AddingAnOnionService

AddingAnOnionService.md

@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+# Serving an Onion Bootstrap node
+
+By design, Tox relies on a small number of BS nodes.  As the network
+is now, the number of nodes is very small, and all well known.  So Tox
+is vulnerable to being completely taken down by blocking a small
+number of nodes. This is already happening in places like Iran.
+
+It would help if all the BS node operators could also run a Tor client
+(not exit node), in addition to running their node. There are no risks
+to the BS operator from running a Tor client (not exit node), and the
+overhead in negligible.  The onion server is a 127.0.0.1 service, so
+cannot be seen by your ISP.  The BS service is on the opennet anyway
+so an onion is just another access method.  So we get dozens of Tor
+onion nodes running quickly, we could test out running Tox *in* Tor
+using Hidden Services. If the Tox nodebase was improved to serve BS
+nodes, it would be much more resilient.  I'm assuming the adversaries
+cannot block .onion addresses within Tor, which I think is a valid
+assumption for now.
+
+There are [simple instructions](https://community.torproject.org/onion-services/setup/)
+to get Tor up and running, and you can test it by setting you browser
+to use the SOCKS proxy on ```127.0.0.1:9050```.
+
+Configure your boostrap server with an extra tcp_port that is not
+listed publically in the nodes.json file. We will use 33446 as an example.
+
+In your ```/etc/tor/torrc`` or equivalent, you need to add 2 sections.
+
+The first is:
+```
+VirtualAddrNetwork 10.192.0.0/10
+AutomapHostsOnResolve 1
+AutomapHostsSuffixes .exit,.onion
+```
+
+The second is:
+```
+# Tox hidden service configuration.
+HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/tox-hsv3/
+HiddenServicePort 33446 127.0.0.1:33446
+```
+Replace 33446 with your real port number.
+
+The next time tor starts up, a new directory will be created in
+```/var/lib/tor/tox-hsv3/``` and it will have a file called
+```hostname```. Look in the file for the onion address to your site.
+Now add the onion address followed by a colon and post it to the
+[mailinglist](https://lists.tox.chat/pipermail/bootstrap/),
+along with your node's public key.
+
+You can also add this pair to the onions slot in your entry in the
+DHTnodes.json file. If there is not an onions slot, create one.
+
+
+Details:
+* https://git.plastiras.org/emdee/tox_profile/ToxAndTorInChinaAndIran
+* https://community.torproject.org/onion-services/setup/

Home.md

@@ -20,6 +20,8 @@ wrinkles in the concepts.
 ### Network Resilience
 
 * [[ToxNetworkResilience]]
+* [[ToxAndTorInChinaAndIran]]
+* [[AddingAnOnionService]]
 
 ### Security