tor-request - Simple HTTP client through Tor network

Simple to use

var tr = require('tor-request');
tr.request('https://api.ipify.org', function (err, res, body) {
  if (!err && res.statusCode == 200) {
    console.log("Your public (through Tor) IP is: " + body);
  }
});

Demo

http://tor.jin.fi/

About

A very simple and light wrapper around the fantastic request library to send http(s) requests through Tor.

How

Tor communicates through the SOCKS Protocol so we need to create and configure appropriate SOCKS Agent objects for Node's http and https core libraries using the socks library.

Installation

from npm

npm install tor-request

from source

git clone https://github.com/talmobi/tor-request
cd tor-request
npm install

Requirements

A Tor client.

Either run it yourself locally (recommended) or specify the address for a publically available one.

Tor is available for a multitude of systems.

On Debian/Ubuntu you can install and run a relatively up to date Tor with.

apt-get install tor # should auto run as daemon after install

Misc Linux Command for running Tor as daemon --RunAsDaemon 1 thanks @knoxcard

/usr/bin/tor --RunAsDaemon 1

On OSX you can install with homebrew

brew install tor
tor # run tor

If you'd like to run it as a background process you can add & at the end of the command tor &. I like to have it running on a separate terminal window/tab/tmux/screen during development in order to see what's going on.

On Windows download the tor expert bundle (not the browser), unzip it and run tor.exe.

./Tor/tor.exe # --default-torrc PATH_TO_TORRC

See TorProject.org for detailed installation guides for all platforms.

The Tor client by default runs on port 9050. This is also the default address tor-request uses. You can change it if needed.

tr.setTorAddress(ipaddress, port); // "127.0.0.1" and 9050 by default

(Optional) Configuring Tor, enabling the ControlPort

You need to enable the Tor ControlPort if you want to programmatically refresh the Tor session (i.e., get a new proxy IP address) without restarting your Tor client.

Configure tor by editing the torrc file usually located at /etc/tor/torrc, /lib/etc/tor/torrc, ~/.torrc or /usr/local/etc/tor/torrc - Alternatively you can supply the path yourself with the --default-torrc PATH command line argument. See Tor Command-Line Options

Generate the hash password for the torrc file by running tor --hash-password SECRETPASSWORD.

tor --hash-password giraffe

The last line of the output contains the hash password that you copy paste into torrc

Jul 21 13:08:50.363 [notice] Tor v0.2.6.10 (git-58c51dc6087b0936) running on Darwin with Libevent 2.0.22-stable, OpenSSL 1.0.2h and Zlib 1.2.5.
Jul 21 13:08:50.363 [notice] Tor can't help you if you use it wrong! Learn how to be safe at https://www.torproject.org/download/download#warning
16:AEBC98A6777A318660659EC88648EF43EDACF4C20D564B20FF244E81DF

Copy the generated hash password and add it to your torrc file

# sample torrc file
ControlPort 9051
HashedControlPassword 16:AEBC98A6777A318660659EC88648EF43EDACF4C20D564B20FF244E81DF

Lastly tell tor-request the password to use

var tr = require('tor-request')
tr.TorControlPort.password = 'giraffe'

API

// index.js
module.exports = {
  /**
   * This is a light wrapper function around the famous request nodeJS library, routing it through
   * your Tor client.
   *
   * Use it as you would use the request library - see their superb documentation.
   * https://github.com/request/request
   */
  request: function (url || opts, function (err, res, body))
  
  /**
   * @param {string} ipaddress - ip address of tor server ("127.0.0.1" by default)
   * @param {number} port - port of the tor server (by default tor runs on port 9050)
   */
  setTorAddress: function (ipaddress, port) // defaults to "127.0.0.1" on port 9050
  
  /**
   * Helper object to communicate with the tor ControlPort. Requires an enabled ControlPort on tor.
   */
  TorControlPort: {
    password: "", // default ControlPort password
    host: "127.0.0.1", // default address
    port: 9051, // default ControlPort
    
    /**
     * @param {Array.string} commands - signals that are sent to the ControlPort
     */
    send: function (commands, done(err, data))
  }
  
  /**
   * A set of predefined TorControlPort commands to request and verify tor for a new session (get a new ip to use).
   *
   * @param {function} done - the callback function to tell you when the process is done
   * @param {object} err - null if tor session renewed successfully
   */
  newTorSession: function ( done(err) ) // clears and renews the Tor session (i.e., you get a new IP)
  
}

Custom headers

https://github.com/talmobi/tor-request/issues/13

Refer to the https://github.com/request/request#custom-http-headers to specify your own headers ( like User-Agent ).

basically:

tr.request({ url: 'google.com', headers: { 'user-agent': 'giraffe' }}, function ( err, response, body ) { /*...*/ })

Request Pipe Streaming

request({
 url: 'https://www.google.com.np/images/srpr/logo11w.png',
 strictSSL: true,
 agentClass: require('socks5-https-client/lib/Agent'),
 agentOptions: {
   socksHost: 'my-tor-proxy-host', // Defaults to 'localhost'.
   socksPort: 9050, // Defaults to 1080.
   // Optional credentials
   socksUsername: 'proxyuser',
   socksPassword: 'p@ssw0rd',
 }
}, function(err, res) {
 console.log(err || res.body);
}).pipe(fs.createWriteStream('doodle.png'))

Test

Tests the original request library by connecting to http://api.ipify.org - returning your ip. Then makes a few additional requests, now through tor-request, and makes sure the ip's are different (went through tor).

mocha test/test.js

LICENSE

MIT