0 traffic in tor relay running for 3 days

testmeher3 · April 1, 2024, 7:05pm

Hi! I am having issues with my tor relay, for unknown reason it haven’t any traffic since 2 days.

I started it for the 1st time at 27/03/2024 and had some issues with port open due to don’t specify correctly the public ip address which is static.

The tutorial i was follwing is from:

After that, i receive the expected message:

Self-testing indicates your ORPort is reachable from the outside. Excellent.
Publishing server descriptor.

After that i was sawing some traffic incoming/outgoing by the consensus addresses using tcpdump(in that moment i wasn’t using nyx).

After wait for a while(3 hours), i didn’t saw my ip/fingerprint on metrics.

I thought there was some issue with my torrc or something else, i noticed that my version weren’t the last, i updated it and run tor again. After some hours the traffic stopped comming, no connections shown on nyx and i stopped it again.

After recheck everything, i started again and seems like after 1 day, the connections start be less and less till haven’t any.

I’m not sure at all what’s causing this behavior.

My torrc:

Nickname    myNiceRelay  # Change "myNiceRelay" to something you like
ContactInfo your@e-mail  # Write your e-mail and be aware it will be published
ORPort      666 IPv4Only          # You might use a different port, should you want to
ExitRelay   1
SocksPort   0
Address 45.156.26.111 #I don't care if you know the address!
OutboundBindAddress 77.77.77.2
DirPort 777
ExitPolicy accept *:*
RunAsDaemon 1

Logs since i started tor for 1st time till now are here:

Nyx connection tab:

Connection speed:

Idle Latency:    99.70 ms   (jitter: 1.21ms, low: 98.99ms, high: 100.95ms)
    Download:     5.69 Mbps (data used: 8.5 MB)
                704.57 ms   (jitter: 88.61ms, low: 121.54ms, high: 1475.20ms)
      Upload:     4.24 Mbps (data used: 4.8 MB)
                512.83 ms   (jitter: 83.99ms, low: 127.58ms, high: 2635.17ms)
 Packet Loss:     9.8%

Maybe the issue is the packet loss or the speed isn’t enough for exit tor relay, or both ?

Fingerprint: 50539389B663A65CBE0C6C449F4A5BE7DDCC453A

If there is something that i am missing, ask for it and i will provide the information.

Thanks!

Vort · April 2, 2024, 9:48am

I see two possible reasons:

Russian censorship is messing with relay operation.
Your keys were banned when you tried old version of Tor.

I’m not sure if #2 is really possible (bans from Tor Project are not public), but you can try changing keys just in case.
As for #1 hypothesis - I can’t help testing it, because my ISP does not allow connections to your IP.

Felix · April 2, 2024, 1:13pm

45.156.26.0/24 seems Russia
77.77.77.0/24 seems Iran
The two IPs are homed at the same server? I mean those are yours?

testmeher3 · April 2, 2024, 8:31pm

@Vort I removed everything from DataDirectory folder (#2) and started tor service again, i noticed about SSL issues and checked ports of ip addresses when i am getting the issues. The ports are filtered, possibly by my VDS provider or ISP.

As proof, i checked with curl command and nmap for see if there is some kind of censorship.

Apr 02 10:16:50 debian-ab433f423 Tor[777687]: 126 connections have failed:
Apr 02 10:16:50 debian-ab433f423 Tor[777687]:  126 connections died in state connect()ing with SSL state (No SSL object)
Apr 02 10:16:50 debian-ab433f423 Tor[777687]: Problem bootstrapping. Stuck at 50% (loading_descriptors): Loading relay descriptors. (Connection timed out; TIMEOUT; count 128; recommendation warn; host 9F7A69E381CA06322EB44F81DE7928BF7BDD60C0 at 140.238.145.127:9001)
Apr 02 10:16:50 debian-ab433f423 Tor[777687]: 127 connections have failed:
Apr 02 10:16:50 debian-ab433f423 Tor[777687]:  127 connections died in state connect()ing with SSL state (No SSL object)
^C
root@debian-ab433f423:/var/lib/tor# curl -k 178.33.36.64:9090
^C
root@debian-ab433f423:/var/lib/tor# curl 178.33.36.64:9090

^C
root@debian-ab433f423:/var/lib/tor# curl 140.238.145.127
^C
root@debian-ab433f423:/var/lib/tor# ping google.com
PING google.com (64.233.162.113) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from li-in-f113.1e100.net (64.233.162.113): icmp_seq=1 ttl=111 time=117 ms
^C64 bytes from 64.233.162.113: icmp_seq=2 ttl=111 time=116 ms

--- google.com ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1002ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 116.152/116.459/116.767/0.307 ms
root@debian-ab433f423:/var/lib/tor# curl -k 64.233.162.113:443
curl: (52) Empty reply from server
root@debian-ab433f423:/var/lib/tor#
root@debian-ab433f423:/var/lib/tor# curl 140.238.145.127:9001

^C
root@debian-ab433f423:/var/lib/tor# curl https://140.238.145.127:9001

^C
root@debian-ab433f423:/var/lib/tor# curl https://178.33.36.64:9090

^C
root@debian-ab433f423:/var/lib/tor# ping 178.33.36.64
PING 178.33.36.64 (178.33.36.64) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 178.33.36.64: icmp_seq=1 ttl=51 time=142 ms
64 bytes from 178.33.36.64: icmp_seq=2 ttl=51 time=148 ms
^C
--- 178.33.36.64 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 2 received, 33.3333% packet loss, time 2002ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 142.357/145.242/148.128/2.885 ms
root@debian-ab433f423:/var/lib/tor# nmap -p 9090 178.33.36.64
Starting Nmap 7.93 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2024-04-02 10:25 HDT
Nmap scan report for 178.33.36.64
Host is up (0.15s latency).

PORT     STATE    SERVICE
9090/tcp filtered zeus-admin

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 7.37 seconds

From my other network, i’m getting open port which don’t happen on Russia.

C:\Users\usuario>nmap -p 9090 178.33.36.64
Starting Nmap 7.94 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2024-04-02 21:28 Hora de verano romance
Nmap scan report for 178.33.36.64
Host is up (0.066s latency).

PORT     STATE SERVICE
9090/tcp open  zeus-admin

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.27 seconds

testmeher3 · April 2, 2024, 8:31pm

@Vort How can i test #1 ? I will research how clean the keys #2.

@Felix 45.156.26.111 is the public ip address of VDS, the 77.77.77.2 is a local ip address from a specific interface(tun0) for connect to my VDS with VPN and route all traffic to my home device(CG-NAT bypass).

I wanna add some new logs, im still running it just for see if something change:

Apr 01 04:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Heartbeat: Tor's uptime is 3 days 0:00 hours, with 0 circuits open. I've sent 55.75 MB and received 50.53 MB. I've received 18 connections on IPv4 and 0 on IPv6. I've made 2361 connections with IPv4 and 0 with IPv6.
Apr 01 04:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: While bootstrapping, fetched this many bytes: 578851 (consensus network-status fetch); 53814 (microdescriptor fetch)
Apr 01 04:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Circuit handshake stats since last time: 0/0 TAP, 0/0 NTor.
Apr 01 04:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Since startup we initiated 0 and received 0 v1 connections; initiated 0 and received 0 v2 connections; initiated 0 and received 0 v3 connections; initiated 0 and received 0 v4 connections; initiated 14 and received 2 v5 connections.
Apr 01 04:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Heartbeat: DoS mitigation since startup: 0 circuits killed with too many cells, 0 circuits rejected, 0 marked addresses, 0 marked addresses for max queue, 0 same address concurrent connections rejected, 0 connections rejected, 0 single hop clients refused, 0 INTRODUCE2 rejected.
Apr 01 07:57:04 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: New control connection opened.
Apr 01 08:42:17 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: New control connection opened.
Apr 01 08:54:42 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: New control connection opened.
Apr 01 09:11:20 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: New control connection opened.
Apr 01 10:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Heartbeat: It seems like we are not in the cached consensus.
Apr 01 10:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Heartbeat: Tor's uptime is 3 days 6:00 hours, with 0 circuits open. I've sent 55.75 MB and received 50.53 MB. I've received 21 connections on IPv4 and 0 on IPv6. I've made 2370 connections with IPv4 and 0 with IPv6.
Apr 01 10:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: While bootstrapping, fetched this many bytes: 578851 (consensus network-status fetch); 53814 (microdescriptor fetch)
Apr 01 10:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Circuit handshake stats since last time: 0/0 TAP, 0/0 NTor.
Apr 01 10:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Since startup we initiated 0 and received 0 v1 connections; initiated 0 and received 0 v2 connections; initiated 0 and received 0 v3 connections; initiated 0 and received 0 v4 connections; initiated 14 and received 2 v5 connections.
Apr 01 10:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Heartbeat: DoS mitigation since startup: 0 circuits killed with too many cells, 0 circuits rejected, 0 marked addresses, 0 marked addresses for max queue, 0 same address concurrent connections rejected, 0 connections rejected, 0 single hop clients refused, 0 INTRODUCE2 rejected.
Apr 01 16:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Heartbeat: It seems like we are not in the cached consensus.
Apr 01 16:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Heartbeat: Tor's uptime is 3 days 12:00 hours, with 0 circuits open. I've sent 55.75 MB and received 50.53 MB. I've received 32 connections on IPv4 and 0 on IPv6. I've made 2371 connections with IPv4 and 0 with IPv6.
Apr 01 16:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: While bootstrapping, fetched this many bytes: 578851 (consensus network-status fetch); 53814 (microdescriptor fetch)
Apr 01 16:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Circuit handshake stats since last time: 0/0 TAP, 0/0 NTor.
Apr 01 16:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Since startup we initiated 0 and received 0 v1 connections; initiated 0 and received 0 v2 connections; initiated 0 and received 0 v3 connections; initiated 0 and received 0 v4 connections; initiated 14 and received 2 v5 connections.
Apr 01 16:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Heartbeat: DoS mitigation since startup: 0 circuits killed with too many cells, 0 circuits rejected, 0 marked addresses, 0 marked addresses for max queue, 0 same address concurrent connections rejected, 0 connections rejected, 0 single hop clients refused, 0 INTRODUCE2 rejected.
Apr 01 22:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Heartbeat: It seems like we are not in the cached consensus.
Apr 01 22:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Heartbeat: Tor's uptime is 3 days 18:00 hours, with 0 circuits open. I've sent 55.75 MB and received 50.53 MB. I've received 34 connections on IPv4 and 0 on IPv6. I've made 2372 connections with IPv4 and 0 with IPv6.
Apr 01 22:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: While bootstrapping, fetched this many bytes: 578851 (consensus network-status fetch); 53814 (microdescriptor fetch)
Apr 01 22:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Circuit handshake stats since last time: 0/0 TAP, 0/0 NTor.
Apr 01 22:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Since startup we initiated 0 and received 0 v1 connections; initiated 0 and received 0 v2 connections; initiated 0 and received 0 v3 connections; initiated 0 and received 0 v4 connections; initiated 14 and received 2 v5 connections.
Apr 01 22:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Heartbeat: DoS mitigation since startup: 0 circuits killed with too many cells, 0 circuits rejected, 0 marked addresses, 0 marked addresses for max queue, 0 same address concurrent connections rejected, 0 connections rejected, 0 single hop clients refused, 0 INTRODUCE2 rejected.
Apr 02 04:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Heartbeat: It seems like we are not in the cached consensus.
Apr 02 04:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Heartbeat: Tor's uptime is 4 days 0:00 hours, with 0 circuits open. I've sent 55.75 MB and received 50.53 MB. I've received 156 connections on IPv4 and 0 on IPv6. I've made 2380 connections with IPv4 and 0 with IPv6.
Apr 02 04:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: While bootstrapping, fetched this many bytes: 578851 (consensus network-status fetch); 53814 (microdescriptor fetch)
Apr 02 04:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Circuit handshake stats since last time: 0/0 TAP, 0/0 NTor.
Apr 02 04:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Since startup we initiated 0 and received 0 v1 connections; initiated 0 and received 0 v2 connections; initiated 0 and received 0 v3 connections; initiated 0 and received 0 v4 connections; initiated 14 and received 2 v5 connections.
Apr 02 04:53:07 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: Heartbeat: DoS mitigation since startup: 0 circuits killed with too many cells, 0 circuits rejected, 0 marked addresses, 0 marked addresses for max queue, 0 same address concurrent connections rejected, 0 connections rejected, 0 single hop clients refused, 0 INTRODUCE2 rejected.
Apr 02 09:43:38 debian-ab433f423 Tor[745656]: New control connection opened.

I gonna clean the keys and keep running it for next 3 days and see if something change.

Vort · April 3, 2024, 6:12am

Looks like your relay can’t connect to other relays.
And that’s why it does not work.

Try to run Tor client (not relay) with such lines from outside of Russia:

UseBridges 1
Bridge 45.156.26.111:666

And see if it will work.
If not, you can change IP:port to some other relay and most likely it will work.

testmeher3 · April 3, 2024, 8:57pm

Hi! I tried to place 2 lines on browser’s torrc but it gets rewriten everytime.

I followed this tutorial for add the bridge manually.

After add it and restart the browser, i’m getting this(infinite loading):

With my ip address i just can’t connect today because of vds maintenance, works with other addresses, i tried with some exit relays and same ip address where i scanned port(178.33.36.64:9090).

I will try again tomorrow with my address.

testmeher3 · April 4, 2024, 9:27pm

I tried to connect and seems to work, at same time i checked if the connection was real with my arm device and seems so.

Proof:

I am thinking in change the torrc property:

OutboundBindAddress (ip from other interface) #Without filtered ports by my VDS provider or ISP.

Info here: torrc(5) — tor — Debian jessie — Debian Manpages

The issue doing this, some of my ISP providers change public ip between 30 mins to 2 hours, which is very fast for run a tor relay.

The IPv4 address is not required to be static but static IP addresses are preferred. Your IPv4 address should remain unchanged for at least 3 hours (if it regularly changes more often than that, it does not make much sense to run a relay or bridge there since it takes time to distribute the new list of relay IPs to clients - which happens only once every hour).
Source: Tor Project | Relay requirements

I just wanna know if someone had this experience and if everything works.

Thats why i am making my traffic outbound by tun0(static public ip). Changing this to other interface will avoid the issue i am having with censored ports but gonna make my public ip address change pretty fast for run a relay.

I wanna see what gonna happen, time to clean the keys and start from 0.

testmeher3 · April 5, 2024, 10:17pm

After place the property to another interface’s ip, i faced a new issue, as i am connected to my VDS via VPN, all my traffic from any interface, goes through VPN, what i did is remove the vpn gateway and set an ip rule with ip route for can answer the requests received by tun0 interface, but make the output traffic by default from my eth0 interface.

After that, i removed the keys and started tor service again, this time tor started pretty fast and in 1:30 hours, my relay was visible on metrics, the issue is my VDS or ISP provider and using another ISP as was stated by nmap scans, but i think it was a partial censorship, because i can connect with some relays(open ports) but not all via VPN, with my other ISP there is no issues, all ports are opened for every relay which don’t gives any strange issue around.

Thanks for make me understand what was wrong, i think this gonna help to someone else!