[tor-relays] Best way for normal OS X users to run a relay?

[Jeroen Massar]

On 2014-06-05 05:31, Andrew Lewman wrote:
> On 06/04/2014 06:35 PM, Jeroen Massar wrote:
>> On 2014-06-05 00:06, Roger Dingledine wrote:
>>> What is the best way to run a relay on OS X currently?
> 
>> But if you just want tor though, try Homebrew:
>> https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/blob/master/Library/Formula/tor.rb
> 
> We could really use relay-only bundles again, one for non-exit and one
> for exit relay. Something simple for osx as a dmg/zip to extract and run
> (in a Terminal window at a minimum).

Homebrew does that, it really does not get simpler than:

Install brew once, from http://brew.sh/:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/go/install)"

and then:

brew install tor

This also handles updates, as brew takes care of it:
brew update
brew upgrade

(does need a restart of relevant binaries)

The only thing that would be better is having it in the App Store as
then updates are forced (unless turned off).

The only thing that should be in the App Store though is TBB.

And possibly you do not want it in the App Store as that requires an
AppleID and thus your full identity gets exposed as "I am running Tor",
which might not be what somebody wants to reveal.


> We could use these for Windows too.

As with OSX, Windows is also mostly a desktop operating system. I would
really recommend against running tor in such an personal environment,
especially for exit relays.

There is also a problem with automagic updates, people do not perform
those like on a Debian platform.


Best answer for this: run Tails in a VM and upgrade Tails often when a
new one comes out.


Hence, provide a Tails VM that can be easily clicked/installed including
VirtualBox would better solve your problem.

Greets,
 Jeroen