[tor-talk] Request for Help Configuring Torbutton for Remote Polipo

[hikki at Safe-mail.net]

-------- Original Message --------
From: "Jack Waugh" <zqrfvbhhdb at snkmail.com>

> I want to run Polipo on a "server" machine and Firefox with Torbutton 
> on distinct client machines not having Polipo or Tor loaded on them.  
> How do I set it up?
> 
> I tried it with Polipo listening on its default port of 8123.  I set 
> Polipo's proxyAddress = "0.0.0.0" so it would listen to requests  I set 
> its allowedClients = 127.0.0.1, 192.168.2.0/24 since my client machine 
> is in the latter network.  These settings sufficed to allow me to brows 
> to Polipo's manual from the client machine (before I loaded TorButton).
> 
> So with TorButton I tried configuring its SOCKS, http, and SSL proxy 
> settings to point to the server machine and port 8123, but its test 
> failed.  So what is the right way to set it up, and please explain the 
> underlying logic.

Your server must have two LAN devices, or at least one LAN device for 
your client and one WLAN device for the Internet.

If your LAN IP addresses are like this (just an example):

Server (Internet LAN/WLAN): 192.168.1.1 / Gateway: (IP of Internet router)
Server (LAN): 172.16.1.1 / Gateway: 172.16.1.2
Client: 172.16.1.2 / Gateway 172.16.1.1
Network mask can be 255.255.255.0 on all if you like.

Now your server can access Internet and it is setup to communicate with 
the client and vice versa by using these default gateways.

Your Tor setup file on your server must tell tor to listen on 
172.16.1.1:9050. Polipo must listen on 172.16.1.1:8118, or whatever ports 
you choose above 1024, and Polipo must redirect traffic to tor's listen 
address.

Now Tor and Polipo will access Internet and they will listen on the 
servers local LAN device instead of its localhost device. So the LAN 
device must be up and running before Tor and Polipo starts!

Then you must configure your client and its torbutton manually. That's 
easy, just add 172.16.1.1:8118 for HTTP connections and 172.16.1.1:9050 
for SOCKS connections.

Now your client will send all Tor traffic to the servers LAN device, 
where Tor and Polipo listens to and redirects to your Internet router.

It may be tricky to tell your server OS which device to use for Internet 
and which for your local LAN, it depends what OS you're on. Maybe not if 
you're using WLAN for Internet. You'll also need to configure your 
server's firewall to allow incoming traffic from your client. Just try 
this and see how far you get.

(Anyone correct me if I'm wrong!)

Good luck! :)