Skip to content

tor.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
106 lines (72 loc) · 3.17 KB

tor.md

File metadata and controls

106 lines (72 loc) · 3.17 KB

Tor

Warning: Tor support in LDK Server applies only when connecting outbound to .onion Lightning peers. Connections to clearnet peers are not routed through Tor exit nodes. All other connections, including Electrum servers, Esplora endpoints, and Rapid Gossip Sync (RGS) servers, are also not routed through Tor and will use your normal network connection. If you require full network privacy, you should use a local bitcoind node as your chain source. Support for routing these connections through Tor may be added in the future.

LDK Server supports connecting to peers over Tor. This guide covers both outbound connections (connecting to .onion peers) and inbound connections (making your node reachable as a hidden service).

Installing Tor

Follow tor's official installation instructions for your platform: https://support.torproject.org/little-t-tor/getting-started/installing/

The Tor daemon listens on 127.0.0.1:9050 by default.

Outbound Connections

The [tor] section in the config sets a SOCKS proxy for outbound connections to OnionV3 peers:

[tor]
proxy_address = "127.0.0.1:9050"

This requires a running Tor daemon with a SOCKS port. Only connections to .onion peers use the proxy. Connections to IPv4/IPv6 peers, Electrum servers, and Esplora endpoints are not routed through Tor.

Inbound Connections

To make your node reachable as a Tor hidden service, you need to configure Tor itself. LDK Server does not manage this automatically.

1. Configure the Hidden Service

Edit your torrc file (typically /etc/tor/torrc):

HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/ldk-server/
HiddenServicePort 9735 127.0.0.1:9735

This tells Tor to forward incoming connections on port 9735 of the hidden service to your node's local Lightning listening port. Adjust the local port to match your node.listening_addresses config.

2. Restart Tor

sudo systemctl restart tor

3. Get Your Onion Address

After restarting, Tor generates your .onion address:

sudo cat /var/lib/tor/ldk-server/hostname

This outputs something like abcdef...xyz.onion.

4. Configure LDK Server

Set the onion address as an announcement address so other nodes can find you:

[node]
listening_addresses = ["localhost:9735"]
announcement_addresses = ["abcdef...xyz.onion:9735"]

[tor]
proxy_address = "127.0.0.1:9050"
  • listening_addresses: the local address your node actually listens on
  • announcement_addresses: the public address announced to the network (your .onion address)
  • proxy_address: needed so your node can also connect outbound to other .onion peers

5. Verify

After starting LDK Server, confirm your onion address appears in the node info:

ldk-server-cli get-node-info

The node_uris field should include <node_id>@abcdef...xyz.onion:9735. Other nodes can now connect to you over Tor using this URI.

Dual-Stack (Clearnet + Tor)

You can announce both a clearnet address and an onion address:

[node]
listening_addresses = ["0.0.0.0:9735"]
announcement_addresses = ["203.0.113.1:9735", "abcdef...xyz.onion:9735"]

This makes your node reachable over both the public internet and Tor.