Vidalia

[Anothony Georgeo]

--- Charles Finley <vikingserver2006 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> In my opinion Vidalia has too many bugs to be
> released in a package that is supposed to be stable.


Can you describe these bugs?  

I run Windows XP Home and Vidalia v.0.0.4 has shown 
zero bugs so far.  TorCP on the other hand was pretty 
buggy, especially when you used it to configure a 
server (it crashed everytime).



> I immediately went back to using TorCP, as it is
> stable and predictable.

See my statment above.

 
> Vidalia messed up me server settings, and my
> comments I had made in the torrc file.

When Vidalia starts for the first time it reads your 
torrc and imports your config settings into a new 
'torrc' file it creates.  Your original torric is now 
called 'torrc.orig.x' (where 'x' is most likly '1').  
The new torrc file uses all the settings from your 
original torrc (which were imported by Vidalia).  

When you use Vidalia to cinfigure Tor (ie. to become a

server) Vidalia updates the torrc file it created with
this new configuration setting.  

Registry keys are also used by Vidalia in Windows XP
to
save configuration settings.  When you configure 
Vidalia two reg keys are updated (along with the 
torrc).  These reg keys only contain configurations 
supported through Vidalia (eg. no 'bandwith rate 
limiting', this would be in the torrc).

Note:
Vidalia seems to use these keys as a 'master' config 
setting and as a 'backup' for the torrc.  If the torrc
uses the server nic "A" and the reg keys use server
nic "B" Vidalia will use server nic "B".

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\vidalia 

HKEY_USERS\{Dynamic-Long-ID-Number}\Software\vidalia


> Vidalia has the potential to become a good program,
> but the decicion to include an unstable release of
> Vidalia...[snip]


I am very happy with Vidalia and I like where it is 
going; v.0.0.5 looks good.  The creator of Vidalia is 
open to suggestions and feature requests.  

I requested a feature in Vidalia that shows your 
private (local) and public (exit node) IP addresses 
when you mouse over the system tray icon.  Within an 
hour the author of Vidalia wrote to me and said he 
would impliment this in v.0.0.5.


> [snip]...together with a stable release of TOR 
> wasn't very smart, in my opinion.

Tor is not stable and will not be stable for a long
time.

Hell, the first Tor GUI I uses was called "TorControl"
and then came "TorCP" and now "Vidalia".  I must say
with each succession the GUI's have progressed leaps
and bounds.  IMO Vidalia is a great GUI with alot of
potential and an author who is very motivated. 

> Also, it would be good to know why a GUI to TOR is
> called Vidalia?  Where is the connection between the
> names? 

Vidalia is an onion.  Tor is a client/server program
which uses the Onoin Route II to anonymize/secure 
traffic.

The connection lies in that Vidalia is an onion and 
Vidalia is used to control Tor which utilizes the
Onion Route II.




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