[tor-dev] Configuration of tor relay using setup files (use of API via Tor Expert Bundle)

[David Fifield]

On Sun, Feb 07, 2016 at 03:44:35PM +0000, Nathan Bliss wrote:
> Is there a way to configure a bridge in tor (e.g. meek) via the config files
> from the command line without having to use the GUI in the Tor browser? I've
> been searching for documentation on this, so if I've missed it I would be
> grateful for a pointer to where this is in the docs... I found something about
> the torrc but this was an option for configuring a tor server node as a bridge
> whereas I want to configure the bridge as a client (in client mode).

Here is an example torrc for configuring a client:
	https://gitweb.torproject.org/pluggable-transports/meek.git/tree/meek-client/torrc
Just comment out the "Bridge" lines other than the one you need. Then to
run it, you can do
	tor -f torrc
Depending on your setup, you might have to provide the full paths to tor
or torrc. For example,
	C:\path\whatever\tor.exe -f C:\path\whatever\torrc

If you need the web browser TLS camouflage (see
https://gitweb.torproject.org/pluggable-transports/meek.git/tree/README),
then it'll be easiest to run tor manually from inside the Tor Browser
directory tree with its torrc-defaults file. That will look something
like this:
	Browser\TorBrowser\Tor\tor.exe --defaults-torrc Browser\TorBrowser\Data\Tor\torrc-defaults -f your-own-torrc
where "your-own-torrc" is a file containing the bridge you are using
(like in the previous paragraph).

> I need to do this in order to have automation scripts working with search
> engines such as google. Google always seems to be able to detect http
> connection via a script or via the tor interface running in standard mode. Only
> a client connection via google-meek bridge seems to work and I'm looking for a
> way to do this via the tor stem API or via the config files.

This doesn't make sense to me. Are you saying that you're making client
connections through the Tor network to Google, and Google behaves
differently depending on whether you connect using a pluggable transport
or not? That seems unlikely. Web sites have no way of knowing what
pluggable transport you're using. It's more likely that you just got
lucky with your exit nodes while you were using meek-google. I suggest
you run some more experiments to confirm your guess.

In any event, if you are using meek for purposes other than
circumventing censorship, please take the time to set up your own App
Engine instance (it's easy) and pay for it yourself, otherwise you are
taking away bandwidth and capacity from actual censored users. To set up
your own instance, you will have to follow these instructions. Download
the "appengine" files from the meek source code, edit the file
"app.yaml" to use your App Engine app name, and then upload it with
"goapp deploy".
https://gitweb.torproject.org/pluggable-transports/meek.git/tree/appengine
https://gitweb.torproject.org/pluggable-transports/meek.git/tree/appengine/README