TOR#

TOR services#

Instructions to replicate an HTTP service both on clearnet and on TOR using apache as a webserver.

Interfaces#

Create a new IP address for the wired interface on a different subnet. This is done for two reasons:

  • to be able to distinguish between TOR and localhost traffic. This way programs like Fail2ban will still be able to detect abuses and ban the TOR address if necessary.

    You will also know if people connect to your onion services.

  • to avoid exposing private information (if using 127.0.0.1 instead)

We will use 192.168.0.1 on the eth0 interface as the existing network address while 192.168.1.1 will be the listening address used by TOR services.

Important

Use an IP address of a subnet NOT used in your network setup to avoid interferences.

See also

  • IP addresses - Network configuration - ArchWiki [1]

  • NetworkConfiguration - Debian Wiki [2]

  1. create a new address on the fly

    ip address add 192.168.1.1/24 broadcast + dev eth0

  2. check

    ip a
ping -c 1 192.168.1.1

  3. add the new address in the interfaces file

    /etc/network/interfaces#
     1# interfaces(5) file used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8)
 2# Include files from /etc/network/interfaces.d:
 3source-directory /etc/network/interfaces.d
 4
 5
 6# We always want the loopback interface.
 7#
 8auto lo
 9iface lo inet loopback
10
11# To use dhcp:
12#
13# auto eth0
14# iface eth0 inet dhcp
15
16# An example static IP setup: (broadcast and gateway are optional)
17#
18auto eth0
19iface eth0 inet static
20    address 192.168.0.1
21    network 192.168.0.0
22    netmask 255.255.255.0
23    broadcast 192.168.0.255
24    gateway 192.168.0.254
25
26auto eth0:0
27    iface eth0:0 inet static
28    address 192.168.1.1/24

  4. reboot and check if everything is still working

TOR configuration#

In this example we use the following schema:

  • all TOR services configuration are under /var/lib/tor/services

  • services are divided by protocols: for example http, ssh, etc…

  • protocols are divided by clearnet domains (if existing)

For example:

/var/lib/tor/services/http/docs.my.domain

See also

  • Hosting Onion Services - riseup.net [3]

  • Tor Project | Set up Your Onion Service [4]

  1. install TOR

    apt-get install tor

  2. stop the TOR service

    systemctl stop tor@default

  3. create the service directories

    cd /var/lib/tor
mkdir -p services/http services/ssh
chown -R debian-tor:debian-tor

  4. add the highlighted lines to TOR's configuration

    /etc/tor/torrc#
      1## Configuration file for a typical Tor user
  2## Last updated 9 October 2013 for Tor 0.2.5.2-alpha.
  3## (may or may not work for much older or much newer versions of Tor.)
  4##
  5## Lines that begin with "## " try to explain what's going on. Lines
  6## that begin with just "#" are disabled commands: you can enable them
  7## by removing the "#" symbol.
  8##
  9## See 'man tor', or https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-manual.html,
 10## for more options you can use in this file.
 11##
 12## Tor will look for this file in various places based on your platform:
 13## https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq#torrc
 14
 15## Tor opens a socks proxy on port 9050 by default -- even if you don't
 16## configure one below. Set "SocksPort 0" if you plan to run Tor only
 17## as a relay, and not make any local application connections yourself.
 18SocksPort 9050
 19
 20# Default: Bind to localhost:9050 for local connections.
 21#SocksPort 192.168.0.1:9100 # Bind to this address:port too.
 22
 23## Entry policies to allow/deny SOCKS requests based on IP address.
 24## First entry that matches wins. If no SocksPolicy is set, we accept
 25## all (and only) requests that reach a SocksPort. Untrusted users who
 26## can access your SocksPort may be able to learn about the connections
 27## you make.
 28#SocksPolicy accept 192.168.0.0/16
 29#SocksPolicy reject *
 30
 31## Logs go to stdout at level "notice" unless redirected by something
 32## else, like one of the below lines. You can have as many Log lines as
 33## you want.
 34##
 35## We advise using "notice" in most cases, since anything more verbose
 36## may provide sensitive information to an attacker who obtains the logs.
 37##
 38## Send all messages of level 'notice' or higher to /var/log/tor/notices.log
 39#Log notice file /var/log/tor/notices.log
 40## Send every possible message to /var/log/tor/debug.log
 41
 42# Log debug file /var/log/tor/debug.log
 43
 44## Use the system log instead of Tor's logfiles
 45#Log notice syslog
 46## To send all messages to stderr:
 47#Log debug stderr
 48
 49## Uncomment this to start the process in the background... or use
 50## --runasdaemon 1 on the command line. This is ignored on Windows;
 51## see the FAQ entry if you want Tor to run as an NT service.
 52#RunAsDaemon 1
 53
 54## The directory for keeping all the keys/etc. By default, we store
 55## things in $HOME/.tor on Unix, and in Application Data\tor on Windows.
 56#DataDirectory /var/lib/tor
 57
 58## The port on which Tor will listen for local connections from Tor
 59## controller applications, as documented in control-spec.txt.
 60#ControlPort 9051
 61## If you enable the controlport, be sure to enable one of these
 62## authentication methods, to prevent attackers from accessing it.
 63#HashedControlPassword 16:872860B76453A77D60CA2BB8C1A7042072093276A3D701AD684053EC4C
 64#CookieAuthentication 1
 65
 66############### This section is just for location-hidden services ###
 67
 68## Once you have configured a hidden service, you can look at the
 69## contents of the file ".../hidden_service/hostname" for the address
 70## to tell people.
 71##
 72## HiddenServicePort x y:z says to redirect requests on port x to the
 73## address y:z.
 74
 75# HTTP
 76HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/services/http/docs.my.domain
 77HiddenServicePort 80 192.168.1.1:80
 78
 79################ This section is just for relays #####################
 80#
 81## See https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-doc-relay for details.
 82
 83## Required: what port to advertise for incoming Tor connections.
 84#ORPort 9001
 85## If you want to listen on a port other than the one advertised in
 86## ORPort (e.g. to advertise 443 but bind to 9090), you can do it as
 87## follows.  You'll need to do ipchains or other port forwarding
 88## yourself to make this work.
 89#ORPort 443 NoListen
 90#ORPort 127.0.0.1:9090 NoAdvertise
 91
 92## The IP address or full DNS name for incoming connections to your
 93## relay. Leave commented out and Tor will guess.
 94#Address noname.example.com
 95
 96## If you have multiple network interfaces, you can specify one for
 97## outgoing traffic to use.
 98# OutboundBindAddress 10.0.0.5
 99
100## A handle for your relay, so people don't have to refer to it by key.
101#Nickname ididnteditheconfig
102
103## Define these to limit how much relayed traffic you will allow. Your
104## own traffic is still unthrottled. Note that RelayBandwidthRate must
105## be at least 20 KB.
106## Note that units for these config options are bytes per second, not bits
107## per second, and that prefixes are binary prefixes, i.e. 2^10, 2^20, etc.
108#RelayBandwidthRate 100 KB  # Throttle traffic to 100KB/s (800Kbps)
109#RelayBandwidthBurst 200 KB # But allow bursts up to 200KB/s (1600Kbps)
110
111## Use these to restrict the maximum traffic per day, week, or month.
112## Note that this threshold applies separately to sent and received bytes,
113## not to their sum: setting "4 GB" may allow up to 8 GB total before
114## hibernating.
115##
116## Set a maximum of 4 gigabytes each way per period.
117#AccountingMax 4 GB
118## Each period starts daily at midnight (AccountingMax is per day)
119#AccountingStart day 00:00
120## Each period starts on the 3rd of the month at 15:00 (AccountingMax
121## is per month)
122#AccountingStart month 3 15:00
123
124## Administrative contact information for this relay or bridge. This line
125## can be used to contact you if your relay or bridge is misconfigured or
126## something else goes wrong. Note that we archive and publish all
127## descriptors containing these lines and that Google indexes them, so
128## spammers might also collect them. You may want to obscure the fact that
129## it's an email address and/or generate a new address for this purpose.
130#ContactInfo Random Person <nobody AT example dot com>
131## You might also include your PGP or GPG fingerprint if you have one:
132#ContactInfo 0xFFFFFFFF Random Person <nobody AT example dot com>
133
134## Uncomment this to mirror directory information for others. Please do
135## if you have enough bandwidth.
136#DirPort 9030 # what port to advertise for directory connections
137## If you want to listen on a port other than the one advertised in
138## DirPort (e.g. to advertise 80 but bind to 9091), you can do it as
139## follows.  below too. You'll need to do ipchains or other port
140## forwarding yourself to make this work.
141#DirPort 80 NoListen
142#DirPort 127.0.0.1:9091 NoAdvertise
143## Uncomment to return an arbitrary blob of html on your DirPort. Now you
144## can explain what Tor is if anybody wonders why your IP address is
145## contacting them. See contrib/tor-exit-notice.html in Tor's source
146## distribution for a sample.
147#DirPortFrontPage /etc/tor/tor-exit-notice.html
148
149## Uncomment this if you run more than one Tor relay, and add the identity
150## key fingerprint of each Tor relay you control, even if they're on
151## different networks. You declare it here so Tor clients can avoid
152## using more than one of your relays in a single circuit. See
153## https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq#MultipleRelays
154## However, you should never include a bridge's fingerprint here, as it would
155## break its concealability and potentionally reveal its IP/TCP address.
156#MyFamily $keyid,$keyid,...
157
158## A comma-separated list of exit policies. They're considered first
159## to last, and the first match wins. If you want to _replace_
160## the default exit policy, end this with either a reject *:* or an
161## accept *:*. Otherwise, you're _augmenting_ (prepending to) the
162## default exit policy. Leave commented to just use the default, which is
163## described in the man page or at
164## https://www.torproject.org/documentation.html
165##
166## Look at https://www.torproject.org/faq-abuse.html#TypicalAbuses
167## for issues you might encounter if you use the default exit policy.
168##
169## If certain IPs and ports are blocked externally, e.g. by your firewall,
170## you should update your exit policy to reflect this -- otherwise Tor
171## users will be told that those destinations are down.
172##
173## For security, by default Tor rejects connections to private (local)
174## networks, including to your public IP address. See the man page entry
175## for ExitPolicyRejectPrivate if you want to allow "exit enclaving".
176##
177#ExitPolicy accept *:6660-6667,reject *:* # allow irc ports but no more
178#ExitPolicy accept *:119 # accept nntp as well as default exit policy
179#ExitPolicy reject *:* # no exits allowed
180
181## Bridge relays (or "bridges") are Tor relays that aren't listed in the
182## main directory. Since there is no complete public list of them, even an
183## ISP that filters connections to all the known Tor relays probably
184## won't be able to block all the bridges. Also, websites won't treat you
185## differently because they won't know you're running Tor. If you can
186## be a real relay, please do; but if not, be a bridge!
187#BridgeRelay 1
188## By default, Tor will advertise your bridge to users through various
189## mechanisms like https://bridges.torproject.org/. If you want to run
190## a private bridge, for example because you'll give out your bridge
191## address manually to your friends, uncomment this line:
192#PublishServerDescriptor 0

  5. restart TOR

    systemctl start tor@default

  6. check that TOR has created a new directory for the service

    ls -ld /var/lib/tor/services/http/docs.my.domain

  1. get the onion hostname

    cat /var/lib/tor/services/http/docs.my.domain/hostname

    In this example the generated onion hostname is abc.onion.

Apache#

If you are deploying a service both on clearnet and on TOR you have to create a new virtual host. You can also optionally add a header in the clearnet service that will redirect TOR browser automatically to the onion website.

  1. copy the existing VirtualHost entry of your interest and remove all SSL related options such as <IfModule mod_ssl.c>, SSLCertificateFile SSLCertificateKeyFile, etc…

  2. change the server name to the onion host name. See previous section. This will serve as the configuration for the TOR service. Include this file from the Apache configuration

    /etc/apache2/tor_services.apache.conf#
     1<VirtualHost 192.168.1.1:80>
 2    UseCanonicalName on
 3
 4    Keepalive On
 5    RewriteEngine on
 6
 7    ServerName abc.onion
 8
 9    # [ ... ]
10
11</VirtualHost>

  3. add the new header in the clearnet virtual host. Include this file from the Apache configuration

    /etc/apache2/tor_services.apache.conf#
     1<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
 2<VirtualHost 192.168.0.1:443>
 3      UseCanonicalName on
 4
 5      Keepalive On
 6      RewriteEngine on
 7
 8      ServerName docs.my.domain
 9
10      # TOR header for automatic redirection.
11      ServerAlias abc.onion
12      Header set Onion-Location "http://abc.onion%{REQUEST_URI}s"
13
14      # [ ... ]
15
16</VirtualHost>
17</IfModule>

  4. restart Apache

    systemctl restart apache2

  5. test both services

    curl --silent --head https://docs.my.domain | grep onion-location
torsocks --isolate curl http://abc.onion

Footnotes