The Sysadmin’s Daily Grind: Tor
SECRET SURFING
Some people don’t mind leaving traces of their IP address wherever they go, others prefer to use a tool like The Onion Router.
The Onion Router (Tor) [1] runs as a Socks 4 proxy and mangles incoming connections through a network of distributed, independent servers, thus removing any traces of the original data packets. The Onion is similar to Java Anonymous Proxy (JAP), a tool that supports anonymous web surfing. Your ex won’t be able to evaluate the IP address of a blog entry to find out who added those unflattering comments about her. The IP address will be that of the last server in the Onion routing chain. I downloaded Tor from [2], which has a collection of ready-made packages for a variety of Linux distributions, BSD derivates, MacOS, and Windows. I decided to build from scratch using the current tarballs, a quick process. I had to install the OpenSSL and Libevent libraries on my machine, but then it was standard procedure: ./configure && make && make install. As I did not specify any preferences for the target directory, the binaries ended up in /usr/local/bin, and a sample configuration file was placed in /usr/local/etc/tor/.
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

News
-
Linux Kernel 6.16 Released with Minor Fixes
The latest Linux kernel doesn't really include any big-ticket features, just a lot of lines of code.
-
EU Sovereign Tech Fund Gains Traction
OpenForum Europe recently released a report regarding a sovereign tech fund with backing from several significant entities.
-
FreeBSD Promises a Full Desktop Installer
FreeBSD has lacked an option to include a full desktop environment during installation.
-
Linux Hits an Important Milestone
If you pay attention to the news in the Linux-sphere, you've probably heard that the open source operating system recently crashed through a ceiling no one thought possible.
-
Plasma Bigscreen Returns
A developer discovered that the Plasma Bigscreen feature had been sitting untouched, so he decided to do something about it.
-
CachyOS Now Lets Users Choose Their Shell
Imagine getting the opportunity to select which shell you want during the installation of your favorite Linux distribution. That's now a thing.
-
Wayland 1.24 Released with Fixes and New Features
Wayland continues to move forward, while X11 slowly vanishes into the shadows, and the latest release includes plenty of improvements.
-
Bugs Found in sudo
Two critical flaws allow users to gain access to root privileges.
-
Fedora Continues 32-Bit Support
In a move that should come as a relief to some portions of the Linux community, Fedora will continue supporting 32-bit architecture.
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 Drops bcachefs
After a clash over some late fixes and disagreements between bcachefs's lead developer and Linus Torvalds, bachefs is out.