onionpipe

Onion addresses for anything.

onionpipe forwards ports on the local host to remote Onion addresses as Tor hidden services and vice-versa.

Why would I want to use this?

onionpipe is a decentralized way to create virtually unstoppable global network tunnels.

For example, you might want to securely publish and access a personal service from anywhere in the world, across all sorts of network obstructions -- your ISP doesn't allow ingress traffic to your home lab, your clients might be in heavily firewalled environments (public WiFi, mobile tether), etc.

With onionpipe, that service doesn't need a public IPv4 or IPv6 ingress. You can publish services with a globally-unique persistent onion address, and share access securely and privately to your own allowlist of authorized keys.

You don't need to rely on, and share your personal data with for-profit services (like Tailscale, ZeroTier, etc.) to get to it.

What can I do with it right now?

onionpipe sets up socket forwarding tunnels. It's like socat(1), for onions.

Export services on local networks to onion addresses

Export localhost port 8000 to a temporary, one-time remote onion address.

onionpipe 8000

Export localhost port 8000 to temporary remote onion port 80. ~ is shorthand for the forward between source~destination.

onionpipe 8000~80

Export localhost port 8000 to a persistent remote onion address nicknamed 'my-app'.

onionpipe 8000~80@my-app

Nicknames can be re-used in multiple forwarding expressions to reference the same onion address. Let's set up a little web forum for our Minecraft server.

onionpipe 8000~80@minecraft 25565@minecraft

All the forwards without nicknames use the same temporary address.

onionpipe 192.168.1.100:8000~80,8080,9000 9090

Export a UNIX socket to an onion address.

onionpipe /run/server.sock~80

Export to a non-anonymous remote onion service, trading network privacy for possibly reduced latency.

onionpipe --anonymous=false 8000

Import onion services to local network interfaces.

Import a remote onion's port 80 to localhost port 80.

onionpipe xxx.onion:80

Import remote onion port 80 to local port 80 on all interfaces. This can be used for creating an ingress to the onion on public networks.

onionpipe xxx.onion:80~0.0.0.0:80

Running with Docker is simple and easy, the only caveat is that its the container forwarding, so adjust local addresses accordingly.

Forward port 80 on Docker host.

docker run --rm ghcr.io/cmars/onionpipe:main host.docker.internal:80

If you're using Podman, exposing the local host network is another option.

podman run --network=host --rm ghcr.io/cmars/onionpipe:main 8000 

Because local forwarding addresses are DNS resolved, it's very easy to publish hidden services from within Docker Compose or K8s. Check out this nextcloud example (watch the log for the onion address)!

Client auth

Client auth is great for securing personal services over Tor. How to use it:

Alice creates a new client auth public key pair.

onionpipe client new alice

{
  "alice": {
    "identity": "p2pof7vumwsrqqavtovfwqqaw6cqzvtqqe7cjvxt754k6j7blufa"
  }
}

Alice shares this public key with Bob, who forwards an onion service that only Alice can use.

onionpipe --require-auth p2pof7vumwsrqqavtovfwqqaw6cqzvtqqe7cjvxt754k6j7blufa 8000~80@test

2022/02/13 21:25:46 starting tor...
127.0.0.1:8000 => sd6aq2r6jvuoeisrudq7jbqufjh6nck5buuzjmgalicgwrobgfj4lkqd.onion:80

Alice can use her client private key to connect to this onion and forward to a local port.

onionpipe --auth alice sd6aq2r6jvuoeisrudq7jbqufjh6nck5buuzjmgalicgwrobgfj4lkqd.onion:80~7000

2022/02/13 21:29:17 starting tor...
sd6aq2r6jvuoeisrudq7jbqufjh6nck5buuzjmgalicgwrobgfj4lkqd.onion:80 => 127.0.0.1:7000

How do I install it?

Each commit into main triggers an automated release, which publishes a Homebrew tap and Docker image.

Homebrew

brew tap cmars/onionpipe
brew install onionpipe

Docker

The provided Dockerfile builds a minimal image that can run onionpipe in a container with the latest Tor release from the Tor Project. Build and runtime is Debian-based.

Local build

In a local clone of this project,

make onionpipe

The built binary onionpipe will require a tor daemon executable to be in your $PATH.

Static standalone binary with libtor

Should theoretically work on: Linux, Darwin, Android (gomobile) according to the berty.tech/go-libtor README. There are some quirks; see comments in tor/init_libtor.go for details.

In a local clone of this project,

make onionpipe_libtor

This will take a long time the first time you build, because it compiles CGO wrappers for Tor and its dependencies.

You'll need to have C library dependencies installed for the build to work:

• tor
• openssl
• libevent
• zlib

If you're on NixOS, you can run nix-shell in this directory to get these dependencies installed into your shell context.

What features are planned?

Declare forwards and operate from a yaml file rather than CLI arguments.

onionpipe --config config.yaml

Considering a fancy TUI.

Considering a control plane for onionpipe SDN orchestration.

Stay tuned.

How can I contribute?

Donate to the Tor project with your dollar, or by hosting honest proxies and exit nodes. If you like and use this project, support the public infrastructure that benefits us all and makes this wonderful magic possible.