Good Morning,
I really tried very hard to stay calm but at least someone has to say it. I think operating relays / bridges can be described as a cutting edge job or experience.
It seems that everybody wants to be an node operator these days but sadly enough there is absolutely no test or qualification that proves that one has at least something like minimum admin skills or other capabilities to do the job. Anybody who wants to drive a car needs a license though.
Honestly, its great that it is getting a little bit easier to operate a tor node but when there are discussions over a period of days on how to adjust a VPS clock or basic lectures about udp / tcp ports, 100 % cpu load and so on then there is only so much to say:
If you don't know what you are doing, then be honest to yourself and stop doing it !
Neither is this mailing list nor the tor project in general the right place to make first steps as an admin. This project needs serious people with serious skills in this serious time which are capable to operate reliable, stable and when possible of course fast systems. There is a reason why most operators are it professionals with years and years of experience in operating different systems all over the world.
And further, i strongly disagree with the text Robert wrote today that the project should provide more material for newbies because there is already more than enough material. And if you feel that this is insufficient then thats just proving my point that you and others are way out of your depth and i seriously doubt that flooding the relay list with "linux for dummies" questions is helping the project with its limited personal and technical resources in any way.
I would like to propose a new list which may or may not be called "tor-relays-new" or so. New operators should start there for a certain period of time and if everything seems to be in order they may be transferred to tor-relays. Of course this is just a very rough proposal, there may should be other criteria involved, like uptime, received flags etc. Im sure that there could be a reasonable list of achievements for new relay operators.
I expect a bit of resistance and a bit of a shitstorm right now. Please feel free to direct this straight to me and not to the list. I also would like a discussion regarding the facts of the matter to take place on this list very much.
Keep in mind that i'm just the messenger and probably just saying out loud what a lot of people are thinking ... -- Mit freundlichen Grüssen / Sincerely yours
Sebastian Urbach
------------------------------------ In time of war, the first casualty is always truth. ------------------------------------ Hiram Warren Johnson (1866-1945) US Senator, California
Moritz and Jeroen, Thank you both.
I tried both your ideas but the system is set to prevent the time being changed as you thought. Another plea to the VPS controllers and it was corrected. So the lesson there is presume it is the VPS set-up first and foremost.
You both should know that the concise and clear advice like yours is what this list needs rather than mysterious jargon and code. Anyone finding the instructions you gave would also see the complete explanation with them.
I don't know how but it would be good to facilitate the search for or extract such advice for keen newboys. The subject line isn't always the best label as I demonstrated.
Robert
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