Uncertain whether Wifi Hotspot is unreliable

rinkitinkitinki · April 12, 2023, 5:57pm

I have an unorthodox setup at the moment, and I am unsure how to diagnose it. Basically, I am unsure of how likely it is that the seemingly obvious cause of my relay setup not working is actually the reason for it not working. Pardon that sentence.

I have a PinePhone running postmarketOS, and I’m using it as my local router. I got it running, got the hotspot working and for a couple days I haven’t touched it. It seems the connection is working pretty good for my desktop pc, but the range of the hotspot is bad enough that if I move a device more than like six feet away the connection is guaranteed to cut out.

Since the connection appears reliable enough for my stationary pc as long as I leave the PinePhone right next to the Wifi antennas, I thought I’d try setting up a Tor relay.

So far I get the tor service running, but as far as the relay goes I get the following warning message

Your server has not managed to confirm reachability for its ORPort(s) at XX.XXX.XXX.XXX:9001. Relays do not publish descriptors until their ORPort and DirPort are reachable. Please check your firewalls, ports, address, /etc/hosts file, etc.

I think I’ve followed the docs and a couple tutorials rather carefully, and right now the only config changes should be the following according to the Tor Project relay manual

4. Configuration file

Put the configuration file /etc/tor/torrc in place:

Nickname    myNiceRelay  # Change "myNiceRelay" to something you like
ContactInfo your@e-mail  # Write your e-mail and be aware it will be published
ORPort      443          # You might use a different port, should you want to
ExitRelay   0
SocksPort   0

I also get the following warning

Received http status code 404 ("Consensus is too old") from server 142.202.48.102:443 while fetching consensus directory.

It might seem sure enough that the problem is simply my dodgy Wifi hotspot setup, but since I cannot really be sure myself I thought I’d ask, just in case there’s a chance I might be able to help out even with this going-begging setup.

I do often download files just about upward of a MB/sec over Tor using this connection, and I’d say for the most part the speed stays above 400kB/sec.

Any point in me persevering with this?

SirNeo · April 14, 2023, 11:48am

I guess you have a mobile connection and you make a hotspot to your devices.

If am am right you are behind a NAT and users from internet won’t be able to access your Relay

rinkitinkitinki · April 14, 2023, 11:49am

My current settings

Nickname nickName
ContactInfo anEmail
ORPort 19412 IPv4Only
DirPort 22777

The ports are set as tor_port_t and tcp in selinux.
The tor service has complained about both ipv4 and ipv6 while I’ve had both enabled. Firewall range includes the ports.

SirNeo · April 19, 2023, 3:59am

rinkitinkitinki can you please confirm if your connection is nob mobile? (you don’t have a sim in the router?)

Also on the admin page of your router and https://www.whatismyip.net/ you see the same IP address or do you see something from this range 100.64.x.1 to 100.127.x.254

josmith · October 16, 2023, 9:13am

rinkitinkitinki:

I have an unorthodox setup at the moment, and I am unsure how to diagnose it. Basically, I am unsure of how likely it is that the seemingly obvious cause of my relay setup not working is actually the reason for it not working. Pardon that sentence.

I have a PinePhone running postmarketOS, and I’m using it as my local router. I got it running, got the hotspot working and for a couple days I haven’t touched it. It seems the connection is working pretty good for my desktop pc, but the range of the hotspot is bad enough that if I move a device more than like six feet away the connection is guaranteed to cut out.

Since the connection appears reliable enough for my stationary pc as long as I leave the PinePhone right next to the Wifi antennas, I thought I’d try setting up a Tor relay.

So far I get the tor service running, but as far as the relay goes I get the following warning message
Your server has not managed to confirm reachability for its ORPort(s) at XX.XXX.XXX.XXX:9001. Relays do not publish descriptors until their ORPort and DirPort are reachable. Please check your firewalls, ports, address, /etc/hosts file, etc.
I think I’ve followed the docs and a couple tutorials rather carefully, and right now the only config changes should be the following according to the Tor Project relay manual
4. Configuration file

Put the configuration file /etc/tor/torrc in place:

Nickname    myNiceRelay  # Change "myNiceRelay" to something you like
ContactInfo your@e-mail  # Write your e-mail and be aware it will be published
ORPort      443          # You might use a different port, should you want to
ExitRelay   0
SocksPort   0
I also get the following warning
Received http status code 404 ("Consensus is too old") from server 142.202.48.102:443 while fetching consensus directory.
It might seem sure enough that the problem is simply my dodgy Wifi hotspot setup, but since I cannot really be sure myself I thought I’d ask, just in case there’s a chance I might be able to help out even with this going-begging setup.

I do often download files just about upward of a MB/sec over Tor using this connection, and I’d say for the most part the speed stays above 400kB/sec.

Any point in my persevering with this?

The problem is your dodgy Wi-Fi hotspot setup. To fix it, you can try to improve the range of your hotspot or use a different router.