Setting country using command line in standalone tor distribution

Question

My goal is to run tor as a socks proxy, mimicking user from Switzerland (on Windows).

With "Tor Browser" distribution I was able to set country using torrc file by adding:

ExitNodes {ch} StrictNodes 1

For some reason, when using standalone "Windows Expert Bundle" distribution and passing ExitNodes as comman line argument this no longer works (bootstrap does not seem to complete).

Here is how I run tor and output:

C:\Users\Username\workspace\test>tor\Tor\tor.exe --SocksPort 9050 --StrictNodes 1 --ExitNodes "{ch}"
Dec 31 22:03:29.187 [notice] Tor 0.4.4.6 (git-2a8b789ea6f308d0) running on Windows 8 [or later] with Libevent 2.1.11-stable, OpenSSL 1.1.1i, Zlib 1.2.11, Liblzma N/A, and Libzstd N/A.
Dec 31 22:03:29.189 [notice] Tor can't help you if you use it wrong! Learn how to be safe at https://www.torproject.org/download/download#warning
Dec 31 22:03:29.213 [notice] Configuration file "C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\tor\torrc" not present, using reasonable defaults.
Dec 31 22:03:29.215 [warn] Path for GeoIPFile (<default>) is relative and will resolve to C:\Users\Username\workspace\test\<default>. Is this what you wanted?
Dec 31 22:03:29.215 [warn] Path for GeoIPv6File (<default>) is relative and will resolve to C:\Users\Username\workspace\test\<default>. Is this what you wanted?
Dec 31 22:03:29.218 [notice] Opening Socks listener on 127.0.0.1:9050
Dec 31 22:03:29.218 [notice] Opened Socks listener on 127.0.0.1:9050
Dec 31 22:03:29.000 [warn] Failed to open GEOIP file C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\tor\geoip.
Dec 31 22:03:29.000 [warn] We've been configured to use (or avoid) nodes in certain countries, and we need GEOIP information to figure out which ones they are.
Dec 31 22:03:29.000 [warn] Failed to open GEOIP file C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\tor\geoip6.
Dec 31 22:03:29.000 [warn] We've been configured to use (or avoid) nodes in certain countries, and we need GEOIP information to figure out which ones they are.
Dec 31 22:03:29.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 0% (starting): Starting
Dec 31 22:03:31.000 [notice] Starting with guard context "default"
Dec 31 22:03:58.000 [notice] Application request when we haven't used client functionality lately. Optimistically trying directory fetches again.

What am I doing wrong?

UPDATE AND SOLUTION:

Adding --GeoIPv6File <geoip6 file from distribution> --GeoIPFile "<geoip file from distribution>" worked for me.

Answer 1

The error Failed to open GEOIP file C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\tor\geoip is the important one here. If tor can't open the geoip file, it doesn't have any location data for any relay.

Since the path is relative, you need to run tor.exe from the correct directory. So use the cd command to change directories, probably to C:\Users\Username\workspace\test\tor\Tor, before running tor.exe.

Answer 2

Is there any specific reason for using command line parameters instead of torrc?

I'd guess that cli parameters have precedence default settings, which it is using: [notice] Configuration file "C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\tor\torrc" not present, using reasonable defaults.

It's also reporting it's not finding geoip:

Dec 31 22:03:29.215 [warn] Path for GeoIPFile (<default>) is relative and will resolve to C:\Users\Username\workspace\test\<default>. Is this what you wanted?
Dec 31 22:03:29.215 [warn] Path for GeoIPv6File (<default>) is relative and will resolve to C:\Users\Username\workspace\test\<default>. Is this what you wanted?

I'd suggest to make a clean install, outside user profile, and use torrc. U should have better chances to get it working.