New Tor Bridge - Not Sure If It Is Working

Hello Everyone,

I followed the steps here to setup a tor bridge. I’m not sure if it’s working as the last two lines in the log state:

Sep 02 08:54:46.000 [notice] Self-testing indicates your ORPort xx.xx.xxx.xxx:1050 is reachable from the outside. Excellent.
Sep 02 08:56:21.000 [notice] Performing bandwidth self-test…done.

In the post install notes it seems to indicate that the last line of the log should say:

Publishing server descriptor.

Also, when I check the [https://bridges.torproject.org/status?id=FEE… for the status of my bridge relay (as provided in the logs) it states

no resources for the given id

Any suggestions? Thanks!

The metrics can take anywhere between a few hours to a day for the Directory Authorities to reflect in metrics, so it may just be that.

However, assuming your Torrc is configured correctly and such, there have been some changes made to the bridge recently. As far as im aware, bridges dont publish public descriptors anymore, as bridges being publicly known make them easy targets for state actors looking to censor, and bad actors to DDoS them specifically to prevent countries with heavy censor laws from being able to obtain a ‘Master list’ of bridges in the same way they can obtain a list of available tor relay nodes.

I seen a post from one of the devs on this forum a while back in regards to this exact topic, I fail to recall the details at the moment.

How can I check to make sure the bridge is live / in use?

Ask someone to test it.

Would you be willing to test it? I don’t personally know anyone who uses tor…

To test your bridge, add it in Tor Browser and visit https://check.torproject.org/

screenshot

Thanks to everyone’s help, especially @Vort who checked from his side it’s clear that my TCP port is reachable and the bridge is ‘working’; however according @Vort while the bridge works, it does not in obfuscated obfs4 mode. I’m not sure what “obfuscated obfs4” mode is or how to make it work… any ideas on what I can check?

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If you installed obfs4, you can follow the post-install guide and connect using Tor Browser:

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Thank you everyone for the help! The bridge is up and running now. Last question… in a couple months is there any method for me to check and see if it’s getting any use / how much data is flowing? I’m on a Windows system.

you can always check here: Relay Search

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There are a few ways you can do this, the simplest is to use Nyx.
Source: https://nyx.torproject.org
The TLDR, there’s a line or 2 you can add to your Torrc file known as ‘Control Port’ which by default is 9051 if I recall correctly. Nyx monitors only tor and its traffic, and gives a nice terminal scrolling output that’s easy on the eyes. One benefit is with a bit of custom configuration in the torrc file, you can set up a remote listening port and address, and monitor with Nyx using another system so you can get it on a monitor. But the simpler, and safer way to prevent unauthorized access to the control port is to leave it on local only, where outside connections can’t simply connect and control your tor service. Then use SSH to login remotely and run Nyx that way.

There are many other network monitoring tools available, especially for windows.

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