Long Wiki Edits Thread

Website
747

Uploaded new whonixcheck_cli.png screenshot to replace to old one. I’m not sure if the new screenshot is large enough.

https://whonix.org/w/index.php?title=File:Whonixcheck_cli.png&diff=34266&oldid=70

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Getting spoiled, getting used to excellency! :slight_smile:

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Needs a revision. Lots of the descriptive text is technical and should be moved elsewhere or restructured.

  • python based
  • creates config
  • config file locations
  • relationship with tor-launcher upstream

Not the focus / not user centric. Move to https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Dev/Anon_Connection_Wizard, to anon-connection-wizard/README.md at master · Kicksecure/anon-connection-wizard · GitHub or elsewhere; or move to the bottom of the wiki page?

//cc @iry

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A post was split to a new topic: Tor Browser 8.0a9

751

No problem. :wink:

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Hmm works now. Probably a server delay.

Ah that Tor Browser check is now a known issue over at torproject.org.

So just the native sandbox issue is of interest (although Fingerprint is probably horrible now that header spoofing is not done by Tor Browser + ESR 60.1 standing out + not many users until September’s transition of default users).

Other:

I think this is closeable →

⚓ T796 make anon-ws-disable-stacked-tor systemd-unit-files-generator configurable

& this →

⚓ T790 Reducing the size of raw files

& probably closeable?

⚓ T778 scrub environment variables leftovers from Whonix 13 -> Whonix 14 upgrade

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1. Split Security Guide -> Fixed

(need to redirect internal links though)

2. The same splitting needs to be done with a) Computer Security Education and b) Advanced Security Guide.

3. Also, why don’t we merge Non-Qubes-Whonix_Known_bugs with Template: Known Bugs so it’s in one page (All Platforms, Qubes-Whonix, Non-Qubes-Whonix)? It doesn’t really make sense to have a split there.

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forums.whonix.org/t/whonix-14-has-been-released/5404 - Note: It’s a shared draft. Can be recognized since it’s posted in the staff forum. So not actually released yet.

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Yay!

There is duplicate content. I guess it’s still in process. What will happen to the Security Guide - Whonix wiki page?

Now that Whonix documentation gets split into smaller book-like pages I wonder if we could get navigation such as Tails has? example:

← System requirements

Features and included software →

Possibly there is some mediawiki extension for that. We probably shouldn’t do it manually since then it gets perhaps a ton of effort to get an overview of and to maintain/update the structure of pages.

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Great - will have a look.

The split is finished, but I didn’t delete the huge original page, because that would instantly break a couple of hundred of links across the entire documentation.

Figured it was better to have that as fallback until all the links can be cleared up.

Yes, that Tails setup looks nice. I wonder how hard it is (requires investigation - maybe iry knows?).

So, I’ll go ahead and split those other 2 huge pages, and fix the internal links in all the new pages (so they all point correctly to each other) to start with.

Longer term, fixing [[Security_Guide]] and [[Advanced_Security_Guide]] etc links will be a pain, but it does make the documentation much tighter.

ToC also still needs some work re: separation with sub-titles.

This setup anyway makes that phabricator bug re: “rework all the Security wiki sections” easy, since all you have to do is shift the smaller pages around on the ToC, which is trivial.

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Done!

Please let me know if any changes are necessary

Linux Development vs. Windows Corporate Development

When users interact with an operating system such as a Linux distribution they have certain expectations in regards to their overall experience. For many users these expectations are based on using operating systems such as Windows that provides an easy to use and intuitive GUI in concert with applications that have all of the latest features. For these users, seamless integration of new software packages on their system is the rule and not the exception. In short, Windows users are accustom to having a fully unified experience where “everything just works”. Yet, providing Linux users with the same unified experience is very difficult and in most cases not possible. They may find the GUI is not easy to use and intuitive like they are accustomed to. While there are software packages that are similar in design to those found in Windows. They lack many of the same features and in many instances do not fully integrate with other packages. For users that are migrating to a Linux distribution it may be difficult to understand how applications with similar design goals can have vastly different functionality between operating systems. However, one needs only to compare the structure of a corporate hierarchy to that of a collaborative effort of a Linux distribution to understand these differences.

Organizational Differences: Linux vs. Windows

                    |            Linux Distribution                 |       Windows                         |     
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                           
Software            | Contributions from many independent projects  | Centralized Development (in house)    |
                    |   Design goal vary for each project           |       Unified design goals            |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                    |              Donations                        |                                       |  
 Funding            |               Grants                          |       Billions in revenue             |
                    |           Corporate Sponsorship               |       from software licensing[1]      |
                    |            Professional services               |                                       |                
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Authority to issue  |      None, can only ask nicely                |       CEO issues directive            |
   directives       |                                               |                                       |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                    |                                               |                                       |
Human Resources     |   Volunteer Developers (limited time)         |       Over 120,000 employees[2]       |                      
                    |                                               |                                       |                            
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                    |                                               |                                       |
Popularity          |   1.69% of Desktop Operating Systems [3]      | 81.8% of Desktop Operating systems[3] |
                    |                                               |                                       |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Software

As shown in the table, Linux distributions are based on many third party projects which develop software according to their own design goals. When these projects develop software they don’t necessarily prioritize design goals to that of the distribution. Since the distribution can only pick software packages that are already available it is not always possible to select packages that meets all of the design goals of the distribution. Moreover distributions are not structured like a traditional company with a large number of paid employees. The distribution does not have the authority to issue a directive to a third party project to make changes to the their software. If a distribution requires changes to a package from an independent project, there are options available but they all require time and patience.[ref]Since many of these options require substantial time it may not be feasible for a distributions with limited resources to implement the desired changes.[/ref]

  • Try to understand the perspective of the third party project
  • Polity ask the project if they would be willing to make the changes
  • Submit code that makes sense from their point of view.
  • Patch and/or fork their software
  • Use an alternative package from a different project

In contrast to this is Windows which is based on software developed according to design goals which focus on providing users with a fully unified experience. While Linux distributions are based on third party packages, Windows is developed in a large company with a corporate hierarchy. In these companies the CEO can issue a directive to developers to make any change needed to move Windows closer to a fully unified operating system. If a developer refused to make those changes or did not posses the necessary skills, the CEO could terminate their employment for non-compliance since any delay in software development could cost large sums of money.

Funding

Linux distributions are based on open-source software which can be used freely by anyone. Since there is no licensing fees to use the software, the ability to generate funding for development is severely limited. Without the necessary funding to hire a large contingent of full-time employees, it is all but impossible to provide users with a unified experience. Instead, distributions rely primarily on developers that volunteer their time to integrate and maintain the software packages. However, the time they can devote is limited since they do not receive a salary. This is attributed to the limited means a distributions has to generate funding which can vary depending on its size and popularity.

  • Donation-based funding
  • Selling professional services such as technical support, training and consulting
  • Developmental Grants
  • Corporate sponsorship

Windows is a proprietary operating system which is funded through the sale of software licenses. While Linux distributions are limited in there ability to generate funding. Windows licensing generates billions of dollars in revenue which is used to employ a large number of full-time developers. This in turn allows these employees to focus on developing the software packages from the ground up while remaining focused on the design goal that will move Windows closer to a unified operating system that users have come to expect.

Unified Linux Experience

Users expect their Linux distribution to provide a unified experience similar to Windows. While some of the larger and more popular distributions provide a more consistent experience. It is not possible for most (if any) distribution to provide the quality users have come to expect while using a Windows machine. For smaller distributions such as Whonix that have very limited human resources. This would not be feasible since developers must focus a large portion of their time on core development.

[1] Microsoft FY18 Q1 earnings: $24.5 billion in revenue on continued cloud growth | Windows Central

[2] Microsoft number of employees 2005-2023 | Statista

[3] Desktop Operating System Market Share Worldwide | Statcounter Global Stats

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Well done 0brand, I really like it :slight_smile:

I only have some minor editorial nits, which I’ll get around to soon. Where should it go in the documentation?

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This nails it perfectly! Please add to the wiki. Where? Good question, next question… :slight_smile:

Certainly it needs to be referenced from Free Support for Whonix ™ so that chapter is better justified.

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This chapter could definitely use some beautification. No rush :wink:

BTW if fixed a few mistakes. There are always a few stragglers.

Done!

Added to Wiki/FAQ . I will add link from Free Support Principal after the chapter is pushed to the wiki. Also, I made a new name up for the chapter. Any better suggestions?

https://www.whonix.org/w/index.php?title=FAQ&oldid=33949&diff=cur

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I made a couple syntax errors when adding references in Wiki/FAQ

Fixed (with admin privileges)

https://whonix.org/wiki/w/index.php?title=FAQ&diff=34352&oldid=34350

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Done!

I think this is what you were looking for.

If any changes are needed please let me know.

https://www.whonix.org/w/index.php?title=Support&oldid=34299&diff=cur

@torjunkie

Our Qubes Dispvm instructions where pushed to the Qubes docs

Great work!! :slightly_smiling_face:

https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-doc/pull/643

The instruction numbering was somehow messed. All steps are numbered “1.” instead of 1,2,3…

I will ask what need to be done. Maybe make another pull request to fix.

https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/dispvm-customization/#create-custom-sys-net-sys-firewall-and-sys-usb-dispvms

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Thanks for all this work 0brand! Keep it up.

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Done!

Please let me know if any changes are necessary

Debugging with curl

Trying to use curl rather than curl.anondist-org is a common mistake when debugging Whonix network issues.

curl is a symlink → curl.anondist which is a symlink → uwt which runs curl under torsocks which then makes it use Tor running on localhost for stream isolation.

To use curl

  • command must be run under user clearnet
  • uwt steam isolation wrapper must be deactivated

In Whonix-Gateway or sys-whonix (Qube-Whonix)

1. Change to user clearnet

sudo su clearnet

2. Deactivate uwt stream isolation wrapper by appending .anondist-orig to curl

curl.anondist-org <your_url>

Edit

Note to self: Remove sandboxed Tor Browser link from Whonix 14 release notes

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Great! Nits:

Suggestion:

curl is a symlink to curl.anondist. In turn, this symlinks to uwt which runs curl under torsocks. torksocks then forces Tor to run on localhost for stream isolation.

Suggestion:

To use curl:

  • The command must be run under user clearnet.
  • The uwt stream isolation wrapper must be deactivated.

The rest looks good. :slight_smile:

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torjunkie:

Great! Nits:

Suggestion:

curl is a symlink to curl.anondist. In turn, this symlinks to uwt which runs curl under torsocks. torksocks then forces Tor to run on localhost for stream isolation.

Suggestion:

To use curl:

  • The command must be run under user clearnet.
  • The uwt stream isolation wrapper must be deactivated.

Either run under user clearnet or deactivate uwt steam isolation
wrapper. Either permanently or temporary.

Links:

1 Like