Table Of Contents

Introduction Installation Configuration

OnionCat¶
An IP-Transparent Tor Hidden Service Connector

Welcome to the homepage of OnionCat, here you'll find all information about OnionCat.

What is OnionCat?¶

OnionCat creates a transparent IP layer on top of  Tor's hidden services. It transmits any
kind of IP-based data transparently through the Tor network on a location hidden basis.

You can think of it as a point-to-multipoint VPN between hidden services.

OnionCat is based on anonymizing transport layers like  Tor.

Feel free to contact eagle ( bf@abenteuerland.at) or creo ( creo-ocat@blackmesa.at) for any

questions or suggestions.

Why should you use OnionCat?¶

It allows users to anonymously access Internet services. Its architecture guarantees that
the real IP of users cannot be revealed in any way.

Tor also provides so-called Hidden Services. Those are services which are hidden within the
Tor network. This means that not only the user

stays anonymous but also the service (destination). Hidden services have several benefits
but unfortunately they are not very user-friendly

and they have some protocol restrictions. OnionCat manages to build a complete IP
transparent VPN based on those hidden services, provides

a simple well-known interface and has the potential to create an anonymous global network
which could evolve to a feature- and information-rich

network like we know the plain Internet today.

News¶

 Article about OnionCat published in German edition of the  Hakin9 Magazine (issue
2/2010): "Ein anonymes Internet".
 26C3 is over. We did a lighning talk and had several discussions with people
interested in OnionCat. Have a look at the  project page of the 26C3-Wiki.
 This Wiki is now available from within  I2P at
http://japcn2nmte7ghnl3llew3p2qpkkz5bwxofgyzfenkex5oui3q45a.b32.i2p/onionca
t/.
  First version of GarliCat - OnionCat for  I2P - released -> Garlicat-HOWTO,
download.
 Meet us in Berlin at the  26C3
 Initial osx package is available, tun driver already included, read license in installer
file: ocat/download/Osx/Onioncat.mpkg.zip
 Jabber Service available under: fd87:d87e:eb43:41b0:a32:f057:6dba:b205
jabber.onion.aio jabber domain: jabber.onion.aio
 Ubuntu Packages can be downloaded from
https://launchpad.net/~fhasex20/+archive/ppa, Debian packages comming soon
 Ubuntu Packages and Debian packages are ready to build
 Talk on 25th Chaos Communication Congress accepted. See Schedule for further
information.
 Serious memory bug fixed in OnionCat 0.1.9 release 397.
 OnionCat mailing list  ocat-talk@cypherpunk.at available (send mail to  ocat-talk-
subscribe@cypherpunk.at for subscription).
 See Services for available services.
 IRC CHANGED IP ADDRESS!!! See Services.

Volunteer¶

There are many things you can do. Have a look at the Volunteer page.

Download¶

Have a look at the Installation page or go to the download directory directly.

Licensing¶

The source code is released under the . Feel free to use it under these
conditions.
Installation of OnionCat¶
To install OnionCat there are basically two ways:

=> Install with a package manager. See the OnionCat  packages page.

=> If no packages are available for your OS then follow the appropriate guide.

InstallationUnix

InstallationWindowsXp

InstallationMacOs

Table Of Contents
Introduction Installation Configuration

Unix¶

Please note that there cerveral Unix packages available at our  download page. If for some
reason this installer does not work, please follow this guide for the manual installation.

Requirements¶

=> Tor has to be installed and running. See the  Tor documentation for help.

The OnionCat Url is located at /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/hostname

=> C compiler is needed to compile the source code. For example GNU gcc and the GNU
make utility.

=> You need root privileges to install OnionCat You can do this by entering: su root.

Preparation¶

=> Prepare a folder in your file system that will hold the OnionCat files. For example
/etc/OnionCat

mkdir /etc/OnionCat

=>  Download the latest OnionCat tar package. This is a compressed file that contains all
the needed OnionCat files.

This can allso be done by using SVN => svn checkout

http://www.cypherpunk.at/svn/onioncat/trunk onioncat
Exctraction of the tar file¶

We will now try to extract the tar file to the folder we created in our file system.

=> Go to the folder where you downloaded your tar file to.

=> Type tar xf TARFILE (for example: tar xf onioncat-0.2.2.r540.tar.gz). This will
extract the package to the folder ./onioncat-0.2.2.r540/.

For more information you can use the tar –-help function.

Configuration¶

By running the configuration, OnionCat will be setup for the installation.

First go inside the folder we have just created with tar and type ./configure.

This will give some output

Compiling¶

Now we are going to compile OnionCat. First make sure you are still root (su root) and are
located in the extracted OnionCat folder.

=> make

This will configure the make utility. More information can be found on the  Make website

=> make install

This will compile and install OnionCat

Windows XP¶

Please note that there is a WindowsXP installer available at our  download page. If for some
reason this installer does not work, please follow this guide for the manual installation.

Also please report any problems so we can improve the installer. After running the installer
there will be a Installationlog.txt file located in the program files folder of OnionCat. Please
add this file while reporting an error.

Requirements¶

=> Tor has to be installed and running. See the  Tor documentation for help.

Note: Look at the configuration window of the Vidalia Control Panel to figure out where the torrc file is located. You need to add 2 lines:

HiddenServiceDir C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\Administrator\Anwendungsdaten\hidden_service\

HiddenServicePort 8060 127.0.0.1:8060

The HiddenServiceDir should meet your OS language requirements.

Preparation¶

First we need to setup a POSIX-like environment (Portable Operating System Interface for
Unix). This is done with  Cygwin.

=> Download and run the  Cygwin installer.

=> click continue until you reach the Package Selection menu.

Select gcc: C-Compiler and make:GNU 'make utility' (devil section)

=> Continue the installation process until finished

OnionCat is Ipv6-based but cygwin unfortunately does not support Ipv6 at the moment.

Thats why we need to install the ipv6 patch.

=> Download and install the  ipv6 patch.

All you need to do is download the package and extract it to the Cygwin directory
(c:/cygwin)

Replace if necessary.

The next step is to install the  TAP driver.

To do this, we are going to install !OpenVPN. ! OpenVPN itself is not necessary but it
contains the TAP-driver that is needed.

=>Download  OpenVPN and during the installation unselect everything but the TAP driver.

=> Prepare a folder in your file system that will hold the OnionCat files. For example
/etc/OnionCat

mkdir /etc/OnionCat

=>  Download the latest OnionCat tar package. This is a compressed file that contains all
the needed OnionCat files.

Exctraction of the tar file¶

We will now try to extract the tar file to the folder we created in our file system.

=> go to the folder where you downloaded your tar file to.
=> tar -xf TARFILE TARGET (for example: tar -xf thisIsAtarFile /etc/OnionCat )

For more information you can use the tar –-help function.

Configuration¶

By running the configuration, OnionCat will be setup for the installation.

First go inside the folder we have just created with tar => ./configure

This will give some output

Compiling¶

Now we are going to compile OnionCat. First make sure u are still root (su root) and are
located in the extracted OnionCat folder.

=> make

This will configure the make utility. More information can be found on the  Make website

=> make install

This will compile and install OnionCat

Shortcuts¶

Create a shortcut to ocat.exe on a location you desire. Then open the propertys of the
shortcut and add the OionUrl as a parameter. This URL can be found in the hidden_service
directory that you configured in the torrc file.

Here is an example of the Target of the shortcut: c:\program

files\opensource\OnionCat\ocat.exe -B rkotk6n74tgkqdfu.onion

Configuration And Usage¶

On Ubuntu you can just downlad the .deb here
https://launchpad.net/~fhasex20/+archive/ppa

For WindowsXP users who installed OnionCat with the installer, there will be a shortcut to
OnionCat on the Desktop and in the Start Menu folder. Just run this file and OnionCat will
start to initialize.

Otherwise proceed as described below:

1. Download OnionCat compile and install it. In your hidden service directory
(HiddenServiceDir) there should be a file called hostname. It contains your .onion
URL.
1. Now run OnionCat as root.

2. # ocat <your_onion_hostname>

It will create the TUN device and then change the UID to an unprivileged user
immediately.

3. Go to another shell and run ifconfig. You should now see a TUN device with an IPv6
address assigend. If that's not the case, i.e. there's no IPv6 address, configure it
manually (OnionCat currently is a development release). First figure out your IPv6
address by issuing the following command:

4. # ocat -i <your_onion_hostname>

It will output your IPv6 address. Then enter

# ifconfig tun0 add <your_IPv6_address>/48 up

5. Test it. We currently provide an OnionCat service on

fd87:d87e:eb43:f947:ad24:ec81:8abe:753e and on
fd87:d87e:eb43:edb1:8e4:3588:e546:35ca.3 Enter the following command and
wait:

6. $ ping6 fd87:d87e:eb43:f947:ad24:ec81:8abe:753e

After some time you sould get ping responses.

PING
fd87:d87e:eb43:f947:ad24:ec81:8abe:753e(fd87:d87e:eb43:f947:ad
24:ec81:8abe:753e) 56 data bytes

64 bytes from fd87:d87e:eb43:f947:ad24:ec81:8abe:753e:

icmp_seq=149 ttl=64 time=3387 ms

64 bytes from fd87:d87e:eb43:f947:ad24:ec81:8abe:753e:

icmp_seq=150 ttl=64 time=4418 ms

64 bytes from fd87:d87e:eb43:f947:ad24:ec81:8abe:753e:

icmp_seq=151 ttl=64 time=3669 ms

64 bytes from fd87:d87e:eb43:f947:ad24:ec81:8abe:753e:

icmp_seq=152 ttl=64 time=5650 ms

The time until you get the first response can be very long! That's the time Tor
needs to build the circuit to the hidden service. During our tests this sometimes
took more then one minute. Now open your favorite browser and enter the
following URL or just click on it:
http://[fd87:d87e:eb43:f683:64ac:73f9:61ac:9a00]/ . You should see the
OnionCat directory service page "dot.dog" (If something goes wrong maybe your
 browser does not understand this kind of IPv6 address escaping but it works with
Firefox 2.x for sure.).

7. Now you should be able to run any application as long as there is OnionCat on both
ends. Note that the application must be IPv6-aware.