Tails

#2 Updated by intrigeri 2014-04-25 11:29:49

> Status changed from New to Confirmed

FWIW, I was leaving this ticket in “New” state as we haven’t decided to remove Vidalia yet.

#9 Updated by anonymous2 2015-02-06 00:02:17

Without Vidalia it is not certain how to:

1. View status of Tor;
2. Trigger “Use new IP address”;
3. Restart Tor.

TorBrowser’s “New identity” button is too deep: it also closes all the tabs while sometimes only new IP address is needed.

I think if Vidalia goes away without any simialar replacement, there can be new menu items like “Applications -> Networking -> Tor control -> {View Tor status/logs/graphs, Use new identity, Restart Tor}”. As a minimal stub those menu items can just open some help pages describing how to make this actions after Vidalia is no more.

#10 Updated by intrigeri 2015-02-07 11:26:21

> Without Vidalia it is not certain how to:

> 1. View status of Tor;

Vidalia only reports duplicate info that we already provide with the “Tor is ready” notification. If you need other status info, please look into arm that is included in Tails too. We’ll need to document that when we remove Vidalia.

> 2. Trigger “Use new IP address”;

This can be triggered with arm and from Tor Browser. We’ll need to document the former when we remove Vidalia.

> 3. Restart Tor.

This can be triggered with NetworkManager applet, by disconnecting from the network and reconnecting. Granted, this is non-obvious and could be documented.

#11 Updated by anonymous2 2015-02-15 13:07:57

>> 3. Restart Tor.
> This can be triggered with NetworkManager applet, by disconnecting from the network and reconnecting. Granted, this is non-obvious and could be documented.

Maybe there can be a menu entry “Restart Tor” that does exaclty this (trigger NM disconnect, then connect again)?

#28 Updated by intrigeri 2016-02-23 01:42:30

I’ll upload Onion Circuits 0.3 to replace Tor Monitor, will ask anonym to merge in time for 2.2~rc1, and he’s OK if I adjust the doc post-RC, in time for 2.2.

#31 Updated by anonym 2016-02-24 00:29:43

Some initial thoughts, and non-blockers, after using torstatus and Onion Circuits:

• I find the hard minimum width slightly troublesome. Onion Circuits sometimes expands the width of the Path column signifucantly, to the point where the window becomes quite unusable with a 800xY resolution, and barely passable with with 1024xY. It seems to occur when Tor does a directory fetch or tries to connect to a hidden service, since a very long will appear in the circuit list. Pruning the fingerprint (which is pretty useless information in the list, and fits better in the “details” view to the right, if we really want to show it anywhere) should be enough to fix this instance of the width problem, but perhaps overly long relay names can trigger it too.

• Perhaps we should consider disabling the torstatus extension when the user disables networking completely in Tails Greeter? The onion icon is of doubtful value in this configuration (well, it tells that Tor is not bootstrapped) and can perhaps make users worry that Tor is running…

• … because the two torstatus icon states are pretty hard to distinguish for someone with poor eye sight. Info leak: e.g. for someone like me currently. For me the “X” just melts into the shade of the onion on the right side, and I have to look quite carefully, and squint a bit, to be sure about what the stat is. IMHO we need something more distinct, like a larger “X” that extends well outside of the shade, or something completely different like the onion being split into two jagged (=> broken) pieces. I know that the current design with the “X”, including its size, is consistent with the one used when the network connection is disabled, but frankly I have issues distinguising that one too. I don’t think we should optimize for slick design and people with hawk vision. :)

I’ll file tickets unless someone disregards them outright, before this ticket is closed. Code review will follow.

#34 Updated by intrigeri 2016-02-27 12:58:00

> * I find the hard minimum width slightly troublesome.

Fully agreed ⇒ please report it to Alan as a bug. The workaround you’re suggesting seems acceptable to me.

> * Perhaps we should consider disabling the torstatus extension when the user disables networking completely in Tails Greeter? The onion icon is of doubtful value in this configuration (well, it tells that Tor is not bootstrapped) and can perhaps make users worry that Tor is running…

I don’t care much either way. But I’m scared of modifying the list of GNOME Shell extensions programmatically at login time: it’s hard to do that in a robust way. So frankly, I doubt that the pros are worth the risk of breaking unrelated stuff. If anyone wants to work on this, fine with me, but they get to deal with the fallout if this causes subtle GNOME Shell breakage :D

> * … because the two torstatus icon states are pretty hard to distinguish for someone with poor eye sight.

I would be surprised if this were the only part of Tails that by default is hard to see for someone with poor eye sight. I’m tempted to suggest you retry with the “Large Text” accessibility feature turned on, since it’s here precisely to address this class of problems.

#35 Updated by anonym 2016-03-06 13:07:34

intrigeri wrote:
> > * I find the hard minimum width slightly troublesome.
>
> Fully agreed ⇒ please report it to Alan as a bug. The workaround you’re suggesting seems acceptable to me.