On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 8:50 PM, Jacob Appelbaum jacob@appelbaum.net wrote:
On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 7:34 PM, Runa A. Sandvik runa.sandvik@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 4:55 PM, Jacob Appelbaum jacob@appelbaum.net wrote:
On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 2:57 PM, Runa A. Sandvik runa.sandvik@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 4:02 PM, Andrew Lewman andrew@torproject.org wrote:
On Tue, 7 Jun 2011 15:36:45 -0700 Jacob Appelbaum jacob@appelbaum.net wrote:
> We would also need a way for users to easily change the hashed > password. I can't remember if this is a feature that is already > present in Vidalia. Yes, we do need a way to change the password. We will also need a way to reset the password if the user is locked out of the control port. I generally think that this means we'll need a web UI... :-)
It's built into vidalia. Just click Advanced and you can change the password all you want.
I think the best thing is to make an autoconfiguring device with a web UI; we can easily rate limit Tor to something reasonable and make it a middle node by default. In all cases it stands alone and simply plugging it into a wall (power/ethernet) will provide more capacity to the network if the OR port is reachable (ala tor-fw-helper + tor
init.d scripts to start Tor on boot).
Most of me wants to wait for the freedombox people to derive their web interface, and then we can plug tor into it. I realize this could be years at the current rate of progress. If someone whips up a quick interface that isn't a security nightmare, we could use that until freedombox has something tangible.
Yeah, I was hoping the freedombox people would have something we could use. Doesn't seem like it, though. I think that, at some point, we should create a web ui for the dreamplug. But not having one right now should not be a blocker for the dreamplug-torouter.
Well, I'm not sure what you mean... The FB is just a Debian machine. Pick a web server, write a cgi and perhaps that will be the main interface? :-) I'd email the FBF list and ask. Perhaps the best web UI is one that is already written? Is the web UI for the Excito free software?
I was hoping there would be an existing ui what we could just plug Tor into, just like we did with the Excito B3 interface.
I think it's fine to ship one web interface for us now and later find a good integration point with the Freedom Box later...
Yep, I agree.
I suggest we ship the dreamplug with cli access only for those who want a cheap device to be a bridge or relay.
I guess we can set up dreamplugs as bridges by default and include a leaflet explaining the steps to take to change the configuration. Do you think we should touch the default setup of the dreamplug (it serves an open wifi by default, for example)?
I believe that by default we should be shipping middle relays and we should be shipping 0.2.3.x with tor-fw-helper enabled by default as well. I think the boxes should be re-flashed to have Debian or a modern Ubuntu and locked down except with Tor and OpenSSH as listening services. We also need things to sync time and so on.
Sounds like a plan. I prefer bridge by default, but we can discuss that later.
What's the rational there? While we certainly need more bridges, I'd like to see an increase in relays and encourage more Friend of Friend bridge sharing. We should include a bunch of common configs and make it easy to setup. Also, a public relay will be much easier to help with in terms of setup, I suspect.
Well, bridge by default is what they B3's are set up with. I also figure that a bridge sees less traffic than a relay, and so it might be more "friendly" for new users. But I like the idea of having a bunch of common configs, and we can also suggest bandwidth limits.
I suggest we ship the excito with the web ui as the easy to use option.
Yep, the Tor web ui for the Excito B3 should be ready at the end of the month.
Is it Free Software? Can we use it on the DreamPlug until we have something else?
Yes, it's free software and will be available in the Excito GitHub repository when it's released (not sure if it's there already, I don't think so). The web interface is probably a bit too "heavy" (and includes a good mix of php and perl) for the dreamplug, so we should probably look for something else.
Can we rip out everything except the basics? If so, I think their web front end is perfect and it already has a Tor UI thanks to you... :-)
Maaaaybe. I haven't tried, but it can't be that hard. I'll look into it.
In either case, we need to start testing, not keep thinking about what we could do. We're going to get a flood of feedback from actual people testing the excito or dreamplug.
Valid point.
I think we need to talk about what we need for the OS. I suspect we need OpenSSH + Tor (tor-fw-helper, etc) + a few stock configuration files + time syncing (clockskew for example) + a randomly generated password that we uniquely key for each router in some non-silly way. Is there a trac ticket for the OS part of the Torouter?
There is now: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/3374
We can move the discussion to #3374 if you want.
I'm happy to keep hammering stuff out here and the we can dump the results into the bug report.
Works for me. It's great to get feedback that will help get me started.
What do you think about a DreamPlug with Debian or Ubuntu? Do we have a preference?
Good question. I love Debian, but I'm sure Ubuntu would be great to use as well. I'll do some research and see if there is a good reason we should pick one over the other.
What other software do we need beyond ntp, ssh, tor and a web UI?
Do we want to support a transparent Tor wifi network by default?
Maybe this is something we can add later, and focus on bridge/relay support first?
I think Ubuntu's latest release is the best in terms of security and in theory support. It is however not as beloved as Debian for a number of solid reasons. I think NTP, OpenSSH with key auth (and perhaps fail2ban or something similar) and password auth, a very minimal web UI but still functional for real Tor configuration and that's about all we'll need.
Yeah, I agree.
I also like the idea of a Tor wifi network by default for laptops like the CR-48 that I'm using right now. I'd kill to have a way to Torify the laptop because my main concern isn't privacy from my local network, it's data retention from the remote hosts... :-/
I'm sure it would be useful for a number of users. I wouldn't be too difficult to include, and maybe the web interface can have an on/off button so that they can choose whether or not to enable the Tor wifi network.