[tor-dev] Mockup for a hidden services publishing tool

[Matt Pagan]

Please see the image file for what I have in mind here. 
http://oi62.tinypic.com/10x80ok.jpg

I hope this tool, when completed, can help reduce the barrier for
people seeking to set up hidden services. 

I anticipate this tool being able to connect to a running tor and write
to that tor's torrc file. This tool will be able to connect to the
network through a proxy, a standard bridge, or a pluggable transport. It
will be able to send a HUP signal to tor. It will be able to read from
tor's hidden service directory and tor's log. 

This mockup was made with wxPython 2.8. This is partially because I'm
somewhat familiar with wxWidgets already, and partially because I
thought incorporating stem might be a good plan. 

Here are some pitfalls and shortcomings:

 * * *
By it's current design, this tool has less functionality than
Vidalia. As a security property, there's no interface for setting up a
relay. This tool's primary focus will be running a hidden service. 

By it's current design, this tool does not ship with any hosting
software. The tool will inform the user that she still needs to run
XAMPP or ApacheGUI to host a web page. 

There's no interface for setting up or designing a blog, only for
hosting one that's already designed.

I'm still investigating Python's multithreading capabilities so
that the Tor log can be continuously read and reported. If I discovered
that I didn't need a controller library at all, I'd consider using wxGo
instead of wxPython (although writing in Go would be a new
experience for me and would take longer). 

 * * *

Perhaps some or all of these shortcomings could be overcome given time
and community feedback. I'm still not entirely sure where to take this
project, if anywhere. 

Before I get much further with this idea, is this project worth
pursuing at all? Does this look like something that could benefit Tor
users, given that Vidalia still works for many people? Do you think
this tool has potential to function as a point-click-publish hidden
services software?