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Configuration

In order to run OnionCat you need to

  1. install OnionCat,
  2. configure the Tor proxy properly,
  3. on Windows install the OpenVPN TAP Ethernet driver which is included in the OpenVPN Installer, on Mac OSX you need to install the TUNTAP driver,
  4. run OnionCat with the appropriate parameters.

To install OnionCat, have a look at the download page. It describes several installation options. The next thing is to configure your Tor proxy. In the standard installation it is assumed that Tor runs locally on your host as well as OnionCat, although this is not required. In either case you have to set up a hidden service. Add the following two lines to your Tor configuration which is typically found int /etc/tor/torrc.

HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/onioncat/
HiddenServicePort 8060 127.0.0.1:8060

For a general information on confiugration of hidden services have a look the hidden service confiugration page on the Tor project page. After reloading Tor go to the hidden service directory (/var/lib/tor/onioncat). You will find the file named hostname there. It contains your onion Id. It is a string which looks like this: 62bwjldt7fq2zgqa.onion.

Now you can run OnionCat as root with the following command:

ocat 62bwjldt7fq2zgqa.onion

It has to be started as root because it opens a tunnel device and configures an IP address which is only allowed as root. OnionCat will immediately drop the privileges to nobody or any other user if the option -u is specified. For more configuration options please see the man page or run `ocat -h`.