OmniMix • Tutorial • Nyms • Nym Related Troubleshooting PreviousTopNext

A 2-way check of your nym's behaviour can be done from within OmniMix with the 'Send Nym' button. This gives you information about the current delivery and reception ability of your nym, as it sends a test message from the selected account to itself.

Don't worry about the timestamp it contains in order to allow an assignment later on. It is encrypted with your nym's key and can't be exploited by anyone else.

In the decrypted reply message you find an 'O-Nym-Crypto:' header with an argument like 'slot=14; sym=5; asym=1', which means 5 symmetric encodings and 1 asymmetric encoding removed. The symmetric encodings are done by the (in this case 4) remailers of the reply chain defined by the slot number plus the nym server itself. The asymmetric encryption layers represent the innermost encodings with your nym's public key, done by the sender and / or the nym server. In case of test messages OmniMix as the sender always protects the text with one asymmetric encoding.

If you get no reply within the estimated timeframe, then send only the according reply blocks (button 'Send Reply') for an isolated check of the reception part. If this fails as well, try to update your state data, select different remailers for your reply chains considering their qualification and rearrange them until you're successful. Also have an eye on the correct spelling of the destination address or newsgroup and, if applicable, the mail2news gateways.

If the reply side works, you have to find out whether the nym server is active. As with every state data update encryption keys and alias lists are collected from all known nym servers, a failure of this tasks may indicate a server disruption. The downloaded files are stored in the folder defined by the 'Server Keys Dir' parameter at the 'State Int/Nym' tab, with file names like 'remailer-key@nym.panta-rhei.eu.org.asc' resp. 'list@nym.panta-rhei.eu.org.asc'. But since not all nym servers support the 'fingering' of those data, you may additionally have to send an empty mail with a valid 'From' address to the 'remailer-key' and 'list' mailbox of the server that has to be checked (e.g. to 'remailer-key@nym.mixmin.net' and 'list@nym.mixmin.net'). If this message isn't answered within minutes, the nym server really seems to have some trouble. Otherwise, if you're able to get a current list of the nym aliases, see whether your new nym was already processed by the server and included into the list, which would point out the reply part as the problem. Then finally you might look at the 'Nym Stats' table, which however isn't very reliable and besides responds with some delay.

If the nym server behaves normally, but your new alias doesn't make it into its account list, the parameters chosen for your nym's key may not be supported, so eventually try more conservative ones (like DSA 1024 - 3DES - ElGamal 2048 - SHA-1). And there's still the chance of a broken sending chain. Therefore have a look at the settings within the SetNym/Send' tab. Mailing several copies through a chain of nothing but random ('0') remailers selected based on up-to-date statistics should work most of the time.

By the way, to allow the sending of nym messages from within OmniMix, for the related user (defined at the 'SetNym/Send' tab) 'SMTP' and the relevant nym accounts have to be marked within the user database (tab 'User'). For sending only a reply block or a nym configuration message, activating 'SMTP' is sufficient.

With a newsgroup delivery finally think of setting the newsgroup pointers of the single nym accounts appropriately to make sure that the replies are really picked up from the server.

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