Setting up non-exit Tor relay on Linux Debian Stretch

Question

The server is running Linux Debian Stretch (9, testing).

I have installed tor as follows:

1. I created APT file for Tor:

   sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/tor.list
   

2. I entered these lines:

   deb http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org stretch main
   deb-src http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org stretch main
   

3. I imported the GPG key for Tor:

   gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv A3C4F0F979CAA22CDBA8F512EE8CBC9E886DDD89
   gpg --export A3C4F0F979CAA22CDBA8F512EE8CBC9E886DDD89 | sudo apt-key add -
   

4. I installed Tor and Arm as follows:

   sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install tor deb.torproject.org-keyring tor-arm
   

5. I stopped the Tor service:

   sudo service tor stop
   

6. I edited the config file:

   sudo nano /etc/tor/torrc
   

7. I have not uncommented anything and just added these lines:

   ORPort       XXXXX
   DirPort      YYYYY
   SOCKSPort    0
   RunAsDaemon  0
   ExitPolicy   reject  *:*
   ExitPolicy   reject6 *:*
   Nickname     myNick
   ContactInfo  myContact
   

8. I punched holes in my firewall:

   sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport XXXXX -j ACCEPT`
   sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport YYYYY -j ACCEPT`
   

9. I forwarded these ports onto the server in my router.

10. And finally started the Tor service:

    service tor start
    

---

Questions:

1. Did I install it correctly?

2. If not, what steps did I do wrong?

3. If I did install it alright, is there any further configuration I need to do?

4. How do I check I am part of the network?

5. Do I need to register on Atlas or somewhere else?

Answer 1

This sounds like a general monitoring question. To figure out if everything is running smoothly you should take a look at the tor log:

tail -f /var/log/tor/log

If Tor is succesfully running as a relay and all configured ports are reachable you will find this message:

[notice] Self-testing indicates your DirPort is reachable from the outside. Excellent.

This is taken from the official docs.

If you see this message, you should show up after some hours on Atlas, so there's no need to register you relay there.

For general monitoring you should use arm which you can install via:

sudo apt-get install tor-arm

and start it with the user Tor is running as:

sudo -u debian-tor arm

In there you'll see all the established connections on the 2nd page.

Answer 2

The torrc and other settings look correct. (the ExitPolicy asterisks got turned into syntax to make the : italic though :P)

If all went well, then you should publish your relay details to the directory authorities, who will then vote you into the consensus. The consensus is republished every hour. So you should appear in it.

An easy way to test that it's reachable is to use openssl to connect to the ORPort and see if you get a TLS handshake out of it, e.g. openssl s_client -connect $YOUR_IP:$YOUR_ORPORT. If it manages to perform the handshake then you just need to wait for the new consensus to get published, Atlas uses the consensus so you don't need to register, it's done when you start your relay. Further configuration options might be related to any bandwidth restrictions you have, otherwise a good resource to know what will be happening to your relay over the new few weeks is this blog post: https://blog.torproject.org/blog/lifecycle-of-a-new-relay

P.S. thanks for running a relay!