I use my hidden service as a way to access my home computer from my phone securely and regardless of any IP changes.
Today, I installed the Tor Browser. After I launched it, the hidden service became unavailable both from the computer and the phone. The moment I closed it, I could access the service from my phone again.
Obviously, there is a conflict.
Up until now, I used tor. I configured it to run automatically as soon as the system loads. I don't even remember how I did that, and I mean it. Which is also part of the issue, because I can't find any of the configuration files (with the exception of torrc), otherwise, I might have solved the problem by now.
Now, there's a torrc file in /etc/tor. Apparently, the Tor Browser also has one. Could that be the source of the problem? How do I resolve the conflict?
I suppose, I could just ignore the problem and not use the hidden service when I'm using the Tor Browser, but what if I forget to close it and try to access the computer later?
Edit: renaming ./tor-browser_en-US/Browser/TorBrowser/Data/Tor/torrc to something else helped, but that's trial and error, I still am not sure what kind of consequences this can cause. Besides, maybe it's just a single line that causes the problem?
I'm not sure if this is the solution or simply a workaround that doesn't actually help to solve the real problem.
That's what I eliminate by essentially removing the torrc file
DataDirectory /opt/tor-browser_en-US/Browser/TorBrowser/Data/Tor
GeoIPFile /opt/tor-browser_en-US/Browser/TorBrowser/Data/Tor/geoip
GeoIPv6File /opt/tor-browser_en-US/Browser/TorBrowser/Data/Tor/geoip6
HiddenServiceStatistics 0
For all I know, this might be important.
Edit
Here's the log.
I can't see anything I can connect to the problem.
May 19 07:35:01.000 [notice] Tor 0.2.9.10 (git-################) opening new log file.
May 19 08:59:51.000 [notice] Heartbeat: Tor's uptime is 29 days 23:59 hours, with 9 circuits open. I've sent 33.58 MB and received 115.65 MB.
May 19 14:59:51.000 [notice] Heartbeat: Tor's uptime is 30 days 5:59 hours, with 6 circuits open. I've sent 35.66 MB and received 117.97 MB.
May 19 18:41:38.000 [warn] Socks version 71 not recognized. (Tor is not an http proxy.)
May 19 18:41:38.000 [warn] Socks version 71 not recognized. (Tor is not an http proxy.)
May 19 18:44:18.000 [notice] No circuits are opened. Relaxed timeout for circuit 2594 (a General-purpose client 4-hop circuit in state doing handshakes with channel state open) to 60000ms. However, it appears the circuit has timed out anyway. 7 guards are live. [5 similar message(s) suppressed in last 3600 seconds]
May 19 18:45:20.000 [notice] Tor has not observed any network activity for the past 427 seconds. Disabling circuit build timeout recording.
May 19 18:46:21.000 [notice] Our IP address has changed. Rotating keys...
May 19 18:46:21.000 [notice] Tor now sees network activity. Restoring circuit build timeout recording. Network was down for 487 seconds during 3 circuit attempts.
May 19 19:02:46.000 [notice] Tor has not observed any network activity for the past 984 seconds. Disabling circuit build timeout recording.
May 19 19:02:47.000 [notice] Our IP address has changed. Rotating keys...
May 19 19:02:48.000 [notice] Tor now sees network activity. Restoring circuit build timeout recording. Network was down for 985 seconds during 2 circuit attempts.
May 19 20:14:28.000 [warn] Socks version 71 not recognized. (Tor is not an http proxy.)
May 19 20:14:28.000 [warn] Socks version 71 not recognized. (Tor is not an http proxy.)
May 19 20:59:51.000 [notice] Heartbeat: Tor's uptime is 30 days 11:59 hours, with 6 circuits open. I've sent 36.24 MB and received 119.57 MB.
May 20 02:59:51.000 [notice] Heartbeat: Tor's uptime is 30 days 17:59 hours, with 6 circuits open. I've sent 37.16 MB and received 123.34 MB.
May 20 07:35:02.000 [notice] Received reload signal (hup). Reloading config and resetting internal state.
May 20 07:35:02.000 [notice] Read configuration file "/usr/share/tor/tor-service-defaults-torrc".
May 20 07:35:02.000 [notice] Read configuration file "/etc/tor/torrc".
/opt/folder for Tor Browser says to me that you're using some weird package, not the Tor Browser from Tor Project?/dev/shminitially and extracted it there before copied it to the SSD. I chose folder/opt/because that's where I keep standalone applications that are not automatically upgraded when doing a system wide update. And, by the way, I never actually launched the browser from shared memory.DataDirectoryline was probably not a good choice. Tor and Tor Browser don't conflict by default but they do require distinct data directories. So: Tor running an onion service and Tor Browser shouldn't conflict, please provide us some logs from both, that might help./var/log/tor)?