Hi everyone! I’m trying to setup an onion service on Whonix and I’ve just completed this guide (Onion Services - Whonix) and have couple of questions.
Since we only edit the /usr/local/etc/torrc.d/50_user.conf file on the Gateway, but install the web server on the Workstation, how does this line HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/ in the Tor configuration does anything, when the website is (presumably) stored in a folder in the Workstation, where the server is?
Also, how can I install mysql to have a database for the website as well?
Tor data folder (onion service key) and server folder (html files…) are totally different.
There is no need to change anything inside folder /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/.
Same as in Debian. Unspecific to Whonix.
(Except in a complex setup, load balancing, where the mysql database should run in one VM and the web server in another VM or even a remote server. Let’s hope not since it would be very difficult to find help for that.)
@Patrick Okay, I finally installed everything and setup nginx, but now I’ve got another issue. The PHP framework I’m using needs to create files in the website folder in temp/cache for caching, but it throws Permission denied error. Since everything had to be set-up via terminal with sudo because I couldn’t do anything via the File Browser due to permission issues, I guess the application doesn’t have the permissions to write anything.
How can I give the permissions to the app/PHP? Is it something to do with the Linux file system (chmod, etc) or is that a nginx issue?
It doesn’t. And it doesn’t need to. Tor source code doesn’t have a concept of web server, nginx, web server folder. Tor just allows a virtual port running available on an onion to be forwarded to an IP/port elsewhere. Only the web server needs to know about folders where html files are located.
Yes.
You need to learn Linux file permissions. Unspecific to Whonix.
