[tor-relays] Debugging my small relay

2016-01-06 Thread Markus Hitter

Hello all,

for somewhat over a year now I run a Tor relay on my router. The router
in turn is running OpenWRT. It's this one:

https://globe.torproject.org/#/relay/A52C51551F3BD6A68E778720E02B53303F014EB2
https://atlas.torproject.org/#details/A52C51551F3BD6A68E778720E02B53303F014EB2

Not much, but let it be one of my small shares for improving humanity :-)

A few days ago I upgraded OpenWRT from 14.07 to 15.05, the latest
release. Reinstalled the package 'tor', kept the old config file and the
server started apparently smoothly. Previous Tor version was 0.2.4.22,
now it's 0.2.5.12. I'm aware that these aren't exactly the latest, but
that's what OpenWRT's package manager offers.

As you can see in the link above, the relay is no longer recognized as
'running'. They don't recognize the new Tor version, don't recognize the
restart.

To what I know, /var/log/tor/notices.log looks fine, a few excerpts:

Jan 02 14:34:36.000 [notice] Tor 0.2.5.12 (git-99d0579ff5e0349f) opening
new log file.
[... clock synchrionisation works :-) ...]
Jan 04 17:35:42.000 [warn] Your system clock just jumped 183652 seconds
forward; assuming established circuits no longer work.
[...]
Jan 04 17:38:09.000 [notice] Now checking whether ORPort x.x.x.x:9001 is
reachable... (this may take up to 20 minutes -- look for log messages
indicating success)
Jan 04 17:38:15.000 [notice] Self-testing indicates your ORPort is
reachable from the outside. Excellent. Publishing server descriptor.
[...]
Jan 06 11:35:42.000 [notice] Heartbeat: Tor's uptime is 1 day 18:00
hours, with 0 circuits open. I've sent 68.73 MB and received 85.15 MB.
Jan 06 11:35:42.000 [notice] Average packaged cell fullness: 76.757%
Jan 06 11:35:42.000 [notice] TLS write overhead: 9%
Jan 06 11:35:42.000 [notice] Circuit handshake stats since last time:
9/9 TAP, 0/0 NTor.


How could I find out about what's going wrong?


Thanks,
Markus

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Re: [tor-relays] Debugging my small relay

2016-01-06 Thread Jesse V
On 01/06/2016 06:11 AM, Markus Hitter wrote:
> Not much, but let it be one of my small shares for improving humanity

You probably didn't save the keys in /var/lib/tor, so you set up a new
relay and the old one isn't running. Here's your new relay:
https://globe.torproject.org/#/relay/C1B80BA2D97C33851DE08FD061F531A129705988
It will be a few days before it sees more traffic, since it's a very new
relay at this point.

With a speed like that, you might consider switching to an obfs4 bridge
rather than a relay. You'll probably contribute more to the network that
way.

-- 
Jesse V



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Re: [tor-relays] Debugging my small relay

2016-01-06 Thread Markus Hitter
Am 06.01.2016 um 20:22 schrieb Jesse V:
> On 01/06/2016 06:11 AM, Markus Hitter wrote:
>> Not much, but let it be one of my small shares for improving humanity
> 
> You probably didn't save the keys in /var/lib/tor, so you set up a new
> relay and the old one isn't running.

Thanks, Jesse, looks like you're spot on. I've filed a bug report with
the OpenWRT package:

https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/21541
https://github.com/openwrt/packages/issues/2247

They might argue that an identity should go into /etc/, which is backed
up by default, but let's see.


Markus

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Re: [tor-relays] Debugging my small relay

2016-01-06 Thread Jesse V
On 01/06/2016 11:02 AM, Markus Hitter wrote:
> They might argue that an identity should go into /etc/, which is backed
> up by default, but let's see.

Your counter-argument is that /etc is for configuration files, not data
files. /var/lib/tor is the correct place for keys per the Unix
filesystem standards, near as I can tell. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard

-- 
Jesse V



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Re: [tor-relays] Debugging my small relay

2016-01-07 Thread Green Dream
Is there really a reason to continue running this relay, even as a bridge?
It has a consensus weight of 9. Before the upgrade and subsequent
fingerprint reset, it was only at cw 16. The mean middle probability
fraction was 0.000103%. The mean on the read/write was less than half a
kilobyte per second. It's not really being used.
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Re: [tor-relays] Debugging my small relay

2016-01-07 Thread Tim Wilson-Brown - teor

> On 8 Jan 2016, at 16:26, Green Dream  wrote:
> 
> Is there really a reason to continue running this relay, even as a bridge? It 
> has a consensus weight of 9. Before the upgrade and subsequent fingerprint 
> reset, it was only at cw 16. The mean middle probability fraction was 
> 0.000103%. The mean on the read/write was less than half a kilobyte per 
> second. It's not really being used.

A bridge exists to allow censored users access to the Tor network.
So its consensus weight and use by the Tor network aren't really relevant.

What matters is the bandwidth it can contribute to censored users.
The advertised bandwidth is 100KB/s, which is somewhat low for a bridge.
As far as I recall, 250KB/s is considered a good minimum for a bridge.

Tim

Tim Wilson-Brown (teor)

teor2345 at gmail dot com
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teor at blah dot im
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Re: [tor-relays] Debugging my small relay

2016-01-08 Thread Markus Hitter
Am 08.01.2016 um 07:33 schrieb Tim Wilson-Brown - teor:
> What matters is the bandwidth it can contribute to censored users.
> The advertised bandwidth is 100KB/s, which is somewhat low for a bridge.
> As far as I recall, 250KB/s is considered a good minimum for a bridge.

Yes, I'm aware of this "recommended minimum". But it's not me limiting
bandwidth artifically, it's what the current hardware delivers. These
100 kB/s come for free, raising them would come with a price tag (xx
Euros per month).

So the question is wether to take these 100 kB or wether to stop the
relay entirely. I could well imagine such small contributions are more
than nothing. I could also imagine to see thousands of such small
relays, because they cost nothing and run barely noticeable to the
non-Tor, everyday traffic. "Help freedom of speech at no cost" sounds
really good, many others could chime in, if approached by some
marketing. If there were thousands of them, their bandwidth would add
up, right?

Another consideration is that it doesn't matter too much wether the
bandwidth is actually used. I _could_ be used, raising the obfuscation
the Tor network relies so heavily on.

What do you think?


Markus

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Re: [tor-relays] Debugging my small relay

2016-01-08 Thread Tim Wilson-Brown - teor

> On 8 Jan 2016, at 21:17, Markus Hitter  wrote:
> 
> Am 08.01.2016 um 07:33 schrieb Tim Wilson-Brown - teor:
>> What matters is the bandwidth it can contribute to censored users.
>> The advertised bandwidth is 100KB/s, which is somewhat low for a bridge.
>> As far as I recall, 250KB/s is considered a good minimum for a bridge.
> 
> Yes, I'm aware of this "recommended minimum". But it's not me limiting
> bandwidth artifically, it's what the current hardware delivers. These
> 100 kB/s come for free, raising them would come with a price tag (xx
> Euros per month).
> 
> So the question is wether to take these 100 kB or wether to stop the
> relay entirely. I could well imagine such small contributions are more
> than nothing. I could also imagine to see thousands of such small
> relays, because they cost nothing and run barely noticeable to the
> non-Tor, everyday traffic. "Help freedom of speech at no cost" sounds
> really good, many others could chime in, if approached by some
> marketing. If there were thousands of them, their bandwidth would add
> up, right?
> 
> Another consideration is that it doesn't matter too much wether the
> bandwidth is actually used. I _could_ be used, raising the obfuscation
> the Tor network relies so heavily on.
> 
> What do you think?


There's a point at which distributing the information for a new relay (in 
consensus documents and microdescriptors) outweighs the bandwidth contributed 
by that relay.

I also wonder how much diversity Tor gains from small relays. I'm not sure how 
this works out, it may depend on your threat model. (Or the client's threat 
model.)

Tim

Tim Wilson-Brown (teor)

teor2345 at gmail dot com
PGP 968F094B

teor at blah dot im
OTR CAD08081 9755866D 89E2A06F E3558B7F B5A9D14F



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