How do I verify that I'm using Tor network

User Support General
1

I opened the Tor Browser (AnonDist) under ‘anon-whonix’.
I expected to use the Tor Network using this browser, but that does not appear to be true.

Also, it does not appear that I am using a Tor browser. When I click on the padlock icon besides the URL search bar, I do not see any Tor network circuit information. No options to choose a different circuit either.

How can i go about debugging my network connection.
The whonix template is using sys-whonix but the settings for this template do not provide any clues that I am connecting to the Tor network.

Many thanks.
wb

2

Dunno if thats helpful but: Go to check.torproject.org, it should tell you if you are connected to tor. in qubes you could use the tor network button in the up right menu bar to check youre network and reconnect to tor

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3

Open check.torproject.org in the browser

4

I clicked on ‘check.torproject.org’ link and i got to a page that says:
"Congratulations. This browser is configured to use Tor’.

This is a relief. But I just updated the Tor browser (a window popped up when using the anon-whonix Tor Browser. After updated and restarting, I got a purple window which said:
“Your connection to Tor is not being managed by Tor Browser. Some OSes (like Tails) will manage it for you or you could have setup a custom configuration.”
I clicked on the ‘test your connection’ link and it took me to the same Congrats page with the green onion.

I’ll head over to the Tor project to learn more about the network.

5

If youre using whonix gateway, you could also right click on the icon in the taskbar and see your circuit info.

6

Also related to whonix gateway, this is not surprising. The Whonix developers configure TOR browser to make sure that you don’t end up in a “TOR over TOR” situation. I haven’t looked at exactly how the Whonix developers configure everything, but their manual instructions say to disable TOR on the browser end and let the gateway handle it, and I expect that their preconfigured version would do the same thing. So the notice is actually a good thing, even though it’s also good to be alarmed if you were not expecting it.

7

That also applies to Whonix inside of Qubes OS (aka Qubes-Whonix). Tor Browser runs in one qube, and the Tor daemon runs in a separate qube. This way, if Tor Browser is ever compromised while you’re browsing the web, for example, the attacker won’t be able to compromise your Tor connection, because it’s running in a separate qube to which the attacker does not have access.

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