[graphical gui] Whonix Setup Wizard / Anon Connection Wizard - Technical Discussion

I agree! That is an inspiring point!

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Sure thing! Done: ⚓ T716 Integrate anon-connection-wizard into whonix-setup-wizard

That sounds awesome!

Yes! Let’s see how far the integration work can go!

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Hi @0brand ! To avoid cross-posting, let’s continue the anon-connection-wizard discussion here.

anonym replied on tails-dev@ list, which sounds to be very good new! I will keep following this up.

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A ticket for anon-connection-wizard future development has been opened: ⚓ T504 anon-connection-wizard development

A suggestion, not a strict rule at all:
This forum post will be the place to discuss new-features/plans/announcement and so on and T504 will be place to discuss code and implementation.

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Hi @iry

Apologies, I should have know better than to start a new developmental discussion elsewhere.

Good news indeed! If they would be willing to share the workload, it could lead to other great thing. Like having time to sleep, eat, etc… :grinning:

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How to install anon-connection-wizard in a clean /Debian8 or Debian9:

  1. install all the dependencies: sudo apt-get install git python3-pyqt5 python3-yalm python3-stem tor

  2. anon-connection-wizard is using torrc.d feature which is firstly implemented in 0.3.1.1-alpha. Use tor --version to check if your Tor version is below that. Currently, you need to upgrade to an unstable version of Tor to use it, see this page for better instructions on how to upgrade Tor.

  3. git clone https://github.com/Whonix/anon-connection-wizard
    git clone https://github.com/Whonix/python-guimessages

  4. sudo cp anon-connection-wizard/usr/* /usr/ -r

  5. sudo cp python-guimessages/usr/* /usr/ -r

  6. run sudo anon-connection-wizard to start it

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That problem with that is, that uninstallation gets really hard. On source code changes, any files removed from the source, won’t be removed from the disk.

And these extraneous files then could interfere causing issues?

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I agree!

Sorry that I was trying to make it using make deb-pkg because of my mistake. The following instructions by Patrick work perfectly:

Packaging is sorted out.
requires Debian stretch based Debian or Whonix 14
GitHub - Kicksecure/genmkfile: Simplifies Debian Packaging and Maintenance needs to be installed
make deb-pkg builds a package
make deb-icup builds a package, installs it and cleans up
see also make help

The first released tor version with %include feature is 0.3.1.1-alpha. When adding a %include line to /etc/tor/torrc but the Tor version is below it, Tor will stop working, which is a severe issue.

I have no idea when 0.3.1.1-alpha will become stable (and did not find any document on Tor life cycles) . Therefore, if 0.3.1.1-alpha still not become stable when Whonix14 is released, there are two ways to prevent anon-connection-wizard to add %include line to /etc/tor/torrc:

  1. Just do not include anon-connection-wizard into Whonix14 until the feature is included into stable Tor;
  2. merge this commit:

What do you think, @Patrick ?

Btw, is “what is the Tor life cycles” a question worth asking on tor-talk@ ? Or it has been documented?

Thank you very much!

iry:

The first released tor version with %include feature is
0.3.1.1-alpha. When adding a %include line to /etc/tor/torrc but
the Tor version is below it, Tor will stop working, which is a severe
issue.

I have no idea when 0.3.1.1-alpha will become stable (and did not
find any document on Tor life cycles) . Therefore, if
0.3.1.1-alpha still not become stable when Whonix14 is released,
there are two ways to prevent anon-connection-wizard to add
%include line to /etc/tor/torrc:

  1. Just do not include anon-connection-wizard into Whonix14 until
    the feature is included into stable Tor; 2. merge this commit:

temporarily disable &include line feature in /etc/tor/torrc · irykoon/anon-connection-wizard@cf30fb1 · GitHub

What do you think, @Patrick ?

It’s not a single line change.

It needs all of this probably.

When we get close to Whonix 14 release, I think it would be better to
forward port what Tor 0.3.1.1-alpha does.

Since there is a lot work left until Whonix 14, I guess chances are we
are in time for 0.3.1.1 getting stable (or we’ll add the beta or even
alpha if that isn’t too crazy).

Btw, is “what is the Tor life cycles” a question worth asking on
tor-talk@ ? Or it has been documented?

Good question. Worth asking.

2 Likes

Patrick Schleizer:

iry:

The first released tor version with %include feature is
0.3.1.1-alpha. When adding a %include line to /etc/tor/torrc but
the Tor version is below it, Tor will stop working, which is a severe
issue.

I have no idea when 0.3.1.1-alpha will become stable (and did not
find any document on Tor life cycles) . Therefore, if
0.3.1.1-alpha still not become stable when Whonix14 is released,
there are two ways to prevent anon-connection-wizard to add
%include line to /etc/tor/torrc:

  1. Just do not include anon-connection-wizard into Whonix14 until
    the feature is included into stable Tor; 2. merge this commit:

temporarily disable &include line feature in /etc/tor/torrc · irykoon/anon-connection-wizard@cf30fb1 · GitHub

What do you think, @Patrick ?

It’s not a single line change.

It needs all of this probably.

Adds torrc.d directory support · Jigsaw52/debian-tor@da6af2d · GitHub

When we get close to Whonix 14 release, I think it would be better to
forward port what Tor 0.3.1.1-alpha does.

Since there is a lot work left until Whonix 14, I guess chances are we
are in time for 0.3.1.1 getting stable (or we’ll add the beta or even
alpha if that isn’t too crazy)
Hi @Patrick !

Thank you for your answer!

I have found the core Tor
release

wiki page, which indicates that Tor 0.3.1 stable will be released Sep
5th. I guess there is no need to worry about this problem anymore.

Lesson I learned: If there is no document of a project available on a
search engine, always check documents on the official site carefully
before assuming it is not documented. :slight_smile:

2 Likes

isis said in the tickets:

This API won’t be publicly accessible though, it’ll be reachable through the API for #22871, and even then it’s only reachable through a special meek reflector as part of #16650.

Is anon-connection-wizard what Tails uses now? I’d be happy to support Tails as well (but I’d strongly prefer the connection to go through the meek reflector).

anon-connection-wizard has not been used by Tails now. But some quick and dirty test on integrating anon-connection-wizard has been done by anonym from Tails. Some details can be found here:

https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2017-September/011638.html

meek has not been supported neither by Whonix nor by Tails so far. I will do some status report work in this post: censorship circumvention / Tor pluggable transports

I will also ask Tails about why meek is not supported by Tails, given that Tails does ship a Tor Browser.

The Moat API for BridgeDB document can be found here:

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My reply: Implement backend for moat (#22871) · Issues · Legacy / Trac · GitLab

2 Likes

https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2017-September/011660.html

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  • Support meek_lite in anon-connection-wizard. meek_lite is a meek-like pluggable transport implemented in obfs4proxy. Although it does not normalize TLS signatures, it is still effective to circumvention the Tor censorship in heavily censored area, like China. This feature will greatly increase the accessibility to Tor network in China, along with the incresement of usability of Whonix. See here fore more details: censorship circumvention / Tor pluggable transports - #3 by iry

  • Support custom bridges input validation check. The implementation does not strictly match all the invalid input. However, hopefully, this is effective enough to prevent inexperienced user from configuring it with obvious mistake.

https://github.com/Whonix/Whonix/commit/41680a74746d2a69b9ed25bc150ec09a961ff13a

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Shall I rename anon-connection-wizard git repository to tor-connection-wizard? If we are going for it, we should do it now so we don’t have any name migration work in future.

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tor-connection-wizard will be a more descriptive name!

I thought the reason why we did not do it earlier was because Tor trade mark concern? Is it resolved? If so, I am more than happy to see it being renamed!

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That’s the question. So you don’t remember having that permission? Hm. Could you create a torproject ticket for that please and cc arma (Roger) asking for that permission?

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Done!

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