= Tor Friends and Relay Operators Meetup @ OnionSpace Berlin =
== Notes ==
Operators run relays in Germany on residential connections and on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi#Specifications Raspberry Pi 2] with a standard (not tweaked/tuned) [https://www.raspbian.org/ Raspbian] distribution with a network speed in satisfactory levels (for a residential connection).
The biggest part of the meetup was dedicated into the situation (see related blog post: https://blog.torservers.net/20180704/coordinated-raids-of-zwiebelfreunde-at-various-locations-in-germany.html) of Torservers (Zwiebelfreunde e.v) and what we can do to possibly avoid such incidents in the future.
A large-scale operator (with more than 20 exit relays) was wondering about the effects of the newer tor versions and the `MyFamily` configuration option.
* After setting up the `MyFamily` saw a 50% drop on the number connections and the usage of the relay bandwidth;
* This person would like to push more bandwidth and would like to find out how to better achieve this scenario;
* The person also asked if it's possible to run FreeBSD/OpenBSD in a embedded SoC (like Raspberry, or BeagleBone) - yes! it is possible, and some people do it :)
* https://wiki.freebsd.org/FreeBSD/arm
* https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/evbarm
* https://www.openbsd.org/armv7.html
Shared info about the list of providers to run any BSD-powered VPS, and setup
* [https://torbsd.org/2017/06/27/bsd-vps-providers-needed.html TDP's Blog Post]
* Updated List of Providers? [https://github.com/torbsd/torbsd.github.io/blob/master/docs/bsd-vps.md Here.]
Recommendations from what we also discussed in Rome @ Prenestino: do not use disk encryption (from [https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2018-March/014712.html tor-relay@])
* More from Rome? [https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/meetings/RomeRelayOperatorsMeetupMar18 Here.]
The abuse emails do not bother relays operation in Germany
* Some providers/ISP just ignore the abuse emails - not forwarding it to the relay operator;
* the abuse contact might be present only in the WHOIS database from the relay's CIDR;
* no contact available to reach the operator? - this changed! operators need to add contact info.
* Even if you respond to the emails there was no feedback;
* We do not need to shutdown the machines.
A follow up meetup will happen around mid August (in Berlin). Stay tuned!
**A poll to find a suitable date for the next meetup (allowing anonymous submission) is hosted here**:
* Who run the relays with the family fingerprint [https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#aggregate/all/family:B740BCECC4A9569232CDD45C0E1330BA0D030D33 B740BCECC4A9569232CDD45C0E1330BA0D030D33] ?
* The exit probability of this family is ~10.5%
* Has anyone met this person/entity?
* The relays are, at the same time, marked as `Guard` and `Exit`
* The current feature for DDoS protection is really optional, or does it need to be manually enabled? (regarding the traffic drop on the relays mentioned before)
