SETTING UP VIDALIA IN UBUNTU 11.10

 I am working behind a proxy in Ubuntu. Many softwares doesn't work properly behind the proxy in my Campus (IIT Kharagpur) . The best solution is to use them through a socket connection using tor.

1. Vidalia can be installed from the command line or synaptic or USC. I prefer to use the terminal for installation. For installation additional repositories or PPA are not needed.  If privoxy is already installed in the system then it needs to be removed as it will interfere with working of polipo.

sudo apt-get install vidalia polipo tor sudo apt-get remove privoxy

2. The config file of torr needs to edited (replaced) with the following text. Run the command in terminal gedit ~/.vidalia/torrc and paste the following :

s# Set the Tor Circuit Build time to find faster tor servers, increments of seconds CircuitBuildTimeout 2 # connections while Tor is not in use. KeepalivePeriod 60 # Force Tor to consider whether to build a new circuit every NUM seconds. NewCircuitPeriod 15 # Set How many entry guards we should we keep at a time NumEntryGuards 8 

3. Now edit the  /etc/tor/torrc  file and remove the "#" from the line " ControlPort 9051" so that vidalia could control tor (sudo nano /etc/tor/torrc )

4. Use  sudo visudo and add the following lines at the end of file

myUserName ALL= NOPASSWD: /etc/init.d/tor myUserName ALL= NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/polipo 

Save by Ctrl+O followed by enter key and exit by Ctrl+X

5. Using editor command sudo gedit /etc/polipo/config replace the contents of /etc/polipo/config with

### Basic configuration ### ******************* # Uncomment one of these if you want to allow remote clients to # connect: # proxyAddress = "::0" # both IPv4 and IPv6 # proxyAddress = "0.0.0.0" # IPv4 only proxyAddress = "127.0.0.1" proxyPort = 8118 # If you do that, you'll want to restrict the set of hosts allowed to # connect: # allowedClients = "127.0.0.1, 134.157.168.57" # allowedClients = "127.0.0.1, 134.157.168.0/24" allowedClients = 127.0.0.1 allowedPorts = 1-65535 # Uncomment this if you want your Polipo to identify itself by # something else than the host name: proxyName = "localhost" # Uncomment this if there's only one user using this instance of Polipo: cacheIsShared = false # Uncomment this if you want to use a parent proxy: # parentProxy = "squid.example.org:3128" # Uncomment this if you want to use a parent SOCKS proxy: socksParentProxy = "localhost:9050" socksProxyType = socks5 ### Memory ### ****** # Uncomment this if you want Polipo to use a ridiculously small amount # of memory (a hundred C-64 worth or so): # chunkHighMark = 819200 # objectHighMark = 128 # Uncomment this if you've got plenty of memory: # chunkHighMark = 50331648 # objectHighMark = 16384 chunkHighMark = 67108864 ### On-disk data ### ************ # Uncomment this if you want to disable the on-disk cache: diskCacheRoot = "" # Uncomment this if you want to put the on-disk cache in a # non-standard location: # diskCacheRoot = "~/.polipo-cache/" # Uncomment this if you want to disable the local web server: localDocumentRoot = "" # Uncomment this if you want to enable the pages under /polipo/index? # and /polipo/servers?. This is a serious privacy leak if your proxy # is shared. # disableIndexing = false # disableServersList = false disableLocalInterface = true disableConfiguration = true ### Domain Name System ### ****************** # Uncomment this if you want to contact IPv4 hosts only (and make DNS # queries somewhat faster): # # dnsQueryIPv6 = no # Uncomment this if you want Polipo to prefer IPv4 to IPv6 for # double-stack hosts: # # dnsQueryIPv6 = reluctantly # Uncomment this to disable Polipo's DNS resolver and use the system's # default resolver instead. If you do that, Polipo will freeze during # every DNS query: dnsUseGethostbyname = yes ### HTTP ### **** # Uncomment this if you want to enable detection of proxy loops. # This will cause your hostname (or whatever you put into proxyName # above) to be included in every request: disableVia = true # Uncomment this if you want to slightly reduce the amount of # information that you leak about yourself: # censoredHeaders = from, accept-language # censorReferer = maybe censoredHeaders = from,accept-language,x-pad,link censorReferer = maybe # Uncomment this if you're paranoid. This will break a lot of sites, # though: # censoredHeaders = set-cookie, cookie, cookie2, from, accept-language # censorReferer = true # Uncomment this if you want to use Poor Man's Multiplexing; increase # the sizes if you're on a fast line. They should each amount to a few # seconds' worth of transfer; if pmmSize is small, you'll want # pmmFirstSize to be larger. # Note that PMM is somewhat unreliable. # pmmFirstSize = 16384 # pmmSize = 8192 # Uncomment this if your user-agent does something reasonable with # Warning headers (most don't): # relaxTransparency = maybe # Uncomment this if you never want to revalidate instances for which # data is available (this is not a good idea): # relaxTransparency = yes # Uncomment this if you have no network: # proxyOffline = yes # Uncomment this if you want to avoid revalidating instances with a # Vary header (this is not a good idea): # mindlesslyCacheVary = true # Suggestions from Incognito configuration maxConnectionAge = 5m maxConnectionRequests = 120 serverMaxSlots = 8 serverSlots = 2 tunnelAllowedPorts = 1-65535 

6. When using vidalia, it attempts to start tor and polipo, but as default this is already running! But it not connected to the tor network. As a result vidalia returns an error message.To solve this problem we have to remove the service from startup. For that sudo apt-get install sysv-rc-conf. After installation run sudo sysv-rc-conf. It will display a table , scroll down by the use of arrow key to the line with tor and disable all ticks by the use of space key. Do the same for polipo. sysv-rc-conf  can be quit by using the key q.

7. Run vidalia and edit the settings. Set the proxy which you use.

proxy: 10.3.100.211

Type: HTTP and HTTPS

8. Open startup applications from the settings button on left extreme of top panel  and add two new entries. One for vidalia and one for polipo. Tor will be started by vidalia. So donot setup startup for tor. The polipo startup is set with a delay. If polipo starts before vidalia and tor it will control the port and tor will fail. So polipo must start after vidalia and tor. This is ensured by the delay (sleep 100). Startup application commands are:

vidalia

sleep 100 && polipo &

9. Go to System Settings in top panel and open Network  and select Network Proxy. Set the following values in manual mode. This will globally make the system configured to use tor proxy values.

http , https and ftp 127.0.0.1:8118

socks host 127.0.0.1:9050

10. Reboot the system
12. To use tor in firefox follow either steps

a) Set the proxy to

http , https and ftp 127.0.0.1:8118

socks host 127.0.0.1:9050

b) Install torbutton mozilla addon

http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Internet-Utilities/Torbutton.shtml

Use toggle tor status for enabling and disabling tor in firefox

c) Use foxyproxy for custom proxy management

use 27.0.0.1:8118 and other proxies in a mixed manner specifying custom patterns in urls. (I prefer this method ).

13. In google chrome/ chromium use proxy switchy :  
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/caehdcpeofiiigpdhbabniblemipncjj 

13.  For torrent use the client vuze. and set the proxy to socks  127.0.0.1:9050

14.  If you are using virtualbox then we can use the host tor network in the guest os. For that set all proxy in guest OS as : 10.0.2.2:8188