Onion University:About
Welcome to the community wiki for Tor university operators.
This wiki is an independent community by Tor operators connected to educational and academic institutions and organizations such as universities and NRENs. While the Tor University Challenge by the EFF focuses on getting more institutions involved with running Tor, this community serves as a more practical resource to actually make it happen by students, faculty and IT administrators.
Community mission
Our mission is to protect digital rights, research integrity, and global freedom of expression by strengthening the Tor network. We believe that educational and academic institutions such as universities and NRENs are uniquely positioned to champion these values.
- As beacons of free thought educational and academic institutions serve as the conscience of society. By supporting anonymity tools, they provide the intellectual safe space necessary for radical inquiry and the protection of marginalized voices.
- Many institutions possess world-class networking capabilities and robust legal protections that are normally unavailable to most.
Operating a relay in such an environment comes with specific challenges. This wiki provides curated documentation and peer-tested strategies to help you navigate:
- Legal & policy frameworks: best practices for handling DMCA notices and effectively communicating Tor’s legal standing to university counsel.
- Internal diplomacy: proven strategies for gaining institutional buy-in and debunking common "bad apple" myths regarding network abuse.
- Technical implementation: Optimized configuration guides tailored for high-bandwidth university backbones and NREN infrastructure.
- Sustainability: models for institutionalizing relays so they remain online long after a founding student or staff member moves on.
Working together
This wiki isn't just a static manual; it’s a living community. We believe that privacy is a team sport. By sharing "lessons learned" from campuses across the globe, we ensure that no operator has to reinvent the wheel.
Whether you are running a modest middle relay from a dorm room or managing a cluster of exit nodes in a departmental data center, you are a vital part of this network. Your contribution provides a lifeline to journalists, activists, researchers, and citizens living under digital repression.
How to Get Involved
The strength of this project lies in its contributors. Here is how you can jump in:
- Join the conversation: sign up for our [placeholder Community Mailing List] to discuss challenges, technical bugs, and outreach strategies with fellow operators.
- Contribute to this wiki: documentation ages fast. Help us by updating guides, adding new case studies, or sharing your institution's specific success stories and best practices.
- Lead outreach efforts: advocacy is as important as uptime. Use our outreach templates to start a dialogue with your campus IT department or student government.
- Spread the word: help us recruit other NRENs and universities. The more institutional diversity we have, the more resilient the Tor network becomes.
