openSUSE 11.3 on T42 trying to use Tor (0.2.1.26-2) with polipo (1.0.4.1) with Firefox 3.6.12 and Torbutton 1.2.5
First time I tried to run it I had to restart polipo as root, having copied the config file from the tor project site but then all worked as hoped. I could toggle tor on and off with tor button and all was well. The tor test functioned and reported tor was working.
Today alas not so. I received error message to check polipo was running. It wasn’t so I enabled it in system services and rebooted.
Now polipo is running but when I try and use firefox for example to go to google, with torbutton enabled I get error message:-
504 Connect to Google failed: Connection refused.
I noted from other threads here that most people seem to use privoxy rather than polipo. Any reason for that? Is one better than the other?
Please could somebody help me get tor working again?
either privoxy or polipo will do as a local proxy handler for your traffic on the tor network. you can research the differences and make a choice yourself depending on your needs.
if you are getting to a tor usage verification webpage and getting confirmation that you are coming from an known tor exit node, then your machine is behaving properly. if google’s page refuses to load, you need to be aware that google actively discourages the use of tor on it’s web services…but a “refused” is not what you would normally get… SOP is to give you the “we think your computer has been compromised and you should check for virus’”. this may be your real problem if you can go other places without trouble.
that’s google… they wanna know who you are, and lots of others (yahoo comes to mind) do too.
good luck, if you think you really have an internal problem someone here will assist…
I am using TOR with polipo without any problems on my desktop. and yes, I am also using TOR button in firefox. What I did is… copied the polipo config file(.polipo) from TOR website to my home directory. Start Vidila(GUI for TOR), Vidila is in the same repo as TOR. I have set Vidila every time I boot into my desktop(so that I can have a GUI for knowing TOR status). I have also set /usr/bin/polipo to start automatically on start-up.
You can check if there are any errors by running polipo manually from konsole/terminal. Ideally on running, it should give a message like “Connected to 8112”(If you have set default ports as is in polipo config file).
If Vidila and polipo are running fine… there should me no problem in using tor button in firefox.
Hi and thanks for the replies.
Polipo is running OK so the restart happens.
Clearly Tor is not running even though I have Firefox running and Torbutton Enabled.
Here is the result of attempted restart of Tor:-
/etc/init.d/tor restart
Restarting tor daemon
/usr/bin/torctl stop: tor apparently not running (no pid file)
Nov 10 23:05:57.148 [notice] Tor v0.2.1.26. This is experimental software. Do not rely on it for strong anonymity. (Running on Linux i686)
Nov 10 23:05:57.164 [warn] Unable to open configuration file “/etc/tor/torrc”.
Nov 10 23:05:57.164 [err] Reading config failed–see warnings above.
/usr/bin/torctl start: tor could not be started
failed
Not sure why Tor not runing or if it should be but surely it should with Torbutton Enabled. I don’t use Vidalia at the moment as Torbutton should do the job.
BTW I used google for test only because it was the first url on my drop down menu. I get the same problem with other sites.
Hi and thanks for the note. I have now created torrc but I am still getting the same error message with torbutton enabled. Do you know how the torbutton works? Could it call a config file from somewhere else?
Not sure as I am using torbutton. I toggled this off and on but it does not appear to start tor. I shall research this further by checking pids. Meanwhile and taking on board a suggestion earlier in this thread, I have just installed and run Vidalia. Tor ran perfectly from vidalia so, leaving it running I then restarted Firefox and enabled the torbutton. Lo and behold tor now working and I can connect to this forum.
Perhaps my understanding of torbutton is wrong but I thought that I didn’t need vidalia if I only wanted to use tor with Firefox.
If you can advise further I would be grateful.
Regards and thanks again,
Budgie2
Hi and thanks. From your post I conclude that torbutton does not start tor. OK so I can start it either using command line as su or by using vidalia. Once tor is running then the tor button works as it should. I do however think that the green “tor enabled” is misleading as it suggests tor is running when it may not be.
Anyhow thanks for clarifying things for me.
Regards,
Budgie
Hi again. Wrote too soon. I am using Vidalia to start tor and then starting firefox and enabling use of tor with torbutton.
Sometimes it works and sometimes I get no connection with error message. There must be a right way use this. Any further thoughts?
Budgie2
Check first if TOR is running(can do through vidila), Then check if polipo is running, if not try running /usr/bin/polipo from konsole/terminal. See if that does not give errors. If running /usr/bin/polipo does not give errors(on successfully run it should show a message like “Established listening socket on port 8118.”), then add polipo to start up scripts if you do not want to run it manually every time you boot.
Now in firefox, go to Tools –> Add-ons. Select TOR Button in extensions tab. Click on Preferences. There click on “Use polipo” radio button.
I think after that you should be able to use TOR button.
