Whonix-Gateway ™ Traffic: Transparent Proxying

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Introduction[edit]

All traffic originating from Whonix-Workstation ™ and Whonix-Gateway ™ is routed over Tor. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]

Whonix-Workstation ™ has the transparent proxying feature enabled by default. (You could disable it if you wanted to.)

Whonix-Gateway ™ has by default no transparent proxying feature.

The same in other words: Whonix-Gateway ™ by default transparently proxies traffic originating from Whonix-Workstation ™, but does not transparently proxy traffic that is generated by Whonix-Gateway ™.

Instructions below document how you could enable it. There are no known use cases besides leak testing.

How-to: Enable Transparent Proxying for Whonix-Gateway ™ own Traffic[edit]

Advanced users only!
Usually recommended against and unnecessary!

Modify Whonix-Gateway ™ User Firewall Settings.

Note: If no changes have yet been made to Whonix ™ Firewall Settings, then the Whonix ™ User Firewall Settings File /usr/local/etc/whonix_firewall.d/50_user.conf appears empty (because it does not exist). This is expected.

If using Qubes-Whonix ™, complete these steps.
In Whonix-Gateway ™ App Qube. Make sure folder /usr/local/etc/whonix_firewall.d exists.

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/etc/whonix_firewall.d

Qubes App Launcher (blue/grey "Q") → Whonix-Gateway ™ App Qube (commonly called sys-whonix) → Whonix ™ User Firewall Settings

If using a graphical Whonix-Gateway ™, complete these steps.

Start Menu → Applications → Settings → User Firewall Settings

If using a terminal-only Whonix-Gateway ™, complete these steps.

In Whonix-Gateway ™, open the whonix_firewall configuration file in an editor.

sudoedit /usr/local/etc/whonix_firewall.d/50_user.conf

For more help, press on Expand on the right.

Note: This is for informational purposes only! Do not edit /etc/whonix_firewall.d/30_whonix_gateway_default.conf.

Note: The Whonix ™ Global Firewall Settings File /etc/whonix_firewall.d/30_whonix_gateway_default.conf contains default settings and explanatory comments about their purpose. By default, the file is opened read-only and is not meant to be directly edited. Below, it is recommended to open the file without root rights. The file contains an explanatory comment on how to change firewall settings. 

## Please use "/etc/whonix_firewall.d/50_user.conf" for your custom configuration,
## which will override the defaults found here. When {{project_name_long}} is updated, this
## file may be overwritten.

See also Whonix modular flexible .d style configuration folders.

To view the file, follow these instructions.

If using Qubes-Whonix ™, complete these steps.

Qubes App Launcher (blue/grey "Q") → Template: whonix-gw-16 → Whonix Global Firewall Settings

If using a graphical Whonix-Gateway ™, complete these steps.

Start Menu → Applications → Settings → Global Firewall Settings

If using a terminal-only Whonix-Gateway ™, complete these steps.

In Whonix-Gateway ™, open the whonix_firewall configuration file in an editor. nano /etc/whonix_firewall.d/30_whonix_gateway_default.conf

Add the following content.

GATEWAY_TRANSPARENT_TCP=1 GATEWAY_TRANSPARENT_DNS=1

Save.

Reload Whonix-Gateway ™ Firewall.

If you are using Qubes-Whonix ™, complete the following steps.

Qubes App Launcher (blue/grey "Q") → Whonix-Gateway ™ ProxyVM (commonly named sys-whonix) → Reload Whonix ™ Firewall

If you are using a graphical Whonix-Gateway ™, complete the following steps.

Start Menu → Applications → System → Reload Whonix ™ Firewall

If you are using a terminal-only Whonix-Gateway ™, run. sudo whonix_firewall

Open file /usr/local/etc/torrc.d/50_user.conf in a text editorarchive.org of your choice with sudoedit.

If you are using Qubes-Whonix ™, complete the following steps.

Qubes App Launcher (blue/grey "Q") → Whonix-Gateway ™ ProxyVM (commonly named sys-whonix) → Tor User Config (Torrc)

If you are using a graphical Whonix-Gateway ™, complete the following steps.

Start Menu → Applications → Settings → /usr/local/etc/torrc.d/50_user.conf

If you are using a terminal-only Whonix-Gateway ™, complete the following steps. sudoedit /usr/local/etc/torrc.d/50_user.conf

Add the following content.

TransPort 127.0.0.1:9041 DnsPort 127.0.0.1:54

Save.

Reload Tor.

After changing Tor configuration, Tor must be reloaded for changes to take effect.

Note: If Tor does not connect after completing all these steps, then a user mistake is the most likely explanation. Recheck /usr/local/etc/torrc.d/50_user.conf and repeat the steps outlined in the sections above. If Tor then connects successfully, all the necessary changes have been made.

If you are using Qubes-Whonix ™, complete the following steps.

Qubes App Launcher (blue/grey "Q") → Whonix-Gateway ™ ProxyVM (commonly named 'sys-whonix') → Reload Tor

If you are using a graphical Whonix-Gateway ™, complete the following steps.

Start Menu → Applications → Settings → Reload Tor

If you are using a terminal-only Whonix-Gateway ™, click HERE for instructions.

Complete the following steps.

Reload Tor.

sudo service tor@default reload

Check Tor's daemon status.

sudo service tor@default status

It should include a a message saying. 

Active: active (running) since ...

In case of issues, try the following debugging steps.

Check Tor's config.

sudo -u debian-tor tor --verify-config

The output should be similar to the following. 

Sep 17 17:40:41.416 [notice] Read configuration file "/usr/local/etc/torrc.d/50_user.conf".
Configuration was valid

Test if you wish.

UWT_DEV_PASSTHROUGH=1 curl --tlsv1.3 -H 'Host: check.torproject.org' -k https://116.202.120.181

See Also[edit]

Footnotes[edit]

  1. ↑ Since Whonix ™ version 0.2.1 Whonix-Gateway ™ traffic is also routed over Tor. In this way, use of Whonix ™ is hidden from persons or systems observing the network.
  2. ↑ To preserve the anonymity of a user's Whonix-Workstation ™ activities, it is not necessary to torify Whonix-Gateway ™ own traffic.
  3. ↑ For reader interest: If DNS settings on Whonix-Gateway ™ are changed in /etc/resolv.conf, this only affects Whonix-Gateway ™ own DNS requests issued by applications using the system's default DNS resolver. By default, no applications issuing network traffic on Whonix-Gateway ™ use the system's default DNS resolver. All applications installed by default on Whonix-Gateway ™ that issue network traffic (apt, systemcheckarchive.org, sdwdate) are explicitly configured, or forced by uwt wrappers, to use their own Tor SocksPort (see Stream Isolation).
  4. ↑ Whonix-Workstation ™ default applications are configured to use separate Tor SocksPorts (see Stream Isolation), thereby not using the system's default DNS resolver. Any applications in Whonix-Workstation ™ that are not configured for stream isolation - for example nslookup - will use the default DNS server configured in Whonix-Workstation ™ (via /etc/network/interfaces), which is the Whonix-Gateway ™. Those DNS requests are redirected to Tor's DnsPort by Whonix-Gateway ™ firewall. Whonix-Gateway ™ /etc/resolv.conf does not affect Whonix-Workstation ™ DNS requests.
  5. ↑ Traffic generated by the Tor process itself which runs by Debian default under user debian-tor originating from Whonix-Gateway ™ can use the internet normally. This is because user debian-tor is exempted in Whonix-Gateway ™ Firewall, allowed to use the "normal" internet.
  6. ↑ The Tor software (as of 0.4.5.6) (and no changed were announced at time of writing) almost exclusively uses TCP traffic. See also Tor wiki page, chapter UDP. For DNS, see next footnote.
  7. ↑ Tor does not require, use functional (system) DNS for most functionality. IP addresses of Tor directory authorities are hardcoded in the Tor software as per Tor upstream default. Exceptions include:
    • proxy settings using proxies with host names rather than IP addresses
    • the Tor pluggable transport meek lite to resolve domains used in setting url=, front= to IP addresses.
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