Tor state file/folder

Support
1

I’m confused after reading about the state file. I have a reason to regenerate it on the odd occasion so it would be good to know if I need to delete the whole state folder or just the state file. In the wiki “Tor Entry Guards” (I can’t add this link) it mentions them interchangeably. I guess it would depend on what the use case is but I think in some cases even if you change your entry guards then you might still be identifiable because of the other things you have cached. Say I go offline for a week then the amount of data I have to fetch when I come back online is a predictable amount as opposed to if I delete the whole state folder and refetch everything. Does this sound right or is it just the state file to worry about?

2

Wiki instructions consistently use Tor state folder. Doesn’t delete/move Tor /var/lib/tor/state at any place. Probably wiki should say Tor state folder instead of Tor state file.

Indeed only deleting /var/lib/tor/state in theory might not be enough. Hence replacing of the whole Tor state folder should be safer.

3

Thanks for your help.

There is actually a section of the documentation that runs “sudo rm /var/lib/tor/state”, it’s the section “Fresh Tor Entry Guards by Regenerating the Tor State File”. The instructions that do the whole state folder are Non-Qubes-Whonix only. Qubes-Whonix options include the state file method or creating a clone and copying the state folder back.

I have found a method for Qubes-Whonix that is basically the same as Non-Qubes-Whonix and can replace the state file method.

Before arriving at remote

  1. sudo su
  2. systemctl stop tor@default
  3. mkdir /home/user/state-backup
  4. mv /var/lib/tor/* /home/user/state-backup
  5. ls -a /var/lib/tor (verify empty, manually move anything remaining to /home/user/state-backup)
  6. Stop sys-whonix and next time you start it will have a new state folder

Before returning home

  1. sudo su
  2. systemctl stop tor@default
  3. rm -r /var/lib/tor/*
  4. mv /home/user/state-backup/* /var/lib/tor
  5. ls -a /home/user/state-backup (verify empty, manually move anything remaining to /var/lib/tor)
  6. systemctl restart tor@default

Q1) Can you see anything wrong here?
Q2) What is difference between systemctl start/stop tor@default and anon-connection-wizard connect/disable?