[tor-project] For technical users: Please help us test next-gen onions!

[George Kadianakis]

Hello people,

this is an email for technical people who want to help us test next-gen
onion services.

The current status of next-gen onion services (aka prop224) is that they have
been fully merged into upstream tor and have also been released as part of
tor-0.3.2.1-alpha: https://blog.torproject.org/tor-0321-alpha-released-support-next-gen-onion-services-and-kist-scheduler

Unfortunately, there is still no tor browser with tor-0.3.2.1-alpha so
these instructions are for technical users who have no trouble building
tor on their own.

We are still in a alpha testing phase and when we get more confident about the
code we plan to release a blog post (probs during October).

Until then we hope that people can help us test them. To do so, we have setup a
*testing hub* in a prop224 IRC server that you can and should join (ideally
using a VPS so that you stick around).

Here are some basic instructions:

1) First of all, clone tor from git:
   $ git clone https://gitweb.torproject.org/tor.git
   and then build it:
   $ ./autogen.sh && ./configure && make

2) Setup a basic torrc for your tor client:
   ====
   SocksPort 9008
   RunAsDaemon 0
   SafeLogging 0
   DataDirectory /home/user/tmp/tor
   Log notice stdout
   Log notice file /home/user/tmp/hsclient/tor.log
   Log info file  /home/user/tmp/hsclient/torinfo.log
   ===

   and start up tor using the above torrc. Or setup your own torrc, you
   might find your own bugs that way ;)

3) Setup your torsocks so that it connects to SocksPort 9008. I do that by
   editing /etc/tor/torsocks.conf and setting `TorPort 9008`, but YMMV based on
   your distro, etc.

4) Now setup a socat tunnel to the prop224 ircd:
      socat TCP4-LISTEN:4250,bind=localhost,fork,reuseaddr SOCKS4A:localhost:gff4ixq3takworeuhkubzz4xh2ulytoct4xrpazkiykhupalqlo53ryd.onion:6697,socksport=9250

   Check out the onion address! It's heavy!

5) Now start up your irc client and point it ot the tunnel. I use irssi, so you can do:
   /server -ssl localhost 4250
   /join #prop224

6) Now detach your screen and lurk in that channel. Also monitor your log files
   to see if any warnings or bugs appeared. If we see your client misbehaving
   we might ask you to give us some logs etc. If any other tests are required
   we will notify you through the IRC testing hub.

Cheers and thanks for testing :)

See you on the other side of the moon!