Allow bridge/relay mode without bundled hidden-service hosting

[alru78]

Prerequisites

• I searched this repository's existing issues and this is not already requested.
• This is about the StartOS package — what it exposes, configures, or automates. A feature of the software itself belongs with the upstream project, not here.

What kind of change?

Expose a config option

Problem & use case

Running the Tor package purely as a bridge/relay (no interest in hosting any app behind a .onion address on this instance), but enabling relay/bridge mode produces this warning in the logs:

[warn] Tor is currently configured as a relay and a hidden service. That's not very secure: you should probably run your hidden service in a separate Tor process, at least -- see https://bugs.torproject.org/tpo/core/tor/8742.

This appears to be because the package always runs onion-service hosting (for its SOCKS5 proxy / other integration purposes) in the same Tor process as the optional relay/bridge feature, per the current README. Tor's own upstream guidance (linked in the warning) is that relay and hidden-service roles shouldn't share a process, since an adversary observing the relay's traffic patterns could potentially help correlate/deanonymize the hidden service running alongside it in the same daemon.

Proposed solution

Request: a way to run this package in a bridge/relay-only configuration with no hidden service active at all — either a toggle to disable onion-service hosting independently of the relay/bridge setting, or a separate bridge-only variant/mode of the package that never sets HiddenServiceDir.

Alternatives considered

No response

Anything else?

No response

[MattDHill]

Thanks for the careful report — the good news is the package doesn't force a hidden service, so what you're asking for is already possible.

Tor emits that warning only when the config carries at least one HiddenServiceDir, and this package writes one only for a .onion address that has been attached to an interface. I verified both halves with tor --verify-config: a relay-only torrc produces no warning; add a single hidden service and the exact line you pasted appears. There is no built-in or hidden onion behind the SOCKS proxy — the proxy is a plain SocksPort.

So your box has at least one .onion address attached to something. If it came up through the 0.3 → 0.4 migration, the likely one is the StartOS UI's own onion, which every 0.3 server had. To run relay/bridge-only:

1. Go through your services' interface pages and remove any .onion entries from the Tor table.
2. Check System → StartOS UI and remove its .onion as well — that page uses the same address table.

Once none remain, the generated torrc has no HiddenServiceDir and the warning stops. (Removing an address deletes its key, so the address itself is gone for good — make a backup first if there's one you might want back.)

I've added this to the README and the in-app instructions (#31). Closing as already possible; reopen if you've removed every address and the warning persists.

[MattDHill]

A support case hit the case this was closed on: every address removed from the interface pages, warning still there, and three live HiddenServiceDir entries left in torrc against interfaces reading "No addresses". An entry the plugin can't export (its host gone, or its port gone from the host) never shows in the UI and so can't be deleted from it. #34 adds a Delete Onion Addresses action on Tor itself that lists every address the server hosts, attached to an interface or not, and deletes the ones you pick.