Tor is free software that allows a user to have complete anonymity online. It can be used to avoid having websites and applications track your location or attempt to identify you. It does this by routing your network data through a pool of servers around the world, while also stripping identifying information from packet headers.
It is often used to avoid region blocks on the likes of Netflix or YouTube. Some users like it because it prevents ad tracking companies from building a profile on you based on your browsing habits and serving personalized ads. Still, others are just a little paranoid and appreciate the assurance that no one can spy on their internet activity.
You can use Tor on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish by installing the Tor client. We will show you how to set it up in this tutorial, which includes browser configuration and enabling all of your shell commands to run through Tor’s network.
In this tutorial you will learn:
- How to install Tor on Ubuntu 22.04
- Test your network connection through Tor
- How to Torify your shell temporarily or persistently
- Enable and utilize the Tor control port
- Configure web browser to use Tor network

Category | Requirements, Conventions or Software Version Used |
---|---|
System | Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish |
Software | Tor |
Other | Privileged access to your Linux system as root or via the sudo command. |
Conventions |
# – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command$ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user |
How to Install Tor on Ubuntu 22.04
- First, we need to install Tor on our system. So open a command line terminal and type the following
apt
commands to install it:$ sudo apt update $ sudo apt install tor
- By default, Tor runs on port 9050. You can confirm that Tor is up and running correctly by using the
ss
command in terminal:$ ss -nlt State Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address:Port Peer Address:Port Process LISTEN 0 4096 127.0.0.53%lo:53 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 0 5 127.0.0.1:631 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 0 4096 127.0.0.1:9050 0.0.0.0:*
Another quick way to check if Tor is installed and see what version you are running is with this command:
$ tor --version Tor version 0.4.6.9.
Tor network connection test
- Let’s see Tor in action and make sure it is functioning how it is supposed to. We’ll do this by obtaining an external IP address from the Tor network. First, check what your current IP address is:
$ wget -qO - https://api.ipify.org; echo 181.193.211.127
- Then, we’ll run the same command but preface it with
torsocks
. This way, the command is run through our Tor client instead.$ torsocks wget -qO - https://api.ipify.org; echo 194.32.107.159
See how our IP address changes when using the torsocks command prefix
You should see a different IP address now. That means our request was routed through the Tor network successfully.
How to “torify” your shell
- Obviously, prefacing every network related command with
torsocks
will get old quickly. If you want to use the Tor network by default for shell commands, you can torify your shell with this command:$ source torsocks on Tor mode activated. Every command will be torified for this shell.
- To make sure it worked, try retrieving your IP address without using the
torsocks
command prefix:$ wget -qO - https://api.ipify.org; echo 194.32.107.159
Turn on tor mode to torify the shell - The torified shell will only persist for the current session. If you open new terminals or reboot your PC, the shell will default back to your ordinary connection. To turn
torsocks
on permanently for all new shell sessions and after reboot, use this command:$ echo ". torsocks on" >> ~/.bashrc
- If you need to toggle
torsocks
mode off again, just enter:$ source torsocks off Tor mode deactivated. Command will NOT go through Tor anymore.
Enable the Tor control port
In order to interact with the Tor installation on our system, we need to enable Tor’s control port. Once enabled, Tor will accept connections on the control port and allow you to control the Tor process through various commands.
- To start, we will password protect the Tor connection with the following command. we are using
my-tor-password
in this example.$ torpass=$(tor --hash-password "my-tor-password")
- Next, use this command to enable the Tor control port and insert our previously hashed password:
$ printf "HashedControlPassword $torpass\nControlPort 9051\n" | sudo tee -a /etc/tor/torrc
Generating a tor password hash - You can check the contents of your
/etc/tor/torrc
configuration file to confirm that the hash password settings have been correctly included.$ tail -2 /etc/tor/torrc HashedControlPassword 16:FD0B487B49387834609A3341F3611BF55C1969AD78F2A255532CC07130 ControlPort 9051
- Restart Tor to apply the changes:
$ sudo systemctl restart tor
- Now, you should be able to see the Tor service running on both ports
9050
and9051
:ss -nlt State Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address:Port Peer Address:Port Process LISTEN 0 4096 127.0.0.53%lo:53 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 0 5 127.0.0.1:631 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 0 4096 127.0.0.1:9050 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 0 4096 127.0.0.1:9051 0.0.0.0:*
Connect to Tor control port
- Now, we are able to connect to the Tor control port to communicate with Tor and issue commands. For example, here we use the telnet command to request a new Tor circuit and clear cache:
$ sudo telnet 127.0.0.1 9051 Trying 127.0.0.1... Connected to 127.0.0.1. Escape character is '^]'. AUTHENTICATE "my-tor-password" 250 OK SIGNAL NEWNYM 250 OK SIGNAL CLEARDNSCACHE 250 OK quit 250 closing connection Connection closed by foreign host.
On Line 5 we have entered
AUTHENTICATE
command and our Tor password. On Line 7 and Line 9 we asked Tor for a new circuit and clean cache. Obviously, you need to know a few commands to get much use out of the control port, which is why we linked to a list of commands above.
Connecting to the Tor control port - Communication with the Tor control port can also be shell scripted. Consider the following example, which will request a new circuit (IP address) from Tor:
$ source torsocks off Tor mode deactivated. Command will NOT go through Tor anymore. $ torsocks wget -qO - https://api.ipify.org; echo 103.1.206.100 $ echo -e 'AUTHENTICATE "my-tor-password"\r\nsignal NEWNYM\r\nQUIT' | nc 127.0.0.1 9051 250 OK 250 OK 250 closing connection $ torsocks wget -qO - https://api.ipify.org; echo 185.100.87.206
The magic happens on Line 5, where multiple Tor commands are strung together. The
wget
commands show how our connection’s IP address has changed after requesting a clean circuit. This script can be executed any time you need to obtain a new circuit.
Configure web browser to use Tor network
To browse the web anonymously through Tor, we’ll need to configure our web browser to route traffic through our local Tor host. Here’s how you would configure that on Ubuntu’s default web browser, Firefox. The instructions for other web browsers will be very similar.
- Open the settings panel from the menu or by typing
about:preferences
into the address bar. Scroll all the way down to find “Network Settings” and click the “Settings” button.Open Network Settings menu in your web browser - In this menu, select “Manual proxy configuration” and enter
localhost
under the “SOCKS Host” field. For port, enter9050
. See the screenshot below for how yours should look.Configure SOCKS host inside network settings - When you are done entering those settings, click OK. You can confirm that the changes have taken effect by navigating to a website like IP Chicken to make sure that you are connected to the Tor network. This is a recommended step anytime you want to make absolutely sure that you are browsing anonymously.
We are browsing anonymously, hence the new IP address from Tor network
Closing Thoughts
Using Tor is a great way to maintain anonymity on the internet. It is totally free and only takes a few minutes to configure. You can exercise a lot of control over your Tor connection if you take a little time to understand how the control port works, as we’ve shown in this article.
By utilizing what you have learned in this guide, you can ensure that all your outgoing internet activity is masked, whether you are using a web browser or issuing commands from the terminal. Of course, other applications can also be configured to use Tor, you just need to configure them to connect to your SOCKS localhost.