Vidalia can't start tor, complains of permission denied to ~/.vidalia/torrc

[akwala]

Started happening after update to Tor v0.2.3.17-beta -- see log entries below.

System: Ubuntu 11.10 amd64

Jun 16 !17:24:37.602 [Notice] Tor v0.2.3.17-beta (git-122aff63b4ef3ab7) running on Linux.
Jun 16 !17:24:37.602 [Notice] Tor can't help you if you use it wrong! Learn how to be safe at ​https://www.torproject.org/download/download#warning
Jun 16 !17:24:37.602 [Notice] This version is not a stable Tor release. Expect more bugs than usual.
Jun 16 !17:24:37.602 [Warning] Could not open "/home/myname/.vidalia/torrc": Permission denied
Jun 16 !17:24:37.602 [Warning] Unable to open configuration file "/home/myname/.vidalia/torrc".Jun 16 !17:24:37.602 [Error] Reading config failed--see warnings above.

[arma]

Is there some reason to believe that apparmor is involved in this bug report?

[rransom]

Replying to arma:

Is there some reason to believe that apparmor is involved in this bug report?

Yes. It is far more likely that the AppArmor sandbox for tor forbids access to $HOME/.vidalia/torrc than that any other set of permissions for $HOME, $HOME/.vidalia, or $HOME/.vidalia/torrc permit Vidalia to access $HOME/.vidalia/torrc, but do not permit a copy of Tor started by Vidalia in the same user account to access $HOME/.vidalia/torrc.

[rransom]

katmagic mentioned aa-exec. Perhaps the startup script for the system-wide Tor should use it, so its AppArmor profile doesn't have to geef every Tor instance run on the system.

[akwala]

Replying to arma:

Is there some reason to believe that apparmor is involved in this bug report?

FYI: I disabled the apparmor profile for usr.sbin.tor. Upon rebooting after that, Vidalia was able to launch Tor.

[weasel]

Please try the new tor package (0.2.3.17-beta-2*).

[akwala]

Replying to weasel:

Please try the new tor package (0.2.3.17-beta-2*).

Yep, the latest version fixes the issue -- 0.2.3.17-beta (git-8b7adb27cb77d600). Apparently, the fix was to remove the usr.sbin.tor Apparmor profile.