ask tor to leave dormant mode

In #28624 (moved), tor was changed to remember dormant state across restarts. Since Tor Browser in nearly every case is started by a real person who expects to access one or more websites after starting the browser, it makes sense to ask tor to come out of dormant mode every time we start tor.

This can be done by issuing a SIGNAL ACTIVE control port command, although we could also ask the network team to add a torrc option to get this behavior.

For more background, see the following tor-dev message thread: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2018-December/013588.html

added TorBrowserTeam201905R component::applications/tor browser owner::brade priority::medium resolution::fixed severity::normal status::closed tbb-backported tbb-rbm type::defect labels

I filed #29357 (moved) to ask the Network Team for an ActiveOnStartup config option. If that is added to tor, we can simple add a line like this to our torrc-defaults file: ActiveOnStartup 1

Trac:
Parent: N/A to #29357 (moved)

hello. #29357 (moved) has been merged.

Replying to asn:

hello. #29357 (moved) has been merged.

Thanks! I removed the parent relationship so you can close #29357 (moved).

We will need to add the following to Tor Browser's torrc-defaults file: DormantCanceledByStartup 1

Trac:
Parent: #29357 (moved) to N/A

Assuming this is something for April.

Trac:
Keywords: N/A deleted, TorBrowserTeam201904 added

Here is a patch: https://gitweb.torproject.org/user/brade/tor-browser-build.git/commit/?h=bug29045-01&id=3685e0fd7900082bfd8fd8b5b771d01a9174c4ee

We need to be careful not to ship this patch if we are not using tor 0.4.x.

Also, should I open another ticket to solve this for TBA? Does it use a torrc-defaults file or do we need to use a different technique on Android to address this issue?

Trac:
Status: new to needs_review
Keywords: TorBrowserTeam201904 deleted, TorBrowserTeam201904R added

I forgot to mention that to test this you can add a line like the following to your torrc: DormantClientTimeout 600 This will cause tor to enter dormant mode after 10 minutes with no client-initiated network activity (this is the minimum allowed setting). If you are watching, you will see a message like the following when the transition to dormant mode occurs: Apr xx xx:00:00.000 [notice] No user activity in a long time: becoming dormant. Then you can exit and restart Tor Browser and make sure tor leaves dormant mode (it will be obvious if it does not, because bootstrapping progress will stay at 0%).

No April anymore, moving review tickets to May.

Trac:
Keywords: TorBrowserTeam201904R deleted, TorBrowserTeam201905R added

Looks good to me. Cherry-picked to master (commit e7c10d72d80c3226802c521b2c591d21dcb2e37f) and marking for backport once we switch 8.5 to the 0.4.x series.

Trac:
Resolution: N/A to fixed
Status: needs_review to closed
Keywords: N/A deleted, tbb-backport added

Replying to mcs:

Here is a patch: https://gitweb.torproject.org/user/brade/tor-browser-build.git/commit/?h=bug29045-01&id=3685e0fd7900082bfd8fd8b5b771d01a9174c4ee

We need to be careful not to ship this patch if we are not using tor 0.4.x.

Also, should I open another ticket to solve this for TBA? Does it use a torrc-defaults file or do we need to use a different technique on Android to address this issue?

We don't ship a torrc-defaults file on our own in the mobile build, thus I opened #30380 (moved) for the mobile part.

Trac:
Component: Applications/Tor Launcher to Applications/Tor Browser
Keywords: N/A deleted, tbb-rbm added

Cherry-picked to maint-8.5 (commit 7818024b9c0af7b53623cf1dd4b493f8146ff9bb) for 8.5.4.

Trac:
Keywords: tbb-backport deleted, tbb-backported added

closed

mentioned in issue #29357 (moved)

mentioned in issue #30380 (moved)

mentioned in issue tpo/core/tor#29357 (closed)

moved to tpo/applications/tor-browser#29045 (closed)

mentioned in issue tpo/applications/tor-browser#30380 (closed)