Installing tor on server (as a relay)

I used

Code:

yum install tor

How do I know if it's running as a relay? I started it and this is the output (if it matters)

Code:

service tor start
Starting tor: Jun 16 20:28:03.042 [notice] Tor v0.2.0.34 (r18423). This is experimental software. Do not rely on it for strong anonymity. (Running on Linux i686)
Jun 16 20:28:03.043 [notice] Initialized libevent version 1.1a using method epoll. Good.
Jun 16 20:28:03.043 [notice] Opening Socks listener on 127.0.0.1:9050
/usr/bin/torctl start: tor started
                                                           [  OK  ]

Tor does not run as a relay by default.

$man tor

I'm not entirely certain on this, but there is a section in the Tor configuration file that is:

Code:

## Replace this with "SocksPort 0" if you plan to run Tor only as a
## relay, and not make any local application connections yourself.

There is a line directly below with the SocksPort parameter on it. Does setting this to 0 enable relay only mode?

My output as is follows after setting SocksPort to 0:

Code:

Jun 16 21:37:28.743 [notice] Initialized libevent version 1.1a using method epoll. Good.
Jun 16 21:37:28.744 [notice] Opening OR listener on 0.0.0.0:9001

Network traffic shows communication with the Internet side of the network when Tor is first started.

https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#CanIJustConfigureAndRun

strong Celtics

Checking the log shortly after Tor has been started, we see (IP hidden):

Code:

Jun 16 21:40:39.319 [notice] Guessed our IP address as XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX.
Jun 16 21:40:48.983 [notice] Self-testing indicates your ORPort is reachable from the outside. Excellent. Publishing server descriptor.
Jun 16 21:41:42.048 [notice] Performing bandwidth self-test...done.

Be careful of the DNS errors in the log. You will need to set your "Address" parameter in the configuration to properly match your server's qualified domain name (or, a DynDNS domain name if you use Dynamic DNS.).

I believe you can put your external IP for Address too (assuming it doesn't change constantly). If someone could verify, that would be excellent.

can Nickname be anything? it says it needs to be unique so how do I check if it's in use or not (and can it be my nickname?)

also if I put my email in contact info, who exactly can see it? :S

I'm not sure about restrictions on the format of the Nickname (but regardless it can be set to whatever you want).

I would imagine your Tor log would show if the nickname is already taken.

And for quick reference about ContactInfo (from torrc)

Code:

## Contact info to be published in the directory, so we can contact you
## if your relay is misconfigured or something else goes wrong. Google
## indexes this, so spammers might also collect it.

$man tor

for more information