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TOR SUPPORT IN BITCOIN
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======================
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It is possible to run Bitcoin as a Tor hidden service, and connect to such services.
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The following assumes you have a Tor proxy running on port 9050. Many distributions
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default to having a SOCKS proxy listening on port 9050, but others may not.
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In particular, the Tor Browser Bundle defaults to listening on a random port. See
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https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq.html.en#TBBSocksPort for how to properly
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configure Tor.
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1. Run bitcoin behind a Tor proxy
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---------------------------------
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The first step is running Bitcoin behind a Tor proxy. This will already make all
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outgoing connections be anonimized, but more is possible.
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-socks=5 SOCKS5 supports connecting-to-hostname, which can be used instead
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of doing a (leaking) local DNS lookup. SOCKS5 is the default,
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but SOCKS4 does not support this. (SOCKS4a does, but isn't
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implemented).
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-proxy=ip:port Set the proxy server. If SOCKS5 is selected (default), this proxy
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server will be used to try to reach .onion addresses as well.
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-tor=ip:port Set the proxy server to use for tor hidden services. You do not
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need to set this if it's the same as -proxy. You can use -notor
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to explicitly disable access to hidden service.
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-listen When using -proxy, listening is disabled by default. If you want
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to run a hidden service (see next section), you'll need to enable
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it explicitly.
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-connect=X When behind a Tor proxy, you can specify .onion addresses instead
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-addnode=X of IP addresses or hostnames in these parameters. It requires
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-seednode=X SOCKS5. In Tor mode, such addresses can also be exchanged with
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other P2P nodes.
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In a typical situation, this suffices to run behind a Tor proxy:
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./bitcoin -proxy=127.0.0.1:9050
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2. Run a bitcoin hidden server
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------------------------------
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If you configure your Tor system accordingly, it is possible to make your node also
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reachable from the Tor network. Add these lines to your /etc/tor/torrc (or equivalent
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config file):
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HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/bitcoin-service/
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HiddenServicePort 8333 127.0.0.1:8333
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The directory can be different of course, but (both) port numbers should be equal to
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your bitcoind's P2P listen port (8333 by default).
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-externalip=X You can tell bitcoin about its publicly reachable address using
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this option, and this can be a .onion address. Given the above
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configuration, you can find your onion address in
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/var/lib/tor/bitcoin-service/hostname. Onion addresses are given
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preference for your node to advertize itself with, for connections
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coming from unroutable addresses (such as 127.0.0.1, where the
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Tor proxy typically runs).
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-listen You'll need to enable listening for incoming connections, as this
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is off by default behind a proxy.
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-discover When -externalip is specified, no attempt is made to discover local
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IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. If you want to run a dual stack, reachable
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from both Tor and IPv4 (or IPv6), you'll need to either pass your
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other addresses using -externalip, or explicitly enable -discover.
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Note that both addresses of a dual-stack system may be easily
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linkable using traffic analysis.
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In a typical situation, where you're only reachable via Tor, this should suffice:
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./bitcoind -proxy=127.0.0.1:9050 -externalip=57qr3yd1nyntf5k.onion -listen
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(obviously replace the Onion address with your own). If you don't care too much
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about hiding your node, and want to be reachable on IPv4 as well, additionally
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specify:
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./bitcoind ... -discover
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and open port 8333 on your firewall (or use -upnp).
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If you only want to use Tor to reach onion addresses, but not use it as a proxy
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for normal IPv4/IPv6 communication, use:
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./bitcoin -tor=127.0.0.1:9050 -externalip=57qr3yd1nyntf5k.onion -discover
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