adding initial readme documentation

README.md

@@ -1,2 +1,48 @@
-# private_tor_network
-Run an isolated instance of a tor network in Docker containers
+## Private Tor Network on Docker
+
+##### An isolated, private tor network running entirely in Docker containers
+
+### Quickstart
+
+The easiest way to get a tor network up and running is to use the docker-compose scale function:
+
+`docker-compose scale da=3 relay=5 exit=3 client=1`
+
+### Network Settings
+
+All of the requisit information that other nodes need to know about on the network are stored in a mapped volume: `./tor:/tor`. NOTE: This folder must exist on the host and allow the debian-tor user to create files in this directory. 
+
+### Running Individual Roles
+
+This is building a base tor relay container and then modifying it based on ROLE environment variable you give it. For example, this would make a directory authority (DA)
+`docker run -e ROLE=DA antitree/tor-private-server`
+
+Available roles right now are:
+
+* DA - directory authority
+* RELAY - non-exit relay
+* EXIT - exit relay
+* CLIENT - exposes the tor socks port on 9050 to the host
+
+### Tor configuration
+
+This configuration is based on the Tor documentation for how to run a private tor network. You should also check out Chutney[1] which does something similar with separate processes instead of containers. 
+
+### Debugging
+
+Here are a few things to try if you're runing into issues:
+
+* Check the tor logs sent to stdout `docker logs -f torserver_da_1`
+* Check all the logs with `docker-compose logs`
+* Enable verbose logging by changing the `./config/torrc` 
+* Check permissions for your ./tor folder
+* Delete the files in your ./tor folder so you can start from scratch (or specifically the torrc.da file)
+
+### References
+
+- https://github.com/chriswayg/tor-server
+- https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-relay-debian.html.en
+
+[1]: https://gitweb.torproject.org/chutney.git/
+
+