Tor Failed to start Anonymizing overlay network for TCP

Support Network
1

The Tor worked fine until I updated…
My VPNs are down too

 _> systemctl status tor.service
● tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/tor.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Mon 2020-11-09 08:44:20 +0330; 42s ago
    Process: 15380 ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/tor -f /etc/tor/torrc --verify-config (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Nov 09 08:44:20 username systemd[1]: tor.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5.
Nov 09 08:44:20 username systemd[1]: Stopped Anonymizing overlay network for TCP.
Nov 09 08:44:20 username systemd[1]: tor.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Nov 09 08:44:20 username systemd[1]: tor.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Nov 09 08:44:20 username systemd[1]: Failed to start Anonymizing overlay network for TCP.
2

I think you have a torrc.pacnew which you have to merge with your torrc and restart the service.

3

can u explain in detail

4

Do this:

sudo mv /etc/tor/torrc /etc/tor/torrc.old

This will backup your old configuration just in case. Followed by this:

sudo mv /etc/tor/torrc.pacnew /etc/tor/torrc

Now restart your tor.service:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl restart tor.service

I’m not sure so just do both commands
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman/Pacnew_and_Pacsave

5

If you added own options to your torrc you need to add them again.

Just a little correction, the path should be /etc/tor/torrc and /etc/tor/torrc.pacnew

1 Like
6

Thanks I made the adjustment.

1 Like
7

Change the Type to simple in the tor.service file.

Sorry, I can’t include links. See Archlinux Bug Report FS#68127

8

Whats new to this update is the addition of the line

to torrc. In addition there is a new user “tor” and group “tor” added, and the ownership of the folder /var/lib/tor is changed to the new user “tor”.

Here comes the problem: If you have made changes to your torrc, the config file is not automatically updated. Instead a new torrc is created with the new defaults (added the User setting). As your config is not changed, but the ownership of /usr/lib/tor is changed, the service will fail to start because it checks that the folder is owned by the user the service will run as.

If you follow the advice above; to rename the new torrc, and add whatever custom config you had in your old torrc to the new, you’ll still get a very similar error. Because all files and subfolders under /usr/lib/tor is only writable by root. To solve this:

# chown -R tor:tor /usr/lib/tor

The automatic update script seems to have forgotten the -R.