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Comment by ryanl0l | Hacker News Reader

The Tor hidden service setup process seems extremely simple to me.

First google result I get for "tor hidden service instructions" is https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-hidden-service.html.en which explains the two config lines you need to add to create a hidden service

Literally all you have to do is add this into your config file.

  HiddenServiceDir /hidden/service/path
  HiddenServicePort $EXTERNALPORT $INTERNALIP:$INTERNALPORT

If you're hosting anything at all this shouldn't be even remotely difficult.

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How do I setup multiple ports? How do I setup multiple services? How do I get multiple .oninon domains?

By spending 5 seconds on google, or alternatively by using your intuition.

Googling "hidden service multiple ports" instantly answers every single one of your questions, and the answers are rather obvious.

Who would've thought that adding a new port is as easy as just adding another port definition?

Honestly, if this is a problem you shouldn't be trying to host hidden services by yourself anyway. Even if Tor took literally one click to set up the other software will still fuck you, like apaches mod-status.

That is rather hostile, but in any event that is only one of the things I asked. There are two other questions.

How do I get multiple .onion domains and how do I back up my keys so I can keep my domain?

Still, there are a lot of things that aren't very evident. It's just a bad experience in general.

We can have obscure documentation only accessible on the tor website, or when you install tor you could get a nice command interface like something presented by UFW.

One will lead to better configurations, the other will lead to mistakes and loss of data.

> How do I get multiple .onion domains

Repeat HiddenServiceDir

> how do I back up my keys so I can keep my domain?

Backup the contents of HiddenServiceDir

What you are saying is "it techs 5 minutes to somebody who knows what he is doing", which is precisely what's OP would like to change. You want more less tech saavy people to be able to create those nodes.

No, it's all very well and clearly explained in the official Tor Project documentation, in the section on hidden services. That link was already posted in this thread, yet the original poster still complains about insufficient documentation. His subsequent question about multiple ports was also clearly answered in the same place.

I think the problem here is simply that some people refuse to read documentation, even after they are provided with a direct link to it. Sounds about right from my personal experience with online tech communities.

When you use VLC, OpenOffice or Firefox, you don't read the documentation. I think that's what OP targets.

Talk for yourself, I've read VLC and LibreOffice documentation...

Setting up hidden services should not be that easy, unless it's the application itself doing it.

Making these things too easy results in very real damage when somewhat clueless people think they're capable of operating these things by themselves.

No, I'm not saying it takes 5 minutes. I'm saying it takes 5 seconds.

You google "hidden service multiple ports" (sans quotes), and the very first result answers every single one of his questions.

You only need to scroll down the page to see the super self explanatory config examples.

  HiddenServiceDir /usr/local/etc/tor/hidden_service/
  HiddenServicePort 80 127.0.0.1:8080

  HiddenServiceDir /usr/local/etc/tor/other_hidden_service/
  HiddenServicePort 6667 127.0.0.1:6667
  HiddenServicePort 22 127.0.0.1:22

If that doesn't tell you how to set up multiple hidden services and multiple ports, you should seriously get someone else to set up the hidden service for you. Some people just aren't competent enough to do it, just as not all of us are heart surgeons.

If you can't configure Tor, you certainly won't be able to sufficiently harden the applications that you're trying to hide.

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