TORRC-Trusted nodes

Support
1

Im thinking to edit torrc file to add some nodes of CalyxInstitute,here tor status http://torstatus.blutmagie.de/
there is 10 their nodes,i heard they are good guys,what are you guys thinking about them?
https://www.calyxinstitute.org/

2

I tried edit torrc with this:

EntryNodes CalyxInstitute01,CalyxInstitute02,CalyxInstitute03
MaxCircuitDirtiness 40

so choose these 3 nodes with time interval 40 min each.

Then restart tor,whonixcheck,everything fine,tor reloaded with OK,then whonixcheck on workstation and error,why this happen Patrick?

l do it with default torrc and all works fine,could be tor connection lost depending on nodes port?

3

Tampering with Tor’s routing algorithm is generally recommended again, unless you are more clever than the Tor developers, because you stand out more from others.

and error

What error? Some more info on the exact error messages are required.

For now sounds like misconfiguration of Tor, that would also happen, if Whonix was not involved. So for all your non-Whonix related questions, you may get better results from the Tor specific support channels. See also:

4

What error?
Just simple whonixcheck error,red colour and cant check.

Im not “Tampering with Tor’s routing algorithm” this is just simple torrc configuration,also tried only nodes without MaxCircuitDirtiness.

So,does gateway supports these torrc configuration in whonix,maybe not?
Or as you said, “stand out more from others” maybe you mean that it needs to build whonix from source?

Also torrc in newest versions of tor still supposts torrc configs i guess.

5

[quote=“bmtkn, post:4, topic:341”]What error?
Just simple whonixcheck error,red colour and cant check.[/quote]
This is too unspecific. Exact error messages need to be posted. Red color can be many things.

Im not "Tampering with Tor's routing algorithm" this is just simple torrc configuration,also tried only nodes without MaxCircuitDirtiness.
If you're changing default nodes, circuit dirtiness, etc. then you're tampering with Tor's routing algorithm. If you ask about this on tor-talk, I am quite sure, they tell you not to tamper with it, unless you're more clever than the Tor devs.

Their official statement can already be found here:

[...] We recommend you do not use these — they are intended for testing and may disappear in future versions. You get the best security that Tor can provide when you leave the route selection to Tor; overriding the entry / exit nodes can mess up your anonymity in ways we don't understand. [...]

Source:

So,does gateway supports these torrc configuration in whonix,maybe not?
Whonix doesn't limit Tor's options in this regard. Tor's behavior in Whonix should exactly equal Tor's behavior in Debian for these settings.
Or as you said, "stand out more from others" maybe you mean that it needs to build whonix from source?
No, it means, you're standing out more from other Tor users that use the default routing algorithm with no special settings.
Also torrc in newest versions of tor still supposts torrc configs i guess.
Yes.
6

Now i see,great that whonix absolutely free,here is full log,by red i mean just icon:

Tor Bootstrap Result:
Whonixcheck gave up waiting after 62 seconds.
Bootstrapping 80 % done.
Tor reports: WARN BOOTSTRAP PROGRESS=80 TAG=conn_or SUMMARY=“Connecting to the Tor network” WARNING=“Network is unreachable” REASON=NOROUTE COUNT=2 RECOMMENDATION=warn.

Possible issues:

  • Is the host’s internet connection working?
  • Whonix-Gateway will need a few moments for bootstrapping the Tor network.
  • Did you start Whonix-Gateway beforehand?

Recommendations:

Try again: Start menu -> Applications -> System -> Whonix Check
or in Terminal: whonixcheck
or in Terminal with debugging: bash -x whonixcheck --verbose

Run whonixcheck on Whonix-Gateway as well.

7

I don’t know. If Whonix works without the extra settings but not with these settings, then most likely it is not an issue caused by Whonix.

Can you try these settings please with system Tor or (TBB) Tor Browser Bundle? I guess it will fail there as well. But when it does, you get access to a much bigger support community. The Tor Project has even a dedicated free e-mail support staff. And once you learned how to do this with TBB, most likely it will also work with Whonix.

8

I checked these settings on Debian Wheezy with last TBB 3.6.2 and it worked perfect,i tried couple combinations:

EntryNodes CalyxInstitute01,CalyxInstitute02,CalyxInstitute03

(with EntryNodes tor not hold these 3 nodes ip,but all network i guess,browser checking improve this,but)

ExitNodes CalyxInstitute01,CalyxInstitute02,CalyxInstitute03

(exactly holds only these 3 nodes ip)

also

EntryNodes
MaxCircuitDirtiness 40

and

ExitNodes
MaxCircuitDirtiness 40

(but time interval in both case was 10 min not 40 ip-check show this)

Also tried these configs with whonix gateway torrc all OK and still error whonixcheck from workstation.

The Tor Project has even a dedicated free e-mail support staff
You mean mail-listings,i subscribed earlier with them.

9

Asking on tor-talk is also good. I meant “real” e-mail support:

I could not reproduce your problem. Was using this arbitrarily chosen in /etc/tor/torrc.

EntryNodes RainbowGate,FreeWilliam
ExitNodes OlyXV,HotPotato
MaxCircuitDirtiness 40

Works with TBB as well as with Whonix-Gateway. (And I would really wonder if Whonix would limit any of Tor’s features - after all, to oversimplify it, Whonix is just Debian with a few more settings and scripts.)

Are you sure you copied and pasted the exactly same config that worked with TBB? And are you sure your config in TBB was in effect? (Using Vidalia or “arm -i 127.0.0.1:9151”)

If you are still having problems, watch your Tor log in one terminal tab.

tail -f /var/log/tor/log

Then restart Tor in another terminal tab.

sudo service tor restart

See what Tor’s log is telling.

10

I see,also enjoy their irc channels on OFTC.

Are you sure you copied and pasted the exactly same config that worked with TBB?
Yes,sure,used only simple TBB.

Tor log was good,tor working fine.

So i found the problem,it was torrc settings,earlier i modified it with nodes configs by deleating default whonix-gateway config:

DisableNetwork 0

Now just add configs below default and it working,but time changing nodes still unworked,ill asked about it on tor channel irc soon.
Good luck.