Troubleshooting VPS Setup

Info

To monitor the connectivity of your Exit Gateway, use results of probe testing displayed in harbourmaster.nymtech.net.

IPv6 troubleshooting

Incorrect Gateway Network Check

Nym operators community is working on a Nym version of tors good bad ISP table. There is no one solution fits all when it comes to connectivity setup. The operation of nym-node will vary depending on your ISP and chosen system/distribution. While few machines will work out of the box, most will work after uisng our connectivity configuration guide, some need more adjustments.

Begin with the steps listed in Connectivity Test and Configuration chapter of VPS Setup page. If you still have a problem with the IPv6 connectivity try:

  1. Tor community created a helpful table of ISPs. Make sure your one is listed there as a “good ISP”. If not, consider migrating!
  2. Checkout your VPS dashboard and make sure your IPv6-public enabled.
  3. If you are able to add IPv6 address /64 range, do it.

  1. Search or ask your ISP for additional documentation related to IPv6 routing and ask them to provide you with IPv6 IP address and IPv6 IP gateway address
  • For example Digital Ocean setup isn’t the most straight forward, but it’s well documented and it works.
  1. Search for guides regarding your particular system and distribution. For Debian based distributions using systemd, some generic guides such as this one work as well.

Other VPS troubleshooting

Virtual IPs and hosting via Google & AWS

For true internet decentralization we encourage operators to use diverse VPS providers instead of the largest companies offering such services. If for some reasons you have already running AWS or Google and want to setup a <NODE> there, please read the following.

On some services (AWS, Google, etc) the machine’s available bind address is not the same as the public IP address. In this case, bind --host to the local machine address returned by $(curl -4 https://ifconfig.me), but that may not the public IP address to bond your <NODE> in the wallet.

You can run ifconfig command. For example, on a Google machine, you may see the following output:

ens4: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1460
        inet 10.126.5.7  netmask 255.255.255.255  broadcast 0.0.0.0
        ...

The ens4 interface has the IP 10.126.5.7. But this isn’t the public IP of the machine, it’s the IP of the machine on Google’s internal network. Google uses virtual routing, so the public IP of this machine is something else, maybe 36.68.243.18.

To find the right IP configuration, contact your VPS provider for support to find the right public IP and use it to bond your <NODE> with the nym-api via Nym wallet.

On self-hosted machine it’s a bit more tricky. In that case as an operator you must be sure that your ISP allows for public IPv4 and IPv6 and then it may be a bit of playing around to find the right configuration. One way may be to bind your binary with the --host flag to local address 127.0.0.1 and run echo "$(curl -4 https://ifconfig.me)" to get a public address which you use to bond your Mix Node to nym-api via Nym wallet.

It’s up to you as a node operator to ensure that your public and private IPs match up properly.