oonibackend 1.1.4

oonibackend: backend infrastructure for ooniprobe
=================================================

.. image:: https://travis-ci.org/TheTorProject/ooni-backend.png?branch=master
:target: https://travis-ci.org/TheTorProject/ooni-backend

.. image:: https://coveralls.io/repos/TheTorProject/ooni-backend/badge.png?branch=master
:target: https://coveralls.io/r/TheTorProject/ooni-backend

oonibackend is used by ooniprobe to discover the addresses of test helpers (via
the bouncer) to submit reports to (via the collector) and to perform some
measurements that require a backend system to talk to (via test helpers).

If you are interested in supporting the OONI project by running this backend
infrastructure follow this guide and then inform OONI developers of the address
of your collector and test helper by sending an email to
ooni-talk@lists.torproject.org.

Dependencies and Installation
=============================

Distro dependencies (Debian)
----------------------------

There are a few dependencies which we recommend you get from your
distribution's archives::

sudo apt-get install build-essential python-dev python-setuptools openssl libsqlite3-dev libffi-dev

Tor
...

You will need a Tor binary on your system. For complete instructions, see
also::

https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-doc-unix.html.en
https://www.torproject.org/docs/rpms.html.en

If you've already got Tor, or plan to compile it yourself from source, great!
You can skip this step. Otherwise, if you're installing Tor (or reinstalling),
you'll want to make sure to get our keyring package in Debian::

echo "deb http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org wheezy main" | \
sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list
gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv EE8CBC9E886DDD89
gpg --export A3C4F0F979CAA22CDBA8F512EE8CBC9E886DDD89 | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install deb.torproject.org-keyring tor tor-geoipdb

Pip (>=1.3.0)
.............

We recommend using the Pip>=1.3.0 because it included several important
security and privacy related patches:

* It forces the use of HTTPS for [PyPI](pypi.python.org).
* and checks package hash sums before installation, with support for hashes
more collision-resistant than MD5.

The least painful way (that we know of) to install a newer Pip is to use Pip's
get-pip script::

# Grab the get-pip installer to make sure we have pip>=1.3.0
curl -O https://raw.github.com/pypa/pip/master/contrib/get-pip.py
sudo python ./get-pip.py ## pip (>=1.3.0) is recommended for security reasons
# And make sure we're actually using the newer one:
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/pip pip /usr/local/bin/pip 0

Virtualenv
..........

We recommend that you use a python virtualenv. The recommended commands for
setting up this up and installing are::

sudo pip install --upgrade virtualenv virtualenvwrapper
# Setup the virtualenv directory:
export WORKON_HOME=~/.virtualenvs && mkdir -p $WORKON_HOME
source /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh
# Clone ooni-backend:
git clone https://github.com/TheTorProject/ooni-backend.git && cd ooni-backend
# Create the virtualenv for ooni-backend...
mkvirtualenv -a $PWD --unzip-setuptools --setuptools --no-site-packages oonib
# ...and install ooni-backend (sudo is not necessary since we're in a virtualenv):
pip install -r requirements.txt --use-mirrors
# Note: it is important that you install the requirements before you run
# the setup.py script. If you fail to do so they will be downloaded over
# plaintext.
python setup.py install

Running an OONI collector
=========================

Configure oonib
---------------

Copy the example config file to ``oonib.conf``::

cp oonib.conf.example oonib.conf

Then edit your configuration to fit your needs. The fields you should probably
end up changing are ``report_dir`` (the public web server directory where you
would like ooni-probe clients to be able to submit reports to, for example, if
the clients should submit POSTs to https://abcdef0123456789.onion/report then
this would simply be ``'report'``) and ``tor_datadir`` (where you would
like the spawned Tor process to keep its data). If you compiled Tor yourself,
you'll likely want to specify it for the ``tor_binary`` option.

Generate self signed certs for OONIB
....................................
If you want to use the HTTPS test helper, you will need to create a
certificate::

openssl genrsa -des3 -out private.key 4096
openssl req -new -key private.key -out server.csr
cp private.key private.key.org
# Remove passphrase from key
openssl rsa -in private.key.org -out private.key
openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in server.csr -signkey private.key -out certificate.crt
rm private.key.org
rm server.csr

If you decide to put your certificate and key somewhere else, don't forget to
update oonib.conf options ```helpers.ssl.private_key``` and ```helpers.ssl.certificate``` !

Redirect low ports with iptables
................................

The following iptables commands will map connections on low ports to those
bound by oonib::

# Map port 80 to config.helpers['http-return-json-headers'].port (default: 57001)
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -m tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 57001
# Map port 443 to config.helpers.ssl.port (default: 57006)
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -m tcp --dport 443 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 57006
# Map port 53 udp to config.helpers.dns.udp_port (default: 57004)
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -m udp --dport 53 -j REDIRECT --tor-ports
# Map port 53 tcp to config.helpers.dns.tcp_port (default: 57005)
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -m tcp --dport 53 -j REDIRECT --tor-ports

(For Experts Only) Tor2webmode
..............................

**WARNING**: provides no anonymity! Use only if you know what you are doing!
Tor2webmode will improve the performance of the collector Hidden Service by
discarding server-side anonymity.

You will need to build Tor from source. At the time of writing, the latest
stable Tor is tor-0.2.3.25. You should use the most recent stable Tor.

Example::

git clone https://git.torproject.org/tor.git
git checkout tor-0.2.3.25
git verify-tag -v tor-0.2.3.25

You should see::

object 17c24b3118224d6536c41fa4e1493a831fb29f0a
type commit
tag tor-0.2.3.25
tagger Roger Dingledine <arma@torproject.org> 1353399116 -0500

tag 0.2.3.25
gpg: Signature made Tue 20 Nov 2012 08:11:59 UTC
gpg: using RSA key C218525819F78451
gpg: Good signature from "Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>"
gpg: aka "Roger Dingledine <arma@freehaven.net>"
gpg: aka "Roger Dingledine <arma@torproject.org>"

It is always good idea to verify::

$ gpg --recv-keys C218525819F78451
[...]
$ gpg --fingerprint C218525819F78451
pub 4096R/C218525819F78451 2010-05-07
Key fingerprint = F65C E37F 04BA 5B36 0AE6 EE17 C218 5258 19F7 8451
uid [ full ] Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>
uid [ full ] Roger Dingledine <arma@freehaven.net>
uid [ full ] Roger Dingledine <arma@torproject.org>
sub 4096R/690234AC0DCC0FE1 2013-05-09 [expires: 2014-05-09]

Build Tor with enable-tor2web-mode::

./autogen.sh ; ./configure --enable-tor2web-mode ; make

Copy the tor binary from src/or/tor somewhere and set the corresponding
options in oonib.conf.

To launch oonib on system boot
------------------------------
To launch oonib on startup, you may want to use supervisord (www.supervisord.org)
The following supervisord config will use the virtual environment in
/home/ooni/venv_oonib and start oonib on boot::

[program:oonib]
command=/home/ooni/venv_oonib/bin/python /home/ooni/ooni-probe/bin/oonib
autostart=true
user=oonib
directory=/home/oonib/

Testing with vagrant
--------------------

To test the deployment of oonib you may use [vagrant](http://www.vagrantup.com).

Once installed you will be able to install oonib in the virtual machine via::

vagrant up


ChangeLog
=========
1.1.4 (Wed, 1 Oct 2014)
-----------------------

* Fix bug that lead test helpers to not being started

1.1.3 (Mon, 29 Sep 2014)
-----------------------

* Add support for specifying the report archive path from config file

* Write tor notice level logs to file

1.1.2 (Wed, 3 Sep 2014)
-----------------------

* Fix bug that lead oonib not running when a test helper was disabled.

1.1.1 (Wed, 3 Sep 2014)
-----------------------

* Fix daemonize API breakage when upgrading from Twisted <= 13.1 to >= 13.2
https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/12644

* Make it possible to use a reports directory on a different volume than the
archive directory.

1.1.0 (Tue, 2 Sep 2014)
-----------------------

* Make changes to the bouncer API to make it aware of the policy of collectors.

* Improve the bouncer API to make it more RESTful.

* Add test helper that can be used to discover the DNS resolver being used by
the probe.

* Code coverage and unittesting improvements.

* Fix compatibility with latest txtorcon versions.

1.0.2 (Wed, 21 May 2014)
------------------------

Various code improvements and fixes following the Least Authority release
engineering work.

1.0.0 (Wed, 26 Mar 2014)
------------------------

First public release of oonibackend

* Implements collector for receiver reports.

* Implements HTTPReturnJSONHeaders HTTP helper

* Implement DNS resolver helper

* Implements TCP echo helper

* Implements bouncer for directing directing probes to an adequate collector
and test helper.