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I downloaded the 64-bit Windows installed for "Tor Browser" from this URL:

https://www.torproject.org/download/download-easy.html.en

It installed and worked as expected and can display normal and .onion sites. The first default page it displays is about:tor Under "you can help" there is a link called Run a Tor Relay Node which says:

Alas, since Vidalia (a graphical interface for Tor) is no longer included in Tor Browser, there are currently no easy relay packages for Windows and OS X users.

Followed by Configure Tor by editing the torrc file.

I edited my ..\Tor Browser\Browser\TorBrowser\Data\Tor\torrc file as directed and added the port forward to my firewall. Unfortunately the Tor Browser failed to start after that and entered a failed to start, need to restart loop.

I enabled debug logging but nothing was added to the log during these events. I reverted the edits and verified the logging system actually worked. I trawled the tor site, Google and this site for further explicit information with no luck.

I am now assuming that the "Tor Browser" is 100% client and cannot relay traffic for any other users of the network.

Am I correct? If not, how do I active the relay functionality?

Clarification

I understand and followed the instructions on the Tor site. What I don't know is if they failed because they were never intended to work on the Tor Browser or for some other reason.

in response to Jens Kubieziel requests for more detailed test ....

Start with Tor Browser closed.

Contents of "S:\tor\Tor Browser\Browser\TorBrowser\Data\Tor\torrc" are:

# This file was generated by Tor; if you edit it, comments will not be preserved
# The old torrc file was renamed to torrc.orig.1 or similar, and Tor will ignore it

DataDirectory S:\tor\Tor Browser\Browser\TorBrowser\Data\Tor
GeoIPFile S:\tor\Tor Browser\Browser\TorBrowser\Data\Tor\geoip
GeoIPv6File S:\tor\Tor Browser\Browser\TorBrowser\Data\Tor\geoip6

Add this line at bottom:

Log debug file my_debug.log

Save and close.

Open Tor browser and go to Tor blog page, all Ok. Close Tor Browser.

A file has been created at "S:\tor\Tor Browser\Browser\my_debug.log" with 32000 odd log entries.

Change contents of "S:\tor\Tor Browser\Browser\TorBrowser\Data\Tor\torrc" to: 

# This file was generated by Tor; if you edit it, comments will not be preserved
# The old torrc file was renamed to torrc.orig.1 or similar, and Tor will ignore it

DataDirectory S:\tor\Tor Browser\Browser\TorBrowser\Data\Tor
GeoIPFile S:\tor\Tor Browser\Browser\TorBrowser\Data\Tor\geoip
GeoIPv6File S:\tor\Tor Browser\Browser\TorBrowser\Data\Tor\geoip6

Log debug file my_debug.log

ORPort 443
Exitpolicy reject *:*
Nickname 78629847569874
ContactInfo [email protected]

Save and close.

Deleted contents of "S:\tor\Tor Browser\Browser\my_debug.log".

Open Tor browser.

Get following error message:

enter image description here

Check contents of "S:\tor\Tor Browser\Browser\my_debug.log", its blank.

Click "Restart Tor".

Get following error message:

enter image description here

Check contents of "S:\tor\Tor Browser\Browser\my_debug.log", its blank.

Try the "Copy Tor Log To Clipboard" button and paste into notepad, also blank.

Click "Restart Tor".

Get same error message:

Logs still blank.

Click exit.

Get following error message:

enter image description here

Click OK.

Check contents of "S:\tor\Tor Browser\Browser\my_debug.log", its blank.

Improve this question
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  • It is quite uncommon that nothing is in the debug log. Could you enable logging again, paste the line from your config to your question, maybe add another location and tell us what happened?
    – Jens Kubieziel
    Commented Jun 9, 2015 at 13:20
  • @JensKubieziel i thought the blank debug was very odd too and indicated what I was attempting was completely unsupported. I reran the test and posted the detail in verbose detail. I'm not sure what you meant by "add another location", please explain further ? Thanks.
    – John McNamara
    Commented Jun 9, 2015 at 15:54
  • Please set Log debug file S:\tor\Tor Browser\Browser\my_debug.log (with the full path to the file). Does the file have some contents now?
    – Jens Kubieziel
    Commented Jun 9, 2015 at 16:07
  • @JensKubieziel I set it to the full path as you asked and it was still blank. I wonder if there are any other logs in the "Tor Browser" installation that could be used ?
    – John McNamara
    Commented Jun 9, 2015 at 16:13

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
0

Im going to explain you how to make the relay work.

First of all you need to enter in here: ....\Tor Browser\Browser\TorBrowser\Data\Tor\torrc as you said in your post.

At the end you should add: 

ORPort 443
Exitpolicy reject *:*
Nickname ididntedittheconfig
ContactInfo human@...

You should open the port mentioned in ORPort or change it to the one you have open.

Exitpolicy reject : means that the relay wont act as a exit node.

Contact info you can put you email, if you dont want just leave it like its.

Nickname means the name of your relay, you can put what you want or leave it like that.

Once done you just need to restart the relay.

If you leve it like that the relay will use all of your brandwich if you dont want so just add this at the end of torrc, when you add it remember restarting the relay

RelayBandwidthRate 1000 KBytes

1000 KBytes means that the relay will use 20mb of your connection, for knowing what to put there you need to write make this opperation 20*X KBytes

Hope it helps.

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3
  • Javi B, Thanks for your answer, but those are almost verbatim the instructions available on the tor site and when I followed them, the Tor Browser refused to restart, as I explained in my question. Have you personally verified that this works with the latest 64 bit tor browser on a WIn7 64 bit OS ?
    – John McNamara
    Commented Jun 7, 2015 at 21:21
  • 2
    Actually @JohnMcNamara you're right. I made the above modifications based on the website and this comment and Tor comes back up with an error. Either the directions are wrong or there's a bug in the latest build. You should submit a but report: trac.torproject.org/projects/tor
    – Lizbeth
    Commented Jun 15, 2015 at 14:02
  • Just one more thing to add to the above, in windows 8 or 10, any editing in notepad needs to be done "right click, run as administrator" otherwise the torrc file does not save edited. I now have the tor browser running as an exit relay average 10mb/s without problems logging to a separate folder c:\tor browser\logs
    – user7941
    Commented Jul 25, 2015 at 16:27

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