Provide Windows expert bundles with unhidden console
Under Windows (others?) Tor's console window is now, sadly, hidden. Plz kindly provide ways NOT to hide it, through a command line and/or "torrc" options ! And I do mean at launch time, not a compile-time selection !
Trac:
Username: Noino
Activity
I guess this is related to tor now being build with
-mwindows: comment:30:ticket:9444. Tor Launcher doesn't have a way to create a subprocess without showing a window, so tor is compiled in a way that makes it not show a window. In the Vidalia days, tor was compiled without-mwindows, but Vidalia started the subprocess with the CREATE_NO_WINDOW flag.Noino, can you provide some more information? How do you run Tor, using the browser bundle or the expert bundle or something else? Do you click on an icon, or run from the command line? Can you provide a screenshot attachment of what it used to look like?
@dcf : I launch the standalone "tor.exe" from Windows "expert bundles". I don't use a separate or integrated "Tor controller". What I wish is access its console window from the desktop. I can mention at least 2 reasons why I find it useful :
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be able to watch (without logging) the messages, warnings, errors including onion URLs, in real time. This is also the simplest way to assert Tor's exact version now ! / And,
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signal Tor to shut itself down (by a contrl-C or control-break signal to the console window) rather than having to use TCP from a controller (or netcat) to send the appropriate message to Tor's "controller port" (which can even be disabled).
My suggestion is to have a command line (or/and Torrc) option to tell Tor to adopt the old behaviour and create an unhidden Tor console for the pleasure of "experts" users if none else...
Trac:
Username: Noino-
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I use also the tor.exe expert bundles for Windows.
In version prior to 0.2.5.10 the output was something like this in the console:
Dec 06 23:16:59.554 [notice] Tor v0.2.4.23 (git-598c61362f1b3d3e) running on Windows 8 with Libevent 2.0.21-stable and OpenSSL 1.0.1h. Dec 06 12:16:59.571 [notice] Opening Socks listener on 127.0.0.1:9050 Dec 06 12:17:00.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 5%: Connecting to directory server. Dec 06 12:17:00.000 [notice] We now have enough directory information to build circuits. Dec 06 12:17:00.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 80%: Connecting to the Tor network. Dec 06 12:17:00.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 85%: Finishing handshake with first hop. Dec 06 12:17:03.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 90%: Establishing a Tor circuit. ................
And you can easily track if the connection was successful or not.
Now with 0.2.5.10 there is no console output. So like Noino said, it will be very good to add an option to have again the old console output behavior for Windows Tor.exe expert bundle.
Thanks!
Trac:
Username: MichaelD76 
Might be something like "Please, compile tor in the Windows expert bundle without
-mwindows." Moving to Tor bundles/installation.Trac:
Summary: option required NOT to hide console to Provide Windows expert bundles with unhidden console
Owner: N/A to erinn
Component: Tor to Tor bundles/installation
Cc: N/A to gk
Version: Tor: 0.2.5.10 to N/A
Type: defect to enhancementNo, but you can try to fake it. https://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2009/01/01/9259142.aspx
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Please restore this feature, I use this a lot and thought the zip file on the site was just a bad upload or something.
We are starting to become increasingly oppressed in the UK, many members of the public with no criminal intentions, are wanting to use TOR.
Please don't cut back on the release types for TOR, the "Expert Bundle" was great to be able to add to portable tools.
Thanks to MichaelD76 for the temporary fix, but please TOR developers, restore the "Expert Bundle".
Thanks for all your work on TOR, a wonderful tool :)
https://www.eff.org//deeplinks/2015/01/britons-you-have-72-hours-stop-snoopers-charter
https://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/campaigning/no-snoopers-charter
Trac:
Username: D4ToR 
I just closed #14782 (moved) as a duplicate of this ticket.
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I just tested this, and I can't do further bug testing without more information. For example, Tor is occasionally not running at all when invoked, and I don't know why. Also, I have been unable to get Tor to produce any kind of log output, so I don't have any way to move forward with further testing to figure out if it's a new bug, or just a misconfiguration. I have returned to using 0.2.4.23. I have not yet tested 0.2.4.12, but the changes described in the blog post about it did not mention anything that would affect this bug report.
Trac:
Username: badon Replying to nickm:
Is there any way to make the behavior of -mwindows selectable at runtime?
Attached console_win.c example of what is allowed to choose during runtime. Most annoying thing is destroyed console on exit, it's possible to attach to console of cmd.exe process (if need and parent, or launch new one for this purpose) but result could be messy.
Is it worth to test with Tor, and what exactly way, or it's better to compile the code as console and gui versions and to ship different one for expert and general bundles?
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Replying to cypherpunks:
build console version for expert bundle
This is not working as you would create a console version for the Tor Browser as well if all is working out as you wish. But we don't want that. Rather only the expert bundles should ship with an unhidden console.
Trac:
Status: needs_review to needs_revision Replying to gk:
Replying to cypherpunks:
build console version for expert bundle
This is not working as you would create a console version for the Tor Browser as well if all is working out as you wish. But we don't want that. Rather only the expert bundles should ship with an unhidden console.
Patch keeping gbuild.zip used for TorBrowser bundle unchanged. You still need to extract expert zip by hands from gitian VM, like it already happens today, but instead of gbuild you can to use expert.zip.
Trac:
Status: needs_revision to needs_informationI can't get what you need then if title says
Provide Windows expert bundles with unhidden consolewhile no such bundles exists because it's only intermediate zip file generated bygitian-tor.yml. This patch generates yet one extra zip that can be used instead for "expert bundles" while keeping TorBrowser unchanged. What you want? What you need?-
Replying to cypherpunks:
Replying to gk:
Replying to cypherpunks:
build console version for expert bundle
This is not working as you would create a console version for the Tor Browser as well if all is working out as you wish. But we don't want that. Rather only the expert bundles should ship with an unhidden console.
Patch keeping gbuild.zip used for TorBrowser bundle unchanged. You still need to extract expert zip by hands from gitian VM, like it already happens today, but instead of gbuild you can to use expert.zip.
Ah, I misread what you wanted. The expert zip is not created by hand today, see: https://gitweb.torproject.org/builders/tor-browser-bundle.git/tree/gitian/mkbundle-windows.sh#n230. Your patch would just build an expert zip which would not get used by the Gitian setup to create the expert bundle.
Replying to gk:
Replying to cypherpunks:
Replying to gk:
Replying to cypherpunks:
build console version for expert bundle
This is not working as you would create a console version for the Tor Browser as well if all is working out as you wish. But we don't want that. Rather only the expert bundles should ship with an unhidden console.
Patch keeping gbuild.zip used for TorBrowser bundle unchanged. You still need to extract expert zip by hands from gitian VM, like it already happens today, but instead of gbuild you can to use expert.zip.
Ah, I misread what you wanted. The expert zip is not created by hand today, see: https://gitweb.torproject.org/builders/tor-browser-bundle.git/tree/gitian/mkbundle-windows.sh#n230. Your patch would just build an expert zip which would not get used by the Gitian setup to create the expert bundle.
Ok then. use tor-win32-expert.zip for expert zip
Replying to cypherpunks:
Replying to gk:
Replying to cypherpunks:
Replying to gk:
Replying to cypherpunks:
build console version for expert bundle
This is not working as you would create a console version for the Tor Browser as well if all is working out as you wish. But we don't want that. Rather only the expert bundles should ship with an unhidden console.
Patch keeping gbuild.zip used for TorBrowser bundle unchanged. You still need to extract expert zip by hands from gitian VM, like it already happens today, but instead of gbuild you can to use expert.zip.
Ah, I misread what you wanted. The expert zip is not created by hand today, see: https://gitweb.torproject.org/builders/tor-browser-bundle.git/tree/gitian/mkbundle-windows.sh#n230. Your patch would just build an expert zip which would not get used by the Gitian setup to create the expert bundle.
Ok then. use tor-win32-expert.zip for expert zip No, it's wrong
Trac:
mkbundle.patchReplying to cypherpunks:
Replying to cypherpunks:
Replying to gk:
Replying to cypherpunks:
Replying to gk:
Replying to cypherpunks:
build console version for expert bundle
This is not working as you would create a console version for the Tor Browser as well if all is working out as you wish. But we don't want that. Rather only the expert bundles should ship with an unhidden console.
Patch keeping gbuild.zip used for TorBrowser bundle unchanged. You still need to extract expert zip by hands from gitian VM, like it already happens today, but instead of gbuild you can to use expert.zip.
Ah, I misread what you wanted. The expert zip is not created by hand today, see: https://gitweb.torproject.org/builders/tor-browser-bundle.git/tree/gitian/mkbundle-windows.sh#n230. Your patch would just build an expert zip which would not get used by the Gitian setup to create the expert bundle.
Ok then. use tor-win32-expert.zip for expert zip No, it's wrong Everything wrong
Trac:
gitian-tor.patchReplying to cypherpunks:
Replying to cypherpunks:
Replying to cypherpunks:
Replying to gk:
Replying to cypherpunks:
Replying to gk:
Replying to cypherpunks:
build console version for expert bundle
This is not working as you would create a console version for the Tor Browser as well if all is working out as you wish. But we don't want that. Rather only the expert bundles should ship with an unhidden console.
Patch keeping gbuild.zip used for TorBrowser bundle unchanged. You still need to extract expert zip by hands from gitian VM, like it already happens today, but instead of gbuild you can to use expert.zip.
Ah, I misread what you wanted. The expert zip is not created by hand today, see: https://gitweb.torproject.org/builders/tor-browser-bundle.git/tree/gitian/mkbundle-windows.sh#n230. Your patch would just build an expert zip which would not get used by the Gitian setup to create the expert bundle.
Ok then. use tor-win32-expert.zip for expert zip No, it's wrong Everything wrong Unrepairable bug.
Trac:
console_win.c-
Trac:
Username: MakotoSnoezepoes -
Under Windows, you can easily modify the existing tor.exe to display a console without rebuilding. Open tor.exe in CFF Explorer, click on "Optional Header", change the Subsystem to "Windows Console" then File->Save. I use CFF Explorer to edit the .exe file, although I'm sure other .exe/.dll/PE format editors would work.
Trac:
Username: Alan -
bug_13819_v3 (https://gitweb.torproject.org/user/gk/tor-browser-bundle.git/commit/?h=bug_13819_v3&id=40023194d6c7f108d58c91f3fbb30ff723384579) in my public repo has a patch up for review.
Trac:
Status: assigned to needs_review
