Guard/middle (aka non-exit) relay

A guard is the first relay in the chain of 3 relays that form a gate circuit. A middle relay is neither a guard nor an exit relay, but acts as a second connection between the two. To become a guard, a relay must be stable and fast (at least 2 MByte/s), otherwise it remains a middle relay. Guard and middle relays normally do not receive abuse complaints. All relays are listed in the public list of Tor relays, which may result in them being blocked by certain services that don't understand how Tor works or deliberately want to censor Tor users. If you are running a relay from home and have a static IP, consider running a bridge instead so that your non-Tor traffic is not blocked as coming from Tor. If you have a dynamic IP address or multiple static IPs, this is not as problematic. A Tor relay with no exit requires minimal maintenance, and bandwidth usage can be customized in the Tor configuration (covered in more detail later in this guide). The so-called “exit policy” of the relay determines whether it is a relay that allows clients to exit or not. A relay without an exit does not allow leaving in its exit policy.