XX.XXX.XXX.XXX:9001) has not managed to confirm that its ORPort is reachable. Please check your firewalls, ports, address, etc/hosts file, etc 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. Questions: 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. The BT Home Hub allows me to configure applications stating, "Each incoming port range can be translated into a different internal (local network) port range. Port ranges can be statically assigned to devices or dynamically assigned using an outgoing trigger." The options I have for configuring applications on the BT Hub are: protocol (tcp/udp) port range translate to internal (local network) port range trigger protocol (tcp/udp) trigger port I'm uncertain of how I should make any configuration on the BT Hub but would appreciate any advice - I've chosen to ask this question here, rather than at a BT forum in case there is something I need to know that's specific to tor. 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. Any help would be greatly appreciated & I aplogise again if my lack of knowledge seems retarded! Regards, Stephen
