Whonix 18 CLI — setup-dist fails due to missing anon_connection_wizard

Support
1

Hi Whonix team,

today I downloaded the latest Whonix 18 Gateway CLI build for KVM and noticed an issue during the first-run wizard.

The system itself works fine (Tor service starts and anon-verify -v reports no problems), however the setup-dist wizard fails with the following error:

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'anon_connection_wizard'

It looks like the CLI build does not ship the anon-connection-wizard component (which normally belongs to the GUI edition), but setup-dist still tries to import and use it. Because of this, setup-dist cannot complete successfully, even though Tor is running correctly in the background.

Environment details:

  • Product: Whonix-Gateway 18 (CLI)

  • Platform: KVM / libvirt

  • Image: Whonix-Gateway-CLI-18.0.8.7.Intel_AMD64.qcow2

  • Network: default KVM NAT + Whonix internal network (unchanged)

  • Tor status: active (tor@default) and verified (anon-verify -v exit code 0)

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Import Whonix 18 Gateway CLI KVM image.

  2. Boot the VM and proceed through setup-dist.

  3. Choose “I’m ready to enable Tor”.

  4. Wizard fails with the above Python error.

This is confusing for new users because it looks like Tor is broken, while in reality only the wizard fails.

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1 Like
2

Thanks for the report!

Since connect to public Tor network by default / avoid Anon Connection Wizard (ACW) popup at first boot was implemented, the setup-dist terminal user interface (TUI) feature to enable/disable Tor is no longer important enough to justify its maintenance. [1]

anon-connection-wizard (ACW) is planned to be merged with tor-control-panel (TCP). Both are GUI applications. tor-control-panel is also supposed to be standalone, not depending on helper-scripts. Discussion here: Tor controller GUI (tor-control-panel) - #101 by Patrick

ACW and TCP are GUI applications. These are not great to have on CLI builds. Hence, setup-dist should not Depends: on ACW / TCP.

Hence, this feature will be removed in version 18.0.9.4 (and above) and therefore cause no further issues.

[1] related: Maintainability

2 Likes
3

You’re welcome, and thank you for your prompt response.

1 Like
4

Apologies to necro, but as this is the first ddg result when searching for “no module named anon_connection_wizard”, I think the following question may be useful for newbies (like me!) who have no idea what setup-dist does, if it is important that it is failing, and most importantly:

what do I need to do as a user to resolve this and get a working gateway? (if anything)

2 Likes
5

No problem at all, we actually prefer bumping old threads over creating new ones in most instances.

You shouldn’t need to do anything. The setup-dist CLI was obsolete and has been removed from Whonix 18 entirely. Tor should be functional without you needing to take any further steps, despite the error message.

2 Likes
6

Good to know the connection issues I’m having are entirely unrelated then :grin: , cheers for clearing that up.

1 Like
7

I think it was already resolved in latest version, as after some update I do not see it anymore. Maybe just update your Whonix.

I am necromancer in Diablo, btw :wink: