Hey all,
After talking to Wendy Seltzer, I decided to bring this up on the list. I frequently talk to people who would like to run an exit node, but who aren't as good a sysadmin as they'd like to be. It would be great if there were server images that could be fairly easily installed and then configured. All of these people so far have had the means to spend $150ish a month on the required hosting, they just felt that getting it running was a stumbling block.
Thoughts?
~Griffin
On 3/24/13 9:39 PM, Griffin Boyce wrote:
Hey all,
After talking to Wendy Seltzer, I decided to bring this up on the list. I frequently talk to people who would like to run an exit node, but who aren't as good a sysadmin as they'd like to be. It would be great if there were server images that could be fairly easily installed and then configured. All of these people so far have had the means to spend $150ish a month on the required hosting, they just felt that getting it running was a stumbling block.
Thoughts?
To fix that need it would be nice to make a sort of "hosting provider" (using existing tool for customer management, payments, server/application deployment & maintenance) to host Tor Exit.
That way the "ownership", "liability", "costs", "abuse management" would still be of the person running it's own server, but it would be highly facilitated to be able to setup / sponsor Tor Exit somehow.
The "hosting provider" would choose the right balance between bandwidth resources / ISPs locations / netblocks distribution.
The "hosting provider" would provide to it's own customer a ready made ticketing-interface to handle abuse requests and management.
It would be a way to "industrialize" and facilitate the setup of "Tor Exit ISPs".
Fabio
Fabio Pietrosanti (naif) lists@infosecurity.ch wrote:
To fix that need it would be nice to make a sort of "hosting provider" (using existing tool for customer management, payments, server/application deployment & maintenance) to host Tor Exit.
This would definitely be cool, though honestly I was thinking more pre-configured bundles for common ISP(s).
~Griffin
On 3/24/13 11:11 PM, Griffin Boyce wrote:
Fabio Pietrosanti (naif) <lists@infosecurity.ch mailto:lists@infosecurity.ch> wrote:
To fix that need it would be nice to make a sort of "hosting provider" (using existing tool for customer management, payments, server/application deployment & maintenance) to host Tor Exit.This would definitely be cool, though honestly I was thinking more pre-configured bundles for common ISP(s).
Well, it would still need to have some kind of "Web management" software to let the non-unix-skilled person carry on regular maintenace procedure without a unix terminal such as:
- Configure Tor (nickname, bandwidth, etc) - Check if there's an upgrade & upgrade Tor when needed - See if Tor is running / ability to shutdown / restart it
That's something that should need to be pre-installed to facilitate the regular maintenance operations for that non-unix-skilled persons.
Does something like that still exists ?
Fabio
On 3/24/13 11:16 PM, Fabio Pietrosanti (naif) wrote:
On 3/24/13 11:11 PM, Griffin Boyce wrote:
Fabio Pietrosanti (naif) <lists@infosecurity.ch mailto:lists@infosecurity.ch> wrote:
To fix that need it would be nice to make a sort of "hosting provider" (using existing tool for customer management, payments, server/application deployment & maintenance) to host Tor Exit.This would definitely be cool, though honestly I was thinking more pre-configured bundles for common ISP(s).
Well, it would still need to have some kind of "Web management" software to let the non-unix-skilled person carry on regular maintenace procedure without a unix terminal such as:
- Configure Tor (nickname, bandwidth, etc)
- Check if there's an upgrade & upgrade Tor when needed
- See if Tor is running / ability to shutdown / restart it
That's something that should need to be pre-installed to facilitate the regular maintenance operations for that non-unix-skilled persons.
Does something like that still exists ?
Got an idea of an alternative solution to the problem "Let someone without unix-skills to setup and maintain it's own Tor Exit on their favorite server provider".
We can make a "GUI Application" that let this kind of user to: - Configure Tor (nickname, bandwidth, etc) - Check if there's an upgrade & upgrade Tor when needed - See if Tor is running / ability to shutdown / restart it
That kind of application automate via SSH/SCP the procedure explained below. The procedure would be finely tuned for all the different main unix operating systems available (that are the one ready-made on the vps/server provider of installable list).
The user experience would be: - Start the application - Select operating system version (Ubuntu 12.04, Debian 6, CentOS X, etc, etc) - Insert hostname, root's username, password - Configure visually on the UI: - Nickname - Bandwidth - Exit Policy - Click "Deploy Tor"
Et voilà, the tor intance would be installed and configured on the remote server trough SSH/SCP for that specific OS version.
Other options provided to the end-user by the UI would complete the maintenance operation required: - Check for upgrade - Upgrade - Start / Stop / Restart
With such approach you would still had made possible for non-unix users to deploy and maintain tor on unix's vps of all the provider.
Fabio
Hi Griffin,
I originally thought it would be nice to go towards this also for torservers.net, but it turned out that I can quickly set up new exists in less than 15 minutes by just following the steps I outline at https://www.torservers.net/wiki/setup/server .
The torrc could be (commented) better, but all in all it does not require much knowledge. After the setup, all you need to do is run the 'apt-get update && apt-get upgradE' dance once in a while.
Also, they can of course donate to one of the organizations that run exits and let them take care of it.
On 24.03.2013 21:39, Griffin Boyce wrote:
Hey all,
After talking to Wendy Seltzer, I decided to bring this up on the list. I frequently talk to people who would like to run an exit node, but who aren't as good a sysadmin as they'd like to be. It would be great if there were server images that could be fairly easily installed and then configured. All of these people so far have had the means to spend $150ish a month on the required hosting, they just felt that getting it running was a stumbling block.
Thoughts?
~Griffin
-- "What do you think Indians are supposed to look like? What's the real difference between an eagle feather fan and a pink necktie? Not much." ~Sherman Alexie
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