Tor-launcher - Better Circumvention User Interface

Instructions for using Tor shipped by Tor Browser on Whonix-Gateway.

On Whonix-Gateway.

Disable apparmor for Tor Browser as we want to to access /etc/tor/torrc.

sudo aa-disable /etc/apparmor.d/home.tor-browser.firefox

Install tb-updater.

sudo apt --no-install-recommends install tb-updater

Login as user debian-tor.

sudo -u debian-tor bash

Change to the homer folder of debian-tor.

cd /var/lib/tor

Download Tor Browser.

update-torbrowser

Tor Browser will be installed in folder /var/lib/tor/.tb/tor-browser by now.

Go to another terminal emulator tab owned so it will use login user user. Stop system Tor. This is required so Tor shipped by Tor Browser can be used.

sudo systemctl stop tor@default

Go back to a terminal emulator running with login user debian-tor. Change directolry to the Tor Browser folder.

cd ~/.tb/tor-browser/

Start Tor Browser.

./start-tor-browser.desktop --debug

Here I am stuck. I tried to edit both files

  • ./Browser/TorBrowser/Data/Tor/torrc-defaults
  • ./Browser/TorBrowser/Data/Tor/torrc

To add at the very top of the file:

%include /etc/tor/torrc

The idea was simply load the Whonix Tor configuration so all SocksPorts etc. that Whonix configured gets load as usual. In theory, Tor shipped by Tor Browser at that point would be in use as system Tor.

In practice somehow only Tor Browser default SocksPorts are opened. Maybe tor-launcher configures that.