Router problems

Hello,
I am running a relay on an Pi 3, it works fine.
But after a few days crashes my Router. It loses the connection to the Internet an Reboot… i think its because the relay got so many connections (around 9k +). I tried to reduce the bandwich to 1,5 Mbit but the Problem is the same.
Is there anything i can do? Do i have to buy a new Router? Wich one is good? I got a Fritz Box 7430…
Thanks for your help

What was the amount of connections when you limited the bandwidth? If it was significantly less, it can be assumed that the amount of connections is not the problem.

I’ve personally never heard of a router crashing in cases of too much connections or traffic. I would see if a firmware update is available for your router, and see if that fixes it. If that doesn’t work or there isn’t one available, what you could do is reset the router to its default settings, it could be misconfigured. It’s also possible that the network settings of the device you’re running the relay on are misconfigured, but I don’t think there’s any network configuration on one device that should cause the router to reboot.

I updated the Router a few days ago. Maybe i have to reset the Router, but everything is working fine, when Tor is shut down. I can Download 80 gb at 110 Mbit without a Problem, so i thinks its cause of the connections.
I dont know how many where there when it crashes. The last time i checkt Tor it has been around 6000+ a day bevor.
What i also noted is, when Tor is online for around 10 hours, i can Open the Router panal “normal” but after a day or more, it takes minutes to load the routers Page
Maybe i upload here some Kind of config file from my relay that can help you?
Sorry for my Bad english :wink:

Tor Project | Relay requirements :

A non-exit relay should be able to handle at least 7000 concurrent connections. This can overwhelm consumer-level routers. If you run the Tor relay from a server (virtual or dedicated) in a data center you will be fine. If you run it behind a consumer-level router at home you will have to try and see if your home router can handle it or if it starts failing. Fast exit relays (>=100 Mbit/s) usually have to handle a lot more concurrent connections (>100k).

Maybe you will need a better router that can handle 7k connections.
Or instead of running a relay in your Raspberry Pi, just run a Snowflake standalone proxy.

tank you,
yes, thats what the how-to tells me. but i could not find any information about other guys with my problem, i cant belive that im the only person whos router collaps…
where could i find information about what kind of router could solve my problem.
i dont want to buy a router for aroung 300€ i just want to support the network :wink:

im new on linux, and im not able to install the snowflake… i stuck at the part with the source code, how to use the command? the link in source code brings me back the the page…

Have you checked the tor-relays mailing list archive?

A quick search and I found something for you:

Only TCP is required! Fritz!Box DSL router works well with Tor but if
Tor has many circuits open, you have to reboot the box every week or so.

https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2013-October/003066.html

Open a terminal and run:

git clone https://git.torproject.org/pluggable-transports/snowflake.git

And then you can continue following the instructions.

What is snowflake?

Snowflake is software that turns you into a special type of Tor bridge. This allows people in places where Tor is censored to access it regardless.

Becoming a Snowflake proxy is very easy, all you have to do is install the browser extension. There are other ways, like installing a standalone Snowflake proxy, but installing the browser extension is the easiest way to help out.

4 Likes

I had the same problem on my old Linksys BEFSR40 v3 router in a double-NAT’d setup. This was years and years ago, but I’m still running the same router now, just with a new second NAT router.

I figure that crackers will have to break through the old Linksys before they get to the new router, then break through the new router before they get to the software firewalls behind them… they’re more likely to give up and look for easier opportunities.

I had logging enabled in the router, forwarding the logs to my computer, where I had a log analysis program running.

I was fighting the world’s largest spammer at the time, and he had his goons attacking my network, which was also running a Tor exit node. The DDoS his goons were attempting, combined with the Tor load, combined with the router attempting to keep up with the logs, would sometimes lock it up.

So I explicitly closed all internet-facing ports except for the Tor ports, disabled logging, set the router so it didn’t respond to connection attempts on closed ports and scaled back a bit on Tor bandwidth… all ran fine then, even with the spammer’s goons hitting me with DDoS.

I drop-kicked the spammer so hard he ended up bankrupt, on the run from the law in 3 countries, with a $37.5 million court judgement against him in the US, then I got him arrested in Russia. He’s doing 40 years for CP. Ah, the good old days. LOL

Also had the same issue with my ISP router, that would crash after a few days when running a tor relay, I think also it’s related to the number of connections that would overwelm over time those crappy ISP routers …

Hello @krix,

Are you running a middle relay or a bridge at home ?

I had the same problem as you, with an ISP router that is horrible and crashes all the time when I host a relay. I switched to a Pfsense SG-1100 which is a professional router and since then I have had no problems. I can have a middle relay at home without any problems.

You should consider running a bridge which requires less connections than a middle relay and will be more stable for your ISP router.

3 Likes

Yes middle relay, unfortunaley my crappy ISP router does not support bridge mode :frowning:

I didnt mean to change your router settings, I was saying that your tor relay could be modified in bridge.

You can read whats different between a middle relay and a bridge relay here : Tor Project | Types of relays on the Tor network

If you need help to edit your tor config or anything related to it, you can create a new topic and we will help you more about it.

Thanks

1 Like

thanks but I was looking to run a middle relay essentially :slight_smile:

He means run an OBFS4 bridge, rather than a middle relay. That’s what I’m running now. I used to run an exit relay years ago, but there are a ton of websites that don’t like Tor, so they block IP addresses running exit relays. Likely the same for middle relays. OBFS4 bridges aren’t listed in the list of relays, so there are no problems like that for bridges.

1 Like