Configure a Tor Proxy on Ubuntu 16.04
Here's My Issue: I'm Using the University Internet Connection Quite Often. the Network Has a Firewall Which Blocks the Connection of Some Programs Like Irc...
Here's my issue: I'm using the university internet connection quite often. The network has a firewall which blocks the connection of some programs like IRC (Xchat, Irssi), sometimes even the Software Updater and some other applications.
I've surfed on the web and found out that I can "overtake" the firewall using a Tor proxy. But the instructions on how configure it are confused and often incorrect. Can you please help me in find out how to do that?
Thank you in advance!
1 Answer
Install the official Tor proxy
Tor and its official SOCKS 5 proxy are pretty quick to get running on Ubuntu. Going off of the Tor Project website's installation instructions, do the following:
- Open a terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T
Run the following (replace
xenialwith the release you're running if you're not on 16.04 Xenial Xerus):sudo -i echo deb xenial main > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/tor.list echo deb-src xenial main >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/tor.list gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv 886DDD89 gpg --export A3C4F0F979CAA22CDBA8F512EE8CBC9E886DDD89 | apt-key add - apt update apt install tor deb.torproject.org-keyring exit
Now the Tor SOCKS 5 proxy will be running on your machine, 127.0.0.1, on port 9050. Remember that this is a SOCKS 5 proxy, not an HTTP proxy.
Your Tor proxy will automatically start when your machine boots. You can run sudo service tor restart or other actions like start, stop, and status to control the Tor proxy on your machine.
Marcus Vance is a cybersecurity auditor and technology writer dedicated to educating the public about online safety, data privacy regulations, enterprise security, and emerging cyber threats.
