Installing Tor

In my last post I mentioned that by default Nepenthes is configured to use Tor to carry IRC traffic. This post documents what I did to get Tor running on FreeBSD 6.0 STABLE.

I installed Tor using the security/tor-devel page. Remember to set the environment variable to use the newest package.

janney:/root# pkg_add -vr tor-devel

Next I added the following to /etc/rc.conf so I could use the /usr/local/etc/rc.d/tor.sh script.

tor_enable="YES"

Next I edited /usr/local/etc/rc.d/tor.sh, because I had an issue with the %%PREFIX%% specification.

janney:/usr/local/etc/rc.d# diff tor.sh.orig tor.sh
26c26
< TORCTL=%%PREFIX%%/bin/torctl
---
> TORCTL=/usr/local/bin/torctl

I used the default config file.

janney:/root# cp /usr/local/etc/tor/torrc.sample /usr/local/etc/tor/torrc

I needed to create this tor data directory.

janney:/root# mkdir -p /var/db/tor/data
janney:/root# chown -R _tor:_tor /var/db/tor/data

I also needed to create this log file owned by user _tor.

janney:/root# touch /var/log/tor
janney:/root# chown _tor:_tor /var/log/tor

I debated running Tor directory lookups through my Squid proxy. If I want to do that, I add the following TORARGS section:

TORARGS="$TORARGS --HttpProxy 192.168.2.15:3128 --HttpsProxy 192.168.2.15:3128"

Tor doesn't run as a server by default. If I wanted to be a Tor server, I would consider adding the following TORARGS:

TORARGS="$TORARGS --BandwidthRate 10KB --BandwidthBurst 20KB --MaxAdvertisedBandwidth 10KB"

After I made the changes listed above, I started Tor using the tor.sh script.

janney:/root# /usr/local/etc/rc.d/tor.sh start
Starting tor:
Jan 24 15:43:21.144 [notice] Tor v0.1.1.12-alpha. This is experimental software. 
 Do not rely on it for strong anonymity.
Jan 24 15:43:21.156 [notice] Initialized libevent version 1.1a using method kqueue. Good.
Jan 24 15:43:21.156 [notice] connection_create_listener(): Opening Socks listener on
 127.0.0.1:9050
/usr/local/bin/torctl start: tor started

janney:/root# sockstat -4 | grep tor
_tor     tor        7810  4  tcp4   192.168.2.7:60716     192.168.2.15:3128
_tor     tor        7810  5  tcp4   127.0.0.1:9050        *:*
_tor     tor        7810  9  tcp4   192.168.2.7:52896     192.168.2.15:3128

Now when I start Nepenthes and tell it to use Tor, it appears like the following in my specified IRC channel:

15:44 -!- mynep [i=debian-t@dsl093-038-182.pdx1.dsl.example.com] has 
          joined #myfakeircchannel

That Debian system is not my own -- it's the other side of the Tor connection. There are many ways to use Tor. I just wanted to document how I got it working to support Nepenthes.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Zeek in Action Videos

Image
This is a quick note to point blog readers to my Zeek in Action YouTube video series for the Zeek network security monitoring project .  Each video addresses a topic that I think might be of interest to people trying to understand their network using Zeek and adjacent tools and approaches, like Suricata, Wireshark, and so on.  I am especially pleased with Video 6 on monitoring wireless networks . It took me several weeks to research material for this video. I had to buy new hardware and experiment with a Linux distro that I had not used before -- Parrot .  Please like and subscribe, and let me know if there is a topic you think might make a good video.
Read more

MITRE ATT&CK Tactics Are Not Tactics

Image
Just what are "tactics"? Introduction MITRE ATT&CK  is a great resource, but something about it has bothered me since I first heard about it several years ago. It's a minor point, but I wanted to document it in case it confuses anyone else. The MITRE ATT&CK Design and Philosophy document from March 2020 says the following: At a high-level, ATT&CK is a behavioral model that consists of the following core components: • Tactics, denoting short-term, tactical adversary goals during an attack; • Techniques, describing the means by which adversaries achieve tactical goals; • Sub-techniques, describing more specific means by which adversaries achieve tactical goals at a lower level than techniques; and • Documented adversary usage of techniques, their procedures, and other metadata. My concern is with MITRE's definition of "tactics" as "short-term, tactical adversary goals during an attack," which is oddly recursive. The key word in the tacti
Read more

New Book! The Best of TaoSecurity Blog, Volume 4

Image
  I've completed the TaoSecurity Blog book series . The new book is  The Best of TaoSecurity Blog, Volume 4: Beyond the Blog with Articles, Testimony, and Scholarship .  It's available now for Kindle , and I'm working on the print edition.  I'm running a 50% off promo on Volumes 1-3 on Kindle through midnight 20 April. Take advantage before the prices go back up. I described the new title thus: Go beyond TaoSecurity Blog with this new volume from author Richard Bejtlich. In the first three volumes of the series, Mr. Bejtlich selected and republished the very best entries from 18 years of writing and over 18 million blog views, along with commentaries and additional material.  In this title, Mr. Bejtlich collects material that has not been published elsewhere, including articles that are no longer available or are stored in assorted digital or physical archives. Volume 4 offers early white papers that Mr. Bejtlich wrote as a network defender, either for technical or pol
Read more