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add back the faq entries that got dropped in the move. also add back
a correction.
This commit is contained in:
Roger Dingledine
parent
05518a56aa
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d97ab35aa1
245
docs/en/faq.wml
245
docs/en/faq.wml
@ -46,7 +46,16 @@
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<p>Running a Tor client:</p>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#ChooseEntryExit">Can I control which nodes (or country) are used for entry/exit?</a></li>
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<li><a href="#DoesntWork">I installed Tor and Polipo but it's not
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working.</a></li>
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<li><a href="#VidaliaPassword">Tor/Vidalia prompts for a password at
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start.</a></li>
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<li><a href="#ChooseEntryExit">Can I control which nodes (or country)
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are used for entry/exit?</a></li>
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<li><a href="#GoogleCaptcha">Google makes me solve a Captcha or tells
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me I have spyware installed.</a></li>
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<li><a href="#GmailWarning">Gmail warns me that my account may have
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been compromised.</a></li>
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</ul>
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<p>Running a Tor relay:</p>
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@ -713,6 +722,153 @@
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Please contact us if you know any others.
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</p>
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<hr>
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<a id="DoesntWork"></a>
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<h3><a class="anchor" href="#DoesntWork">I installed Tor and Polipo but
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it's not working.</a></h3>
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<p>
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Once you've installed the Tor bundle, there are two questions to ask:
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first, is your Tor able to establish a circuit? Second, is your
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Firefox correctly configured to send its traffic through Tor?
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</p>
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<p>If Tor can establish a circuit, the onion icon in
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Vidalia will turn green. You can also check in the Vidalia
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Control Panel to make sure it says "Connected to the Tor
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network!" under Status. For those not using Vidalia, check your <a
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href="<wiki>TorFAQ#HowdoIsetuploggingorseeTorslogs">Tor logs</a> for
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a line saying that Tor "has successfully opened a circuit. Looks like
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client functionality is working."
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</p>
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<p>
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If Tor can't establish a circuit, here are some hints:
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</p>
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<ol>
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<li>Are you sure Tor is running? If you're using Vidalia, you may have
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to click on the onion and select "Start" to launch Tor.</li>
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<li>Check your system clock. If it's more than a few hours off, Tor will
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refuse to build circuits. For XP users, synchronize your clock under
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the clock -> Internet time tab. In addition, correct the day and date
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under the 'Date & Time' Tab.</li>
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<li>Is your Internet connection <a
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href="<wiki>TorFAQ#Myfirewallonlyallowsafewoutgoingports.">firewalled</a>,
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or do you normally need to use a <a
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href="<wiki>TorFAQ#MyInternetconnectionrequiresanHTTPorSOCKSproxy.">proxy</a>?
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</li>
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<li>Are you running programs like Norton Internet Security or SELinux that
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block certain connections, even though you don't realize they do? They
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could be preventing Tor from making network connections.</li>
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<li>Are you in China, or behind a restrictive corporate network firewall
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that blocks the public Tor relays? If so, you should learn about <a
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href="<page bridges>">Tor bridges</a>.</li>
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<li>Check your <a href="<wiki>TorFAQ#HowdoIsetuploggingorseeTorslogs">Tor
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logs</a>. Do they give you any hints about what's going wrong?</li>
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</ol>
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<p>
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Step two is to confirm that Firefox is correctly configured to send its
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traffic through Tor. Try the <a href="https://check.torproject.org/">Tor
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Check</a> site and see whether it thinks you are using Tor. See <a
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href="<wiki>TorFAQ#HowcanItellifTorisworkingandthatmyconnectionsreallyareanonymizedArethereexternalserversthatwilltestmyconnection">the
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Tor Check FAQ entry</a> for details.
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<p>
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<p>
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If it thinks you're not using Tor, here are some hints:
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</p>
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<ol>
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<li>Did you install the Torbutton extension for Firefox? The installation
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bundles include it, but sometimes people forget to install it. Make sure
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it says "Tor enabled" at the bottom right of your Firefox window. (For
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expert users, make sure your http proxy is set to localhost port
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8118.)</li>
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<li>Do you have incompatible Firefox extensions like FoxyProxy
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installed? If so, uninstall them. (Note that using FoxyProxy is NOT
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a sufficient substitute for Torbutton. There are many known attacks
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against a browser setup that does not include Torbutton. Read more
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in the <a href="<page torbutton/faq>">Torbutton FAQ</a> and the <a
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href="https://www.torproject.org/torbutton/design/">Torbutton design</a>
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specification.)</li>
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<li>If your browser says "The proxy server is refusing connections.",
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check that Polipo (the http proxy that passes traffic between Firefox
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and Tor) is running. On Windows, look in the task manager and check for
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a polipo.exe. On OS X, open the utilities folder in your applications
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folder, and open Terminal.app. Then run "ps aux|grep polipo".</li>
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<li>If you're upgrading from OS X, some of the earlier OS X installers
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were broken in really unfortunate ways. You may find that <a href="<page
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docs/tor-doc-osx>#uninstall">uninstalling everything</a> and then
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installing a fresh bundle helps. Alas, the current uninstall instructions
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may not apply anymore to your old bundle. Sorry.</li>
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<li>If you're on Linux, make sure Privoxy isn't running, since it will
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conflict with the port that our Polipo configuration file picks.</li>
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<li>If you installed Polipo yourself (not from a bundle), did you edit the
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config file as described? Did you restart Polipo after this change?</li>
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<li>For Red Hat Linux and related systems, do you have SELinux enabled? If
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so, it might be preventing Polipo from talking to Tor. We also run across
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BSD users periodically who have local firewall rules that prevent some
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connections to localhost.</li>
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</ol>
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<hr />
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<a id="VidaliaPassword"></a>
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<h3><a class="anchor" href="#VidaliaPassword">Tor/Vidalia prompts for
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a password at start.</a></h3>
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<p>
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Vidalia interacts with the Tor software via Tor's "control port". The
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control port lets Vidalia receive status updates from Tor, request a new
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identity, configure Tor's settings, etc. Each time Vidalia starts Tor,
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Vidalia sets a random password for Tor's control port to prevent other
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applications from also connecting to the control port and potentially
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compromising your anonymity.
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</p>
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<p>
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Usually this process of generating and setting a random control password
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happens in the background. There are three common situations, though,
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where Vidalia may prompt you for a password:
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</p>
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<ol>
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<li>You're already running Vidalia and Tor. For example, this situation
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can happen if you installed the Vidalia bundle and now you're trying to
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run the Tor Browser Bundle. In that case, you'll need to close the old
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Vidalia and Tor before you can run this one.
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</li>
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<li>Vidalia crashed, but left Tor running with the last known random
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password. After you restart Vidalia, it generates a new random password,
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but Vidalia can't talk to Tor, because the random passwords are different.
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<br />
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If the dialog that prompts you for a control password has a Reset button,
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you can click the button and Vidalia will restart Tor with a new random
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control password.
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<br />
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If you do not see a Reset button, or if Vidalia is unable to restart
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Tor for you, you can still fix the problem manually. Simply go into your
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process or task manager, and terminate the Tor process. Then use Vidalia
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to restart Tor and all will work again.
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</li>
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<li>You had previously set Tor to run as a Windows NT service. When Tor
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is set to
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run as a service, it starts up when the system boots. If you configured
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Tor to start as a service through Vidalia, a random password was set
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and saved in Tor. When you reboot, Tor starts up and uses the random
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password it saved. You login and start up Vidalia. Vidalia attempts to
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talk to the already running Tor. Vidalia generates a random password,
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but it is different than the saved password in the Tor service.
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<br />
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You need to reconfigure Tor to not be a service. See the FAQ entry on
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<a href="<wiki>TorFAQ#HowdoIrunmyTorrelayasanNTservice">running Tor as a Windows NT service</a>
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for more information on how to remove the Tor service.
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</li>
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</ol>
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<hr>
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<a id="ChooseEntryExit"></a>
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@ -772,6 +928,91 @@
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<hr>
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<a id="GoogleCaptcha"></a>
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<h3><a class="anchor" href="#GoogleCaptcha">Google makes me solve a
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Captcha or tells me I have spyware installed.</a></h3>
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<p>
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This is a known and intermittent problem; it does not mean that Google
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considers Tor to be spyware.
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</p>
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<p>
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When you use Tor, you are sending queries through exit relays that are also
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shared by thousands of other users. Tor users typically see this message
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when many Tor users are querying Google in a short period of time. Google
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interprets the high volume of traffic from a single IP address (the exit
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relay you happened to pick) as somebody trying to "crawl" their website,
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so it slows down traffic from that IP address for a short time.
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</p>
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<p>
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An alternate explanation is that Google tries to detect certain
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kinds of spyware or viruses that send distinctive queries to Google
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Search. It notes the IP addresses from which those queries are received
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(not realizing that they are Tor exit relays), and tries to warn any
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connections coming from those IP addresses that recent queries indicate
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an infection.
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</p>
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<p>
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To our knowledge, Google is not doing anything intentionally specifically
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to deter or block Tor use. The error message about an infected machine
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should clear up again after a short time.
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</p>
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<p>
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Torbutton 1.2.5 (released in mid 2010) detects Google captchas and can
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automatically redirect you to a more Tor-friendly search engine such as
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Ixquick or Bing.
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</p>
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<hr />
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<a id="GmailWarning"></a>
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<h3><a class="anchor" href="#GmailWarning">Gmail warns me that my account
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may have been compromised.</a></h3>
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<p>
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Sometimes, after you've used Gmail over Tor, Google presents a
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pop-up notification that your account may have been compromised. The
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notification window lists a series of IP addresses and locations throughout
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the world recently used to access your account.
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</p>
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<p>
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In general this is a false alarm: Google saw a bunch of logins from
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different places and wanted to let
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you know. If you use Tor to access a Google service, then it will appear
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like you're coming from lots of different places. Nothing to worry about
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in particular.
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</p>
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<p>
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But that doesn't mean you can entirely ignore the warning. It's
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<i>probably</i> a false positive, but it might not be. It is possible
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that somebody could at some point steal your Google cookie, which would
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allow them to log in to the Google service as you. They might steal it
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by breaking into your computer, or by watching your network traffic at
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Starbucks or sniffing your wireless at home (when you're not using Tor),
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or by watching traffic going over the Tor network. In theory none of
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this should be possible because Gmail and similar services should only
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send the cookie over an SSL link. In practice, alas, it's <a
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href="http://fscked.org/blog/fully-automated-active-https-cookie-hijacking">way
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more complex than that</a>.
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</p>
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<p>
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And if somebody <i>did</i> steal your google cookie, they might end
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up logging in from unusual places (though of course they also might
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not). So the summary is that since you're using Tor, this security
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measure that Google uses isn't so useful for you, because it's full of
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false positives. You'll have to use other approaches, like seeing if
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anything looks weird on the account, or looking at the timestamps for
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recent logins and wondering if you actually logged in at those times.
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</p>
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<hr />
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<a id="RelayFlexible"></a>
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<h3><a class="anchor" href="#RelayFlexible">How stable does my relay
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need to be?</a></h3>
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@ -880,7 +1121,7 @@
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publically or not.
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</p>
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<p>Right now, there are roughly zero places in the world that filter
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<p>Right now, there are a small number of places in the world that filter
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connections to the Tor network. So getting a lot of bridges running
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right now is mostly a backup measure, a) in case the Tor network does
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get blocked somewhere, and b) for people who want an extra layer of
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