[tor-dev] First release of OnioNS for beta testing

[Jesse V]

Happy Saturday everyone,

At long last, 310 commits later, I am pleased to present a release of the Onion Name System (OnioNS), a DNS for Tor hidden services. This release is a usability test; it offers reliable behind-the-scenes integration with the Tor Browser, a friendly command-line dialog for claiming domain names and subdomains, and many options for hosting and configuring a server. The system utilizes two servers: a single Quorum node which hidden services upload their claims to and another server which clients query against. I am looking for feedback as to how usable the system is and areas where it could be improved. Most of the changes going forward will be behind-the-scenes.

The software is divided into three primary pieces, OnioNS-client, OnioNS-HS, and OnioNS-server. These all have OnioNS-common (a shared library) as a dependency. You can install whichever one you'd like, or all of them. This software is currently Linux-only, and Debian 7 and 8, Ubuntu 14.04 - 15.10, Mint 17 - 17.2, and Fedora 21 - 23 are supported. I provide packages for Debian 7 and a software repository for currently-supported versions of Ubuntu and Mint on 32-bit, 62-bit, and ARM systems. If possible, please use the repository.

Please see the READMEs in the following repositories for more information, including installation, initialization, and configuration procedures. Manpages are also included for your convenience.
https://github.com/Jesse-V/OnioNS-common
https://github.com/Jesse-V/OnioNS-client
https://github.com/Jesse-V/OnioNS-HS
https://github.com/Jesse-V/OnioNS-server
Please star the repository if it works well for you.

I have claimed "example.tor" for my project's HS and claimed the "arma.example.tor" subdomain that points to Roger's site, so you can test this from the client. Please open a ticket if you find a new bug, or contact me if you don't have a Github account.

A brief FAQ:

Q: How does one pronounce "OnioNS"?
A: As one would pronounce the lowercase form: "onions", the plural of "onion".

Q: It only takes a couple of minutes to claim a domain name, isn't that too easy?
A: In this release, I have set a very small difficulty level. It will certainly be harder in the future and more counter-measures are being considered. Also, since the claims are not yet saved to disk, I offer no guarantee of their long-term survival.

Q: Should I use this on production hidden services?
A: No, this software is not ready. This release introduces _features_, not security. Tor circuits are used on both the client and HS side, but I can't guarantee that my SOCKS use is leak-proof, for example. I'm asking for help with finding bugs that may compromise anonymity.

Q: I'm running Windows/OSX/BSD/Arch/Gentoo/LFS/etc, can I test OnioNS?
A: Yes, but I'm not currently supporting that environment, so you're mostly on your own. However, if you can give me compilation instructions, I may be able to. I am also looking to coordinate with anyone familiar with RPM or Windows development.

Q: Is there security on your network communications?
A: Client and HS communication occurs over Tor circuits, and there are some integrity checks, but simply getting everything to work is the priority here. Most of the infrastructure is set up so adding signatures and such will be easy, but that is next on the list. Once that occurs, the name server (Mirror) the client uses can be malicious with no significant impact.

Q: Where can I learn more about this project?
A: The normal project page, onions55e7yam27n.onion, is currently being rewritten. A simple page is in its place, so "example.tor" is still there. Literature on this project may be found at https://github.com/Jesse-V/OnioNS-literature. Please see the PDFs under the respective folders. Note that the distributed design will be changing to use George's commit-and-reveal scheme.

Q: Are the servers reliable enough to run under Comcast?
A: I have not tested them in production or otherwise under https://github.com/tylertreat/comcast, but I may in the future. I welcome help in this area.

Enjoy,
Jesse V.




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