Today we will set up the Tor Onion router, and a connecting IPFS Node, that is, the object at each end of one of the green lines below. The Green IPFS node in the picture below represents this gateway. In our case, our IPFS web server is a portal to a whole new network: The Permanent Web.

The destination, in most cases, will be an ordinary web server like Nginx, which will respond to your request by delivering you the resource you requested(for example an HTML page). This 'anonymizing layer' means that when a user requests a web page through the Tor network, it travels through 3 nodes in the Tor network before it reaches its destination. The nodes touching the yellow lines represent the anonymizing layer of the Tor Network. From the Tor Node at the end of this blue line, there are two more connections made with yellow lines. The blue line coming out from this World icon represents the connection that the user makes with the Tor Network. The World at the top of the image represents an internet surfer using the Tor Network and connecting to your Onion domain. The domain you are serving will only be accessible through the Tor Network. These will exist on the same computer (though this is not a necessity).

Today, we will only create one 'Green' IPFS node and it's attached Tor Node. Please do not be scared! I have drawn many nodes, but this is to demonstrate that what we are creating is only one among a much larger network. I have tried to give an outline of the topology of the Network which is todays subject. Introduction - Describing the Network Topology Because we are using IPFS in this tutorial, we wont need to upload any files to be able to use your Onion website, because Tor acts as a gateway to the entire IPFS permanent web.ġ. In another tutorial I will use Nginx as a web server. In this tutorial I will use IPFS as a web server. Tor will put up a layer between your web server and the outside world, but Tor itself is not a web server, this means that you will need both Tor and a web server installed. In this Tutorial I will show you how to set up such a website combined with IPFS so that all of the files on the IPFS network can be available from your Onion domain. There are many websites on what is known as The Darkweb which are only accessible through the Tor Network.

Configuring a tor proxy