Rather have a badly worded FAQ than a wrong one

3.2. So I can just run a full onion router and join the network?

No. Users should run just an onion proxy. If you start up a full onion

router, the rest of the routers in the system won't recognize you,

so they will reject your handshake attempts.

No. Users should run just an onion proxy. If you have sufficient

bandwidth (>= 1MBit both ways) you can consider running a router,

but just to use the network you don't need to.  Note that you won't

be used by clients much unless you are verified properly by the

directory administrators (see next question).

3.3. How do I join the network then?

If you just want to use the onion routing network, you can run a proxy

and you're all set. If you want to run a router, you must convince

the directory server operators (currently arma@mit.edu) that you're a

trustworthy and reliable person. From there, the operators add you to

the directory, which propagates out to the rest of the network. All

nodes will know about you within a half hour.

3.4. I want to run a directory server too.

and you're all set. If you want to run a router, you can do so by

enabling ORPort, which will make your router get used for some things.

However, in order to get used for everything, you must become a "verified"

router.  Simply convince the directory server operators (mail

tor-ops@freehaven.net) that you're a trustworthy and reliable person.

From there, the operators add you to the directory, which propagates out

to the rest of the network. All nodes will know about you within a half

hour.  Once you are verified clients will pick you as entry and exit nodes.

3.4. Can I just set DirPort and be a directory server?

If you are an onion router and set DirPort then you will serve the

directory to other clients.  This takes some load off the authoritative

dirservers.  Your node will not generate its own directory, instead

it will provide the one it fetched from an authoritative dirserver.

If you run a very reliable node, you plan to be around for a long time,

and you want to spend some time ensuring that router operators are

people we know and like, we may want you to run a directory server

too. We must manually add you to the 'dirservers' file that's part of

people we know and like, we may want you to run an authoritative directory

server too. We must manually add you to the 'dirservers' file that's part of

the distribution; users will only know about you when they upgrade to

a new version. Of course, you can always just start up your router as a

directory server too --- but users won't know to ask you for directories,

and more importantly, you'll never learn from the real directory servers

about recently joined routers.

a new version.

4. Development.