Tor relay update

What app is this about, and its version: Torrelay 0.4.8.17~ynh2
What YunoHost version are you running: 12.1.40.1
What type of hardware are you using: Raspberry Pi 3, 4+

Describe your issue

I recieved a message from Tor community to upgrade my tor Relay, but when I check the current version is still 0.4.8.17. There’s no date but they will cut all outdated versions. and I quote the email “However, that bridge’s Tor version is obsolete, and because of old bugs,
we will soon cut relays and bridges running that version out of the network.
Please consider upgrading as soon as possible!”. Under Debian repositories should be a newer version. I think this is important as many Yunies like me are running this service in the background.

Share relevant logs or error messages

admin@myhost:~ $ sudo apt list | grep torrelay

WARNING: apt does not have a stable CLI interface. Use with caution in scripts.

torrelay-ynh-deps/now 0.4.8.17~ynh2 all [installed,local]

Hello,

Could you please tell what return the 3 following commands?

sudo dpkg -l | grep -w -e tor -e deb.torproject.org-keyring -e deb.torproject.org-keyring -e apt-transport-https -e obfs4proxy
sudo systemctl status | grep -w tor
sudo yunohost service log tor

This is the output, I’ll cut some DNS from the output:

ii apt-transport-https 2.6.1 all transitional package for https support
ii deb.torproject.org-keyring 2025.08.08 all GnuPG archive key of the deb.torproject.org repository
ii obfs4proxy 0.0.14-1+b4 arm64 pluggable transport proxy for Tor, implementing obfs4
ii tor 0.4.9.11-0+deb12u1 arm64 anonymizing overlay network for TCP
ii tor-geoipdb 0.4.9.11-0+deb12u1 all GeoIP database for Tor
│ │ └─681 /usr/sbin/postsrsd -f 10001 -r 10002 -d guerreroxxxxxx.ddns.net -s /etc/postsrsd.secret -a = -n 4 -N 4 -u postsrsd -l 127.0.0.1 -c /var/lib/postsrsd -Xdummy guerreroxxxxxx.ddns.net libretranslate.local linkstack.local nsdns1.local ntfy.local dxxxlxxxc.org.mx ns1.dxxxxlxxxc.org.mx tor.dxxxlxxxc.org.mx paperless01.local pi5yunoserver401.local whois.local zoraxy.local dummy
│ ├─system-tor.slice
│ │ └─tor@default.service
│ │ ├─1240 /usr/bin/tor --defaults-torrc /usr/share/tor/tor-service-defaults-torrc -f /etc/tor/torrc --RunAsDaemon 0
│ ├─3578 grep --color=auto -w tor
journalctl:

  • Feb 05 14:59:57 systemd[1]: Starting tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master)…
  • Feb 05 14:59:57 systemd[1]: Finished tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master).
  • Feb 05 15:00:10 systemd[1]: tor.service: Deactivated successfully.
  • Feb 05 15:00:10 systemd[1]: Stopped tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master).
  • Feb 05 15:00:10 systemd[1]: Stopping tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master)…
  • Feb 05 15:00:10 systemd[1]: Starting tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master)…
  • Feb 05 15:00:10 systemd[1]: Finished tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master).
  • Feb 05 15:16:31 systemd[1]: tor.service: Deactivated successfully.
  • Feb 05 15:16:31 systemd[1]: Stopped tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master).
  • Feb 05 15:16:31 systemd[1]: Stopping tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master)…
  • Feb 05 15:16:31 systemd[1]: Starting tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master)…
  • Feb 05 15:16:31 systemd[1]: Finished tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master).
  • Feb 09 13:50:24 systemd[1]: tor.service: Deactivated successfully.
  • Feb 09 13:50:24 systemd[1]: Stopped tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master).
  • -- Boot 2786b2e7869c459da85987d4d9bbbd43 –
  • Feb 09 13:51:21 systemd[1]: Starting tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master)…
  • Feb 09 13:51:21 systemd[1]: Finished tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master).
  • Apr 01 08:04:11 systemd[1]: tor.service: Deactivated successfully.
  • Apr 01 08:04:11 systemd[1]: Stopped tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master).
  • -- Boot 59c6378ef07248f4aa73874bc6175728 –
  • Apr 01 08:04:51 systemd[1]: Starting tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master)…
  • Apr 01 08:04:51 systemd[1]: Finished tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master).
  • Aug 20 08:55:36 systemd[1]: tor.service: Deactivated successfully.
  • Aug 20 08:55:36 systemd[1]: Stopped tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master).
  • Aug 20 08:55:36 systemd[1]: Stopping tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master)…
  • Aug 20 08:55:36 systemd[1]: Starting tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master)…
  • Aug 20 08:55:36 systemd[1]: Finished tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master).
  • Aug 20 17:22:09 systemd[1]: tor.service: Deactivated successfully.
  • Aug 20 17:22:09 systemd[1]: Stopped tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master).
  • -- Boot 3add4066ed9b44d39e1c0c9c91892f28 –
  • Aug 20 17:22:43 systemd[1]: Starting tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master)…

So according to this we should be on 0.4.9.11 or I am really using this level. Interesting… Thanks!

Yes, that’s what it shows.
This package relies exclusively on the Tor’s Debian APT repo for update, so it basically gets updated when you perform YNH system updates, instead of the app’s. It is not very intuitive and should probably be improved, but in the meantime you can be reassured that you are indeed running the last available version.

Now I wonder how comes you received that warning from Tor community ? Would you have performed YNH system updates only after receiving the warning?
Could you check the date of the corresponding system update log and compare it with the date of the message you received? This command may help you to display that log:

cat $(grep -rliw "tor-geoipdb all 0.4.9.11" /var/log/yunohost/operations/*)

There is a PR here Update to v0.4.9.11 by pp-r · Pull Request #17 · YunoHost-Apps/torrelay_ynh · GitHub
You can try upgrading to the proposed branch and report back

Why not to help the discussion in the PR (in particular confirm whether for you after package update the service restarts automatically), but the only thing it will update from the current state of @heri’s server is the YNH package version number (cf. my previous message). So this is not necessary (at least before the PR is merged).
I don’t believe the warning of the Tor community has anything to do with YNH package version.

Thank you Subpol,

I did an update after recieving the message. There’s a toll for searching your relay:

I remember that from GUI using yunohost interface the Tor package was not listed. I did after a “apt-get update” command. And that’s why I got this on the log:

I think this is the relevant line: (Sorry is too long to put everything)

2026-08-20 08:45:09,047: INFO - +

Get:153 Index of /debian bookworm/main arm64 tor arm64 0.4.9.11-0+deb12u1 [1,999 kB]

This confirm that the package was upgraded with apt. But maybe from Tor metric tool is still reading the ynh package.

Reading the PR it seems it was opened after my post but thanks jarod5001 I guess the point is that the Tor ecosystem is reading still the ynh package and not the tor-arm. Under /var/lib/tor/state I can confirm the 0.4.9.11 from the other commands:

LastRotatedOnionKey 2026-08-20 07:18:49
LastWritten 2026-08-23 04:19:21
MinutesSinceUserActivity 1
TorVersion Tor 0.4.9.11
TotalBuildTimes 101
TransportProxy obfs4 [::]:9005

Thank you guys! I’ll follow up the PR for any further development. There’s no date from the Tor community so we are probably going into the rigth direction to solve the issue.

This confuses me - what do you mean here?

If this is correct, my understanding is that:

  1. you were running an old version
  2. you received the warning email from Tor community
  3. you performed a system update in YNH (which updated all tor-related APT packages)
  4. Since then you are running the last available version

Is your relay now listed in the Tor “Relay Search” page (is the listing instantaneous? Or maybe the list is refreshed only every X days?)?

If it is listed, we can consider that the issue is solved.
What the PR will try to improve is the consistency between the app’s package version displayed in YNH admin and the actual app version (which for this app you can be checked via dkpg, as we saw above).
Another improvement to think about for consistency is that in the future the app would actually be updated through YNH package update mechanism (like most other apps) and not via system update. But this will involve some YNH core development, and this I don’t think it will be a priority given it has no impact on how the app actually works. In the meantime, we could just add a note about the udpate mechanism for this app in the admin doc to avoid confusion.
To put it in a nutshell, this issue with this package is not that it doesn’t work (for this I base myself on @heri feedbacks), but that it has a non-standard behavior making it confusing from YNH admin point of view.

That’s a nice way to wrap it. The Tor metrics are not updated inmediately. So far I don’t know how often they renew it. I’ll monitor for this. Thank you!