How to properly use tor-privoxy Ruby gem? - ruby

Question

I am using tor-privoxy Ruby gem. According to this page: https://github.com/pirj/tor-privoxy
I installed "tor" and "privoxy" packages on my Arch Linux installation. I issued commands:
sudo systemctl start privoxy.service
sudo systemctl start tor.service
Status of the services, by "systemctl status privoxy.service" and "systemctl status tor.service":
● tor.service - Anonymizing Overlay Network
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/tor.service; enabled)
Active: active (running) since Thu 2014-06-26 16:27:44 CEST; 1 weeks 5 days ago
Main PID: 454 (tor)
CGroup: /system.slice/tor.service
└─454 /usr/bin/tor -f /etc/tor/torrc
Jul 08 16:28:28 bridgelinux Tor[454]: Application request when we haven't used client functionality late...gain.
Jul 08 16:28:40 bridgelinux Tor[454]: We now have enough directory information to build circuits.
Jul 08 16:28:41 bridgelinux Tor[454]: Tor has successfully opened a circuit. Looks like client functiona...king.
Jul 08 17:20:05 bridgelinux Tor[454]: Socks version 65 not recognized. (Tor is not an http proxy.)
Jul 08 17:20:05 bridgelinux Tor[454]: Fetching socks handshake failed. Closing.
Jul 08 18:01:25 bridgelinux Tor[454]: Socks version 65 not recognized. (Tor is not an http proxy.)
Jul 08 18:01:25 bridgelinux Tor[454]: Fetching socks handshake failed. Closing.
Jul 08 18:10:04 bridgelinux systemd[1]: Started Anonymizing Overlay Network.
Jul 08 18:10:13 bridgelinux systemd[1]: Started Anonymizing Overlay Network.
Jul 08 18:14:34 bridgelinux systemd[1]: Started Anonymizing Overlay Network.
Hint: Some lines were ellipsized, use -l to show in full.
and
● privoxy.service - Privoxy Web Proxy With Advanced Filtering Capabilities
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/privoxy.service; disabled)
Active: active (running) since Tue 2014-07-08 16:09:16 CEST; 2h 8min ago
Process: 8554 ExecStart=/usr/bin/privoxy --pidfile /run/privoxy.pid --user privoxy.privoxy /etc/privoxy/config (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 8555 (privoxy)
CGroup: /system.slice/privoxy.service
└─8555 /usr/bin/privoxy --pidfile /run/privoxy.pid --user privoxy.privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
Jul 08 16:09:16 bridgelinux systemd[1]: Started Privoxy Web Proxy With Advanced Filtering Capabilities.
Jul 08 18:17:55 bridgelinux systemd[1]: Started Privoxy Web Proxy With Advanced Filtering Capabilities.
My Ruby script looks like:
require 'mechanize'
require 'tor-privoxy'
require 'net/telnet'
def tor
privoxy_agent ||= TorPrivoxy::Agent.new '127.0.0.1', '', {8118 => 9050} do |agent|
sleep 20
puts "New IP is #{agent.ip}"
end
return privoxy_agent
end
def switch_endpoint
localhost = Net::Telnet::new("Host" => "localhost", "Port" => "9050", "Timeout" => 10, "Prompt" => /250 OK\n/)
localhost.cmd('AUTHENTICATE ""') { |c| print c; throw "Cannot authenticate to Tor" if c != "250 OK\n" }
localhost.cmd('signal NEWNYM') { |c| print c; throw "Cannot switch Tor to new route" if c != "250 OK\n" }
localhost.close
end
agent=tor
It shows that my IP adress remained the original one. When I try to call "switch_endpoint" method, I get an error: "ArgumentError: uncaught throw "Cannot authenticate to Tor"
However when I issue this command at bash prompt:
torify wget -qO- https://check.torproject.org/ | grep -i congratulations
I get no error, and it shows that I was able to connect to Tor network.
What can I do to make Tor-Privoxy work with Ruby and Mechanize?

Answer 1

I ran into the same problem, you can see in the logs that your authenticate command was refused by tor :
Socks version 65 not recognized. (Tor is not an http proxy.)
I managed to send telnet command to Tor using Socksify instead of tor-privoxy. You don't need privoxy anymore if you use socksify.
Here is a working example to dynamically swich Tor circuit :
First start Tor specifying password, control port and socks port:
tor --CookieAuthentication 0 --HashedControlPassword "" --ControlPort 9050 --SocksPort 50001
Then you can try this in ruby :
require 'net/telnet'
require 'socksify'
require 'mechanize'
original_ip = Mechanize.new.get("http://bot.whatismyipaddress.com").content
puts "original IP is : #{original_ip}"
# socksify will forward traffic to Tor so you dont need to set a proxy for Mechanize from there
TCPSocket::socks_server = "127.0.0.1"
TCPSocket::socks_port = "50001"
tor_port = 9050
2.times do
#Switch IP
localhost = Net::Telnet::new("Host" => "localhost", "Port" => "#{tor_port}", "Timeout" => 10, "Prompt" => /250 OK\n/)
localhost.cmd('AUTHENTICATE ""') { |c| print c; throw "Cannot authenticate to Tor" if c != "250 OK\n" }
localhost.cmd('signal NEWNYM') { |c| print c; throw "Cannot switch Tor to new route" if c != "250 OK\n" }
localhost.close
sleep 5
new_ip = Mechanize.new.get("http://bot.whatismyipaddress.com").content
puts "new IP is #{new_ip}"
end