Running bitcoin core with tor proxy

[pedrogabrielbg]

I'm running bitcoin core with the following configuration:

prune=0
txindex=0
onion=127.0.0.1:9050
onlynet=onion
proxy=127.0.0.1:9050
proxyrandomize=1
server=1

When I run electrs to perform the initial sync it closes with the following error:

Error: electrs failed

Caused by:
    0: bitcoin p2p failed to connect: 127.0.0.1:8333
    1: Connection refused (os error 111)

If I comment out the proxy related lines in the bitcoin core configuration file then electrs starts the initial sync as expected, but I would like to run bitcoin core with the tor proxy.

Can someone help me with this issue?

[nymius]

I'm not sure about this, so please correct me if I'm clearly wrong, but I think is possible to keep a clearnet inbound connection from your electrs IP while forcing all others through tor with the following parameters:

whitelist=download@<your-electrs-ip>
bind=0.0.0.0
prune=0
txindex=0
onion=127.0.0.1:9050
onlynet=onion
proxy=127.0.0.1:9050
proxyrandomize=1
server=1

In the case you're running electrs on the same host than bitcoind, the config will look like:

whitelist=download@127.0.0.1
bind=0.0.0.0
prune=0
txindex=0
onion=127.0.0.1:9050
onlynet=onion
proxy=127.0.0.1:9050
proxyrandomize=1
server=1

From my understanding bind=0.0.0.0 allows clearnet inbound connections from anywhere, but whitelist=download@127.0.0.1 restricts it to just localhost, with only download permissions(i.e. getheaders msg). So if electrs is running on the same host, it is going to request headers through 127.0.0.1:8333 (no tor). But any other ip trying to do the same is going to be excluded because it isn't whitelisted.
This take is more controversial, but I think proxy, onlynet and onion flags are only used for outbound connections.

I tested this with a single instance and seems to work. I should also check this from a different interface (not whitelisted) to ensure not whitelisted ips get blocked.

[TheQuantumPhysicist]

whitelist=download@<your-electrs-ip>
bind=0.0.0.0
prune=0
txindex=0
onion=127.0.0.1:9050
onlynet=onion
proxy=127.0.0.1:9050
proxyrandomize=1
server=1

This doesn't seem to work. For me, when I tried this, the node doesn't bind to 0.0.0.0:8333. I checked netstat -plunt and made sure of that.

The node runs, sure, but no system network binding is done for p2p.

[TheQuantumPhysicist]

@romanz Can you please confirm that this is a known issue and whether this will ever get a solution?

[TheQuantumPhysicist]

A solution can be found here: #1274