# Tor Router

*Tor Router* is a simple SOCKS5 forward proxy for distributing traffic across multiple instances of Tor. At startup Tor Router will run an arbitrary number of instances Tor an each request will be sent to a different instance in round-robin fashion. This can be used to increase anonymity, because each request will be sent on a different circut and will most likely use a different exit-node, and also to increase performance since outbound traffic is now split across several instances of Tor.

Tor Router also includes a DNS forward proxy and a HTTP forward proxy as well, which like the SOCKS proxy will distribute traffic across multiple instances of Tor in round-robin fashion. The HTTP forward proxy can be used to access Tor via an HTTP Proxy.

## Building and Running

The only installation requirement is node.js. Tor will be downloaded when the node modules are installed.

To install run: `npm install`
To start run: `bin/tor-router`

To install globally run: `npm install -g`

Alternatively docker can be used. The build will retrieve the latest version of Tor from the offical Tor Project repository.

To build run: `docker build -t znetstar/tor-router .`
To start run: `docker run --rm -it -p 9050:9050 znetstar/tor-router`

## Usage

The following command line switches and their environment variable equivalents are available for use:

|Command line switch|Environment Variable|Description|
|-------------------|--------------------|-----------|
|-f, --config       |                    |Path to a JSON configuration file to use|
|-c, --controlPort	|CONTROL_PORT        |Port the control server will bind to (see below)|
|-j, --instances    |INSTANCES           |Number of Tor instances to spawn|
|-s, --socksPort    |SOCKS_PORT			 |Port the SOCKS proxy will bind to|
|-d, --dnsPort		|DNS_PORT			 |Port the DNS proxy will bind to|
|-h, --httpPort     |HTTP_PORT			 |Port the HTTP proxy will bind to|
|-l, --logLevel		|LOG_LEVEL			 |Log level (defaults to "info") set to "null" to disable logging. To see a log of all network traffic set logLevel to "verbose"|
|-p, --parentDataDirectory|PARENT_DATA_DIRECTORY      |Parent directory that will contain the data directories for the instances|
|-b, --loadBalanceMethod|LOAD_BALANCE_METHOD          |Method that will be used to sort the instances between each request. Currently supports "round_robin" and "weighted".|
|-t, --torPath|TOR_PATH|Provide the path for the Tor executable that will be used| 

For example: `tor-router -j 3 -s 9050` would start the proxy with 3 tor instances and listen for SOCKS connections on 9050.

## Configuration

Using the `--config` or `-f` command line switch you can set the path to a JSON file which can be used to load configuration on startup

The same variable names from the command line switches are used to name the keys in the JSON file.

Example:

```
 {
 	"controlPort": 9077,
 	"logLevel": "debug"
 }
```

Using the configuration file you can set a default configuration for all Tor instances

```
{
	"torConfig": {
		"MaxCircuitDirtiness": "10"
	}
}
```

You can also specify a configuration for individual instances by setting the "instances" field to an array instead of an integer.

Instances can optionally be assigned name and a weight. If the `loadBalanceMethod` config variable is set to "weighted" the weight field will determine how frequently the instance is used. If the instance is assigned a name the data directory will be preserved when the process is killed saving time when Tor is restarted.

```
{
	"loadBalanceMethod": "weighted",
	"instances": [
		{
			"Name": "instance-1"
			"Weight": 10,
			"Config": {
			}
		},
		{
			"Name": "instance-2",
			"Weight": 5,
			"Config": {
			}
		}
	]
}
```

## Control Server

A JSON-RPC 2 TCP Server will listen on port 9077 by default. Using the rpc server the client can add/remove Tor instances and get a new identity (which includes a new ip address) while Tor Router is running.

Example (in node):

```
	const net = require('net');

	let client = net.createConnection({ port: 9077 }, () => {
		let rpcRequest = {
			"method": "createInstances",
			"params": [3], 
			"jsonrpc":"2.0", 
			"id": 1
		};
		client.write(JSON.stringify(rpcRequest));
	});

	client.on('data', (chunk) => {
		let rawResponse = chunk.toString('utf8');
		let rpcResponse = JSON.parse(rawResponse);
		console.log(rpcResponse)
		if (rpcResponse.id === 1) {
			console.log('Three instances have been created!')
		}
	})
```

A full list of available RPC Methods can be [found here](https://github.com/znetstar/tor-router/blob/master/docs/rpc-methods.md)

## Test

Tests are written in mocha, just run `npm test`