# Introduction

Dear tor-project@, my work in February 2025 has been centered around two small but powerful tools that I have authored during this time period.

# oniux

In the beginning of the month, I started the *oniux* project[1], which utilizes `namespaces(7)` and onionmasq in order to securely isolate an arbitrary application through Tor. It basically serves as a replacement for torsocks but in a way that is less hacky and sounds more correct.

My work centered around studying the inner workings of Linux namespaces and capabilities, writing an initial prototype and finally the real implementation. I have also given a German-language presentation about this at my local hackspace and can give you the slides on request.

Please read the projects README for further information about this, including the inner workings on which I have spent a huge effort to document those.

# TorVault

During the other half the month, I started the *TorVault* project[2], which makes it possible to use the `OfflineMasterKey` feature for relays in combination with a Yubikey.

It provides a guide on how to generate and import a long-term Ed25519 identity key onto a Yubikey (recommended) or on how to generate a long-term Ed25519 identity key on the Yubikey itself.

The program itself then provides an interactive dialogue that prompts the user for the relevant information (device name, expiration date, paths, ...). In the end, the program generates and exports the relevant keys and certificate(s) which are then ready to be deployed into the relays `keys/` folder.

I have announced the project onto the tor-relays@ mailing list and I am already using it in production for my own relay.

Right now, I have plans to port this tool into Rust in order to eventually integrate it into Arti. Unfortunately, the Rust ecosystem is – at the moment – not far enough to support this, because Curve25519 support in Yubikeys is a rather new feature not supported by the most popular Rust Yubikey crate. This is also an area I am working on at the moment.

Thank You, Clara

---

[1]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/cve/oniux [2]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/TorVault