[tor-relays] Why is my Tor bridge relay not getting any traffic?

[Roger Dingledine]

On Tue, Aug 27, 2019 at 11:22:33PM +0200, Tor Patatje wrote:
> You don't connect to your bridge, you connect to the tor network if you use
> the socks5. So yes, the check passes, because it's being sent over the tor
> network, not using your bridge but using tor's socks5 proxy.

> > [...]
> > And why is it reporting 0 unique clients even though my monitor connects
> > to it?
> > 
> > It connects to Tor's SOCKS and goes to check.torproject.org, if it
> > receives a text back and this text has congratulations message it calls
> > hc-ping.com. So, wasn't my monitor meant to be counted?

Right -- your test is trying to use your bridge as a local client on
the socks port, like you are the local user.

Whereas the client count that your bridge tracks is how many people,
using their own external Tor, make a TLS connection to your bridge
(and then build circuits through your bridge to other Tor relays).

So the user count is working correctly -- it is ignoring the local socks
connections, because they don't represent external users. It will only
count people who connect to your ORPort and, if you're offering obfs4,
to your obfs4 port.

Hope that helps,
--Roger