onion_federation.md (5236B)
1 # Easy Onion Federation (Tor)
2 Tor can free people from the necessity of a domain, in addition to helping protect their privacy. As Pleroma's goal is to empower the people and let as many as possible host an instance with as little resources as possible, the ability to host an instance with a small, cheap computer like a RaspberryPi along with Tor, would be a great way to achieve that.
3 In addition, federating with such instances will also help furthering that goal.
4
5 This is a guide to show you how it can be easily done.
6
7 This guide assumes you already got Pleroma working, and that it's running on the default port 4000.
8 Currently only has an Nginx example.
9
10 To install Tor on Debian / Ubuntu:
11 ```
12 apt -yq install tor
13 ```
14 If using an old server version (older than Debian Stretch or Ubuntu 18.04), install from backports or PPA.
15 I recommend using a newer server version instead.
16
17 To have the newest, V3 onion addresses (which I recommend) in Debian, install Tor from backports.
18 If you do not have backports, uncomment the stretch-backports links at the end of `/etc/apt/sources.list`.
19 Then install:
20 ```
21 apt update
22 apt -t stretch-backports -yq install tor
23 ```
24 **WARNING:** Onion instances not using a Tor version supporting V3 addresses will not be able to federate with you.
25
26 Create the hidden service for your Pleroma instance in `/etc/tor/torrc`:
27 ```
28 HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/pleroma_hidden_service/
29 HiddenServicePort 80 127.0.0.1:8099
30 HiddenServiceVersion 3 # Remove if Tor version is below 0.3 ( tor --version )
31 ```
32 Restart Tor to generate an adress:
33 ```
34 systemctl restart tor@default.service
35 ```
36 Get the address:
37 ```
38 cat /var/lib/tor/pleroma_hidden_service/hostname
39 ```
40
41 # Federation
42
43 Next, edit your Pleroma config.
44 If running in prod, cd to your Pleroma directory, edit `config/prod.secret.exs`
45 and append this line:
46 ```
47 config :pleroma, :http, proxy_url: {:socks5, :localhost, 9050}
48 ```
49 In your Pleroma directory, assuming you're running prod,
50 run the following:
51 ```
52 su pleroma
53 MIX_ENV=prod mix deps.get
54 MIX_ENV=prod mix ecto.migrate
55 exit
56 ```
57 restart Pleroma (if using systemd):
58 ```
59 systemctl restart pleroma
60 ```
61
62 # Tor Instance Access
63
64 Make your instance accessible using Tor.
65
66 ## Tor-only Instance
67 If creating a Tor-only instance, open `config/prod.secret.exs` and under "config :pleroma, Pleroma.Web.Endpoint," edit "https" and "port: 443" to the following:
68 ```
69 url: [host: "onionaddress", scheme: "http", port: 80],
70 ```
71 In addition to that, replace the existing nginx config's contents with the example below.
72
73 ## Existing Instance (Clearnet Instance)
74 If not a Tor-only instance,
75 add the nginx config below to your existing config at `/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/pleroma.nginx`.
76
77 ---
78 For both cases, disable CSP in Pleroma's config (STS is disabled by default) so you can define those yourself seperately from the clearnet (if your instance is also on the clearnet).
79 Copy the following into the `config/prod.secret.exs` in your Pleroma folder (/home/pleroma/pleroma/):
80 ```
81 config :pleroma, :http_security,
82 enabled: false
83 ```
84
85 Use this as the Nginx config:
86 ```
87 proxy_cache_path /tmp/pleroma-media-cache levels=1:2 keys_zone=pleroma_media_cache:10m max_size=10g inactive=720m use_temp_path=off;
88 # The above already exists in a clearnet instance's config.
89 # If not, add it.
90
91 server {
92 listen 127.0.0.1:8099;
93 server_name youronionaddress;
94
95 # Comment to enable logs
96 access_log /dev/null;
97 error_log /dev/null;
98
99 gzip_vary on;
100 gzip_proxied any;
101 gzip_comp_level 6;
102 gzip_buffers 16 8k;
103 gzip_http_version 1.1;
104 gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript application/activity+json application/atom+xml;
105
106 client_max_body_size 16m;
107
108 location / {
109
110 add_header X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block";
111 add_header X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies none;
112 add_header X-Frame-Options DENY;
113 add_header X-Content-Type-Options nosniff;
114 add_header Referrer-Policy same-origin;
115 add_header X-Download-Options noopen;
116
117 proxy_http_version 1.1;
118 proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
119 proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
120 proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
121
122 proxy_pass http://localhost:4000;
123
124 client_max_body_size 16m;
125 }
126
127 location /proxy {
128 proxy_cache pleroma_media_cache;
129 proxy_cache_lock on;
130 proxy_ignore_client_abort on;
131 proxy_pass http://localhost:4000;
132 }
133 }
134 ```
135 reload Nginx:
136 ```
137 systemctl reload nginx
138 ```
139
140 You should now be able to both access your instance using Tor and federate with other Tor instances!
141
142 ---
143
144 ### Possible Issues
145
146 * In Debian, make sure your hidden service folder `/var/lib/tor/pleroma_hidden_service/` and its contents, has debian-tor as both owner and group by using
147 ```
148 ls -la /var/lib/tor/
149 ```
150 If it's not, run:
151 ```
152 chown -R debian-tor:debian-tor /var/lib/tor/pleroma_hidden_service/
153 ```
154 * Make sure *only* the owner has *only* read and write permissions.
155 If not, run:
156 ```
157 chmod -R 600 /var/lib/tor/pleroma_hidden_service/
158 ```
159 * If you have trouble logging in to the Mastodon Frontend when using Tor, use the Tor Browser Bundle.