[tbb-dev] [Tails-dev] Make Tor Binary location configurable in Tor Launcher?

[anonym]

17/06/14 17:44, Mike Perry wrote:
> Hey Tails folks, hey Sukhbir,
> 
> In our efforts to streamline and reorganize the Tor Browser directory
> structure for the Firefox updater, we have changed how Tor Launcher
> finds the Tor binary:
> https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/11641
> https://gitweb.torproject.org/user/brade/tor-launcher.git/commitdiff/6599aca0c63944a4db7782fd47c0c6569d8dfdf0
> 
> We created a maint-0.2.5 Tor Launcher branch that preserves the old
> location and behavior for Tor Launcher 0.2.5.x releases in Tor Browser
> 3.6, while the master branch will house 0.2.6 and use this new directory
> structure for our upcoming 4.0-alpha series.
> 
> While reviewing that patch, it occurred to me that it might be useful to
> make the path to the Tor binary configurable in a pref, rather than
> hardcoding the depth and pieces of the directory structure in the code
> and launching logic.

You've supported this for a while now via the
extensions.torlauncher.*_path prefs and the code is still there (see
beginning of _getTorFile). So should I take it that this is broken now,
at least for the tor executable? Any way...

> However, it probably only makes sense to do this if it would also be
> useful to non-TBB consumers of Tor Launcher. Otherwise, we can keep
> using the hardcoded values just for us, if you guys already have an
> alternate way of launching Tor that you prefer.

Tails sets extensions.torlauncher.only_configure_tor and starts Tor
externally to Tor Launcher. In fact, Tor Launcher is only ever started
in Tails if a special option is enabled on start [1]. Hence I'm quite
sure this change is of no consequence to Tails.

Cheers!

[1]
https://tails.boum.org/doc/first_steps/startup_options/network_configuration/