mirror of https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
You can not select more than 25 topics
Topics must start with a letter or number, can include dashes ('-') and can be up to 35 characters long.
116 lines
5.6 KiB
116 lines
5.6 KiB
TOR SUPPORT IN BITCOIN
|
|
======================
|
|
|
|
It is possible to run Bitcoin as a Tor hidden service, and connect to such services.
|
|
|
|
The following directions assume you have a Tor proxy running on port 9050. Many distributions default to having a SOCKS proxy listening on port 9050, but others may not. In particular, the Tor Browser Bundle defaults to listening on port 9150. See [Tor Project FAQ:TBBSocksPort](https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq.html.en#TBBSocksPort) for how to properly
|
|
configure Tor.
|
|
|
|
|
|
1. Run bitcoin behind a Tor proxy
|
|
---------------------------------
|
|
|
|
The first step is running Bitcoin behind a Tor proxy. This will already make all
|
|
outgoing connections be anonymized, but more is possible.
|
|
|
|
-proxy=ip:port Set the proxy server. If SOCKS5 is selected (default), this proxy
|
|
server will be used to try to reach .onion addresses as well.
|
|
|
|
-onion=ip:port Set the proxy server to use for tor hidden services. You do not
|
|
need to set this if it's the same as -proxy. You can use -noonion
|
|
to explicitly disable access to hidden service.
|
|
|
|
-listen When using -proxy, listening is disabled by default. If you want
|
|
to run a hidden service (see next section), you'll need to enable
|
|
it explicitly.
|
|
|
|
-connect=X When behind a Tor proxy, you can specify .onion addresses instead
|
|
-addnode=X of IP addresses or hostnames in these parameters. It requires
|
|
-seednode=X SOCKS5. In Tor mode, such addresses can also be exchanged with
|
|
other P2P nodes.
|
|
|
|
In a typical situation, this suffices to run behind a Tor proxy:
|
|
|
|
./bitcoin -proxy=127.0.0.1:9050
|
|
|
|
|
|
2. Run a bitcoin hidden server
|
|
------------------------------
|
|
|
|
If you configure your Tor system accordingly, it is possible to make your node also
|
|
reachable from the Tor network. Add these lines to your /etc/tor/torrc (or equivalent
|
|
config file):
|
|
|
|
HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/bitcoin-service/
|
|
HiddenServicePort 8333 127.0.0.1:8333
|
|
HiddenServicePort 18333 127.0.0.1:18333
|
|
|
|
The directory can be different of course, but (both) port numbers should be equal to
|
|
your bitcoind's P2P listen port (8333 by default).
|
|
|
|
-externalip=X You can tell bitcoin about its publicly reachable address using
|
|
this option, and this can be a .onion address. Given the above
|
|
configuration, you can find your onion address in
|
|
/var/lib/tor/bitcoin-service/hostname. Onion addresses are given
|
|
preference for your node to advertise itself with, for connections
|
|
coming from unroutable addresses (such as 127.0.0.1, where the
|
|
Tor proxy typically runs).
|
|
|
|
-listen You'll need to enable listening for incoming connections, as this
|
|
is off by default behind a proxy.
|
|
|
|
-discover When -externalip is specified, no attempt is made to discover local
|
|
IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. If you want to run a dual stack, reachable
|
|
from both Tor and IPv4 (or IPv6), you'll need to either pass your
|
|
other addresses using -externalip, or explicitly enable -discover.
|
|
Note that both addresses of a dual-stack system may be easily
|
|
linkable using traffic analysis.
|
|
|
|
In a typical situation, where you're only reachable via Tor, this should suffice:
|
|
|
|
./bitcoind -proxy=127.0.0.1:9050 -externalip=57qr3yd1nyntf5k.onion -listen
|
|
|
|
(obviously, replace the Onion address with your own). It should be noted that you still
|
|
listen on all devices and another node could establish a clearnet connection, when knowing
|
|
your address. To mitigate this, additionally bind the address of your Tor proxy:
|
|
|
|
./bitcoind ... -bind=127.0.0.1
|
|
|
|
If you don't care too much about hiding your node, and want to be reachable on IPv4
|
|
as well, use `discover` instead:
|
|
|
|
./bitcoind ... -discover
|
|
|
|
and open port 8333 on your firewall (or use -upnp).
|
|
|
|
If you only want to use Tor to reach onion addresses, but not use it as a proxy
|
|
for normal IPv4/IPv6 communication, use:
|
|
|
|
./bitcoin -onion=127.0.0.1:9050 -externalip=57qr3yd1nyntf5k.onion -discover
|
|
|
|
3. Automatically listen on Tor
|
|
--------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Starting with Tor version 0.2.7.1 it is possible, through Tor's control socket
|
|
API, to create and destroy 'ephemeral' hidden services programmatically.
|
|
Bitcoin Core has been updated to make use of this.
|
|
|
|
This means that if Tor is running (and proper authentication has been configured),
|
|
Bitcoin Core automatically creates a hidden service to listen on. This will positively
|
|
affect the number of available .onion nodes.
|
|
|
|
This new feature is enabled by default if Bitcoin Core is listening, and
|
|
a connection to Tor can be made. It can be configured with the `-listenonion`,
|
|
`-torcontrol` and `-torpassword` settings. To show verbose debugging
|
|
information, pass `-debug=tor`.
|
|
|
|
Connecting to Tor's control socket API requires one of two authentication methods to be
|
|
configured. For cookie authentication the user running bitcoind must have write access
|
|
to the `CookieAuthFile` specified in Tor configuration. In some cases this is
|
|
preconfigured and the creation of a hidden service is automatic. If permission problems
|
|
are seen with `-debug=tor` they can be resolved by adding both the user running tor and
|
|
the user running bitcoind to the same group and setting permissions appropriately. On
|
|
Debian-based systems the user running bitcoind can be added to the debian-tor group,
|
|
which has the appropriate permissions. An alternative authentication method is the use
|
|
of the `-torpassword` flag and a `hash-password` which can be enabled and specified in
|
|
Tor configuration. |