[tor-qa] Vidalia standalone bundles for testing (TBB 3.x "mod")

[Erinn Clark]

* Mark Smith <mcs at pearlcrescent.com> [2013:12:18 15:14 -0500]: 
> I don't think you need to mix the Vidalia files in with the TBB ones.
> If you are using cookie authentication, Vidalia should be able to
> read all of the tor settings without knowing where torrc is as long
> as it can (1) connect to the tor control port and (2) read the cookie
> auth file (located in TBB.app/Data./Tor/control_auth_cookie, but the
> location is discovered via the control port).  The following seems to
> work for me on Mac OS 10.8 and 10.9:
> 
> 1) Place the Vidalia files alongside the TBB files, e.g.,
>     .../TBB3.5/TorBrowserBundle_en-US.app
>     .../TBB3.5/vidalia-standalone-0.2.21-osx/
>     .../TBB3.5/vidalia-standalone-0.2.21-osx/Contents/
>     .../TBB3.5/vidalia-standalone-0.2.21-osx/Contents/MacOS/
>     .../TBB3.5/vidalia-standalone-0.2.21-osx/Contents/MacOS/Vidalia.app
> 
> 2) Start TBB by opening TorBrowserBundle_en-US.app
> 
> 3) Start Vidalia by opening Vidalia.app (if I try to open
> start-vidalia.sh, my Mac just opens the contents in the Xcode text
> editor).
> 
> In fact, it seems like all I really need out of the Vidalia package
> is Vidalia.app.  The key is to start TBB (and thus tor) first.
> 
> Caveat:  I am not a Vidalia expert and I don't know where it expects
> to find vidalia.conf by default, or whether it really needs a
> vidalia.conf.  If it defaults to cookie auth. on port 9151 then a lot
> of things should "just work."  That's what it seems to do....

I am intrigued by this!

Here is my potentially incorrect understanding: normally Vidalia expects to
find a vidalia.conf in ~/Library/Vidalia, and in the old OSX TBB we were
resetting cwd to $HOME so that it would look there. If it doesn't find one
there it writes one itself, sometimes based on information it gathers elsewhere
(e.g., it looks for tor and a torrc in some places). Without vidalia.conf I
don't think it knows to look for 9151 and I'm not sure what the option is to
specify a different conf file (or "hardcode" that port), though I'm going to
look into it.

Replicating your steps above, after making sure I have no ~/.tor,
~/Library/Vidalia, or /Applications/Vidalia.app, it just launches Vidalia and
says it can't find tor. (OSX 10.6.8)

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