The torrc from the 0.3.5 tor version debian package by default in the Debian's tor package is very old: "## Configuration file for a typical Tor user ## Last updated 9 October 2013 for Tor 0.2.5.2-alpha. ## (may or may not work for much older or much newer versions of Tor.) ## ... " Package: tor Version: 0.3.5.8-1 And the documentation here needs to mention the version that was written for: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/TorRelayGuide/DebianUbuntu I couldn't find any ticket mentioning this and I'm trying to figure out how this should be fixed.