How to use tor browser not in root

Using applications, configuring, problems
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ringo
Posts: 11
Joined: Sat 10 Sep 2011, 17:53

How to use tor browser not in root

#1 Post by ringo »

Tor gives me the warning that I am operating in root and do not need to be. How can I not operate in root? Thanks

nooby
Posts: 10369
Joined: Sun 29 Jun 2008, 19:05
Location: SwedenEurope

#2 Post by nooby »

I trust that most people need more info.
which Puppy do you use?

Wary latest have Fido which is a user account that is not root.
So Tor would accept that Puppy. You could also try out Slacko
which allso have Fido and also Polar Puppy but none of these
three has a Fido that at the moment are supported by the Devs.

The Devs have not had time to test the Fido account and to get all the
bugs sorted out. So you are on your own.

But there is progress going on so sooner or later them have sorted out
Fido and can support it as a good thing to recommend in Puppy.
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

ringo
Posts: 11
Joined: Sat 10 Sep 2011, 17:53

lupu525

#3 Post by ringo »

thanks for the help - i am using lupu525

nooby
Posts: 10369
Joined: Sun 29 Jun 2008, 19:05
Location: SwedenEurope

#4 Post by nooby »

I tested Lupu 528 yesterday and it did not have Fido so most likely 525 does not have it either.

one way to find out is to use the search in my signature. Write this search:

fido 2011
and see which puppies have it.

You will get fido installed when you reboot the first time. Then you can choose to use Fido instead of Admin account. So you give Admin a unique pasword and Fido needs no password.

You change between them by going to prompt using Menu > Shutdown > Prompt.
I tested this in Slacko and it works okay. So do a frugal install or install on a USB or DVD.
and read the curren Fixing Fido threads to get tips and to follow the progress.

Here is a typical quote/citation
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy//viewt ... 211#523211
I just let fido to be as choice. I am sorry, I wont meddle with fido at all. The usage as fido is on your own responsible. To accecpt to save as fido and use distro as fido, you do it on your own. You can of course read all the threads, posts, Barry`s blog about it but I just implement it as woof offers. I will update it through woof but nothing else.

You can also report about fido usage and problems encountered, but please, do that in some other thread. If this thread will become polluted of fido problems, I will delete the whole possibility from next distro. It is easy to do.

For me, Root forever and that`s it.
Pemasu have several puppies with fido in it. SnowPuppy Polarpup, Ice puppy, and others. Look up his user name and see what he writes about.

Best bet is 01micko whom cares about Fido but has a lot more tests to do before him feel satisfied that it is to his satisfaction.

He has it in his Slacko Puppy so that is a good choice.
Barry Kauler the original Developer of Puppy Linux has Fido in Wary 514 but him hope that other Devs wants to help him to develop it because to him being root is what motivates him. Fido is low priority.

That is it? Others have to chime in if you want more info.

Edit Thanks to MinHundHettePerro for good suggestion in the post below mine.
Last edited by nooby on Mon 12 Sep 2011, 21:21, edited 1 time in total.
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

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MinHundHettePerro
Posts: 852
Joined: Thu 05 Feb 2009, 22:22
Location: SE

#5 Post by MinHundHettePerro »

Hello, ringo :)!

There is a restricted (under-privileged) user spot in puppy (apart from the experimental fido in some recent puppies), which has its home-directory in /root/spot. If you install your tor browser (I suppose it's the tor browser bundle) in /root/spot, and then in a terminal in that directory change ownership of the tor browser-files by running

Code: Select all

chown -R spot:spot ./*
, you can then start your tor browser as restricted user spot by, for example, issuing (in /root/spot)

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su -c ./tor-browser_en-US/start-tor-browser spot
(provided that that is the version of the tor browser you have).

hth :)/ MHHP
[color=green]Celeron 2.8 GHz, 1 GB, i82845, many ptns, modes 12, 13
Dual Xeon 3.2 GHz, 1 GB, nvidia quadro nvs 285[/color]
Slackos & 214X, ... and Q6xx
[color=darkred]Nämen, vaf....[/color] [color=green]ln -s /dev/null MHHP[/color]

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str4y
Posts: 42
Joined: Mon 01 Aug 2011, 22:59
Location: No. California
Contact:

#6 Post by str4y »

MinHundHettePerro wrote: If you install your tor browser (I suppose it's the tor browser bundle) in /root/spot, and then in a terminal in that directory change ownership of the tor browser-files by running

Code: Select all

chown -R spot:spot ./*
, you can then start your tor browser as restricted user spot by, for example, issuing (in /root/spot)

Code: Select all

su -c ./tor-browser_en-US/start-tor-browser spot
That looked awful familiar to me.. because I eventually came up with that exact code quite awhile back! One can completely avoid .pets or .sfs's this way.. and the tor bundle neatly lives in its own directory/subdirs without storing anything outside.. so I have

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#!/bin/sh
su -c "cd /mnt/home/[[[[[ insert your preferred path where you extracted the .tar.gz here ]]]]]/tor-browser_en-US; ./start-tor-browser" spot
saved into a script (text file made executable) which I then dragged onto the desktop for quick access. Might even put a icon with it some day, gosh!
What's really nice about this: a. No strain on one's savefile space. and 2. Doesn't interfere with another mozilla browser... so you can have a normal-issue Firefox or Seamonkey running (you have to do that 1st, before running the tor bundle, I have found!) and then the torified one will have a different Icon in taskbar and upper-left of the app window, because it's "Aurora" instead of "Minefield" or whatever.. makes it way easier to keep your encrypted and not-so browsing separate.. for a long time I was futzing around with FoxyProxy and not only does that get confusing but torproject states that it isn't secure, whereas torbutton is. NOTE ALSO, that you can use this from any of the various Puppy variants you run-- it's a great fallback in case your .2fs filesystem gets hosed somehow. (Plus, bookmarks are then available without having to export/import!)

I suppose I'd meant to turn everyone on to this on the tor .pet thread, but put it off thinking, "gee, there's millions upon zillians of puppians, and I sure don't want to overload the tor network by tipping 'em all off!" But the project is used to abuse, probably-- in fact their dev blog/list makes fascinating reading. Also worth noting-- there's a way to help.. and this is a big deal because it can mean life or death for oppressed people in dictatorship-ruled countries who need to communicate... you can offer your net connection's bandwidth (anyone a sysadmin, with the nice fat work/school pipe?) even if only as a middle node, meaning you're never an exit node, which goes out unencrypted and can cause all sorts of `splainin to do if the authorities don't like what random users are browsing from out your line.. I remember reading about this inside a config file in the tor directories somewhere.. but it has probably gotten moved as their site is much more well documented these days. Enjoy!
ps. Also if you can, tick the box "Help censored users reach the Tor network" under Vidalia Control Panel > Settings > Sharing
THANKS!
pps. To the above instructions, you might need to add a

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chgrp -R spot:spot ./* 
if my memory serves me correctly.
[size=75]laptop.pet: [url]http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=550279[/url]
K3B-1.0.5 self-contained .pet [url]http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=71862[/url]
:oops: bitcoin: [url]http://xmail.net/str4y/bitcoin/[/url][/size]

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canbyte
Posts: 264
Joined: Sat 10 Jan 2009, 20:20
Location: Hamilton, Canada

#7 Post by canbyte »

I'm trying to do what MinHundHettePerro suggests but get the following error.
sh-4.1$ ./tor-browser_en-US/start-tor-browser

Launching Tor Browser Bundle for Linux in /root/spot/tor-browser_en-US
./tor-browser_en-US/start-tor-browser: line 228: ./App/vidalia: cannot execute binary file
Vidalia exited abnormally. Exit code: 126
line 228 says
./App/vidalia --datadir Data/Vidalia/ -style Cleanlooks
I confirmed there is a file /app/vidalia

BTW, for others trying this, to avoid loading a browser first, I'm using Dillo which is preloaded. OK except one can't use the quote tags, etc in this forum!

Also, his instructions didn't say whether or not the kernel source was needed so after loading kernel source and devx plus the tor thing, i get the same error.
Also, I tried logging in as spot per the readme in spot and running the above file but got the same error.



----------EDIT
ok, go here ....

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 7&start=15

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