Setting up Tor to connect to IRC network!

Freenode to EliteBNC bouncer to Tor!

First time I connected to IRC using webchat.freenode.net web portal with no encryption and IP hiding. With time, I moved to EliteBNC bouncer to read all the messages even when I am offline.

Now, the time has demanded me to evolve a bit further. This is an instructable blog post on how to set up "Tor" proxy to connect to my #dgplug folks.

The Onion Routing Protocol!

What is Tor? Since this blog post is not about Tor, so I am going to answer it in one line.

Tor is just another protocol used to connect to internet, but anonymously!

Don't fall for my words, you should delve more deeper yourself. Don't know what I am talking about? Read the reference section at the end to know more about IRC and Tor.

Instructions

1. Install IRC client and tor dependecies (torsocks).
   
   
   sudo dnf install tor
   
   


2. Setup your IRC client, in my case weechat (An IRC client, that I use to connect to IRC).
   
   
   sudo dnf install weechat
   
   


3. Start Tor daemon to set up proxy.
   
   
   sudo systemctl start tor 
   

   
   
    sudo systemctl status tor
   
   


4. Open Weechat and add proxy to your IRC client. Run the following commands on the client itself.
   
   
   /proxy add tor socks5 127.0.0.1 9050
   


5. Set up proxy to your Server.
   
   
   /set irc.server.elitebnc.proxy "tor"
   


6. Enjoy bypassing firewall on IRC :)

Now, Your IRC client should be using tor proxy on port 9050 which is the default sock5 proxy port on Tor. Enjoy using Tor!

(You need to start the tor daemon using systemctl everytime you reboot your system. You might want to start the service automatically. If yes, follow this blog post here.)

Why I did this?

Now, most of you guys must be thinking on why I should add the overhead of Tor on my IRC network? True! But you must already know,

"Necessity is the mother of Invention"

 ~Plato

Similarly, at an event, the internet provided to us had a firewall that rejects all invalid certificates transaction on it and unfortunately, my EliteBNC delta server got it's certificate expired since April 2018.

And thus, I am unable to connect to my #dgplug folks over IRC on this firewall enabled network due to invalid certificates of my EliteBNC server.

I knew, I had to bypass firewall somehow and thus Tor came to my mind.

Reference

1. https://buildthesys.wordpress.com/2013/09/15/how-tu-use-weechat-with-tor/ 
2. https://tor.stackexchange.com/questions/6939/configure-tor-as-proxy
3. https://www.torproject.org/about/overview.html.en

One year anniversary with Pydelhi!

8th july 2017 is the day when I attended my very first meetup of pydelhi or any in general. Thanks to #dgplug folks and @curiouslearner. And now a year later, we had another pydelhi meetup on the exact date which marks my one year annniversary with delhi open source community. This post is going to be lengthy, so grab your popcorn!

So, let's start with the details and experience of this annual meetup of mine.

Prologue

Last year, I joined #dgplug summer training on IRC: freenode. Being new to open source world, I found it very amusing to have some delhites on the training whom I could meet in person. On 8th July 2017, I attended my first meetup of any community in-person. I wrote a blog post of that meetup sharing my experience here.

Introduction!

When championshuttler and I reached the venue, there were around 100 people already present at the venue (which happens to be Microsoft's Delhi Office at Gurugram). Introductions were going on.

Since I have attended many meetups since last year, I saw many familiar faces in the crowd.

After Introductions, we had a furious discussion on "Text Editors vs IDEs" where pros and cons were listed and many of us got a clear picture on what to use when.

"Tex Editors vs IDEs (Integrated Development Environment)!"

To summarize a little, Editors help you gain implementation level knowledge of the tech stack i.e. using editors, you as a programmer will be more aware of the program construct (indentation, classes et al.) and  will better understand your code. On the contrary, IDE's provide auto-complete suggestions, and are generally helpful in production level environment when you have gained knowledge and need efficiency. You should always start with the editors and with time and experience, switch to IDE (Integrated Development Environment).

(I proudly use Vim Text Editor! Another post on my Vim experience, coming soon!)

Networking session

The best part of any community gathering a.k.a meet-up is the networking break where we get to meet different people, hear about their amazing ideas and projects. Even you are shy to interact with anyone (like me), you learn a lot just by listening.

Becoming a multilingual superhero in Django --by Sanyam Khurana

Ever been in a situation where you had to support multiple languages with your django website? This talk will surely help you out. The original proposal of the talk can be found here.

Managing Dotfiles using Python --by Vipul Gupta

Is it a head ache for you to recreate dot files every time your system breaks down or you switch distributions? If yes, this talk will surely help which uses python library "Homely". Original talk proposal can be found here.

Time for Lightning Bolt!

At every meet-up, we have lightning talk sessions where anyone from attendee can showcase their project, represent their community and share whatever they want. And so, we have a Debian packaging lightening session by Manas Kashyap.

Shout Out!

People from various communities pitched about their community. We had community pitching from Ilugd, PyLadies Delhi, Pydelhi, LinuxChix India et al.


Also, If you feel sad about missing all the interesting talks. Don't worry, we recorded it all and will update the link as soon as they are published. The official blog post by Pydelhi can be found here and photos from the meet-up are uploaded here.

Not over yet!

After these amazing talks and networking, some of us stayed at the venue. I was doing what I love the most, more networking. We talked about hill hacks, DebConf, hacking (in the true sense), repairing each others' systems, sharing cool stickers etc. In the midst of these enlightening sessions, I even found a resolution to my thorny Apache problem; which was basically installing a missing module and enabling the firewall. Thank you isagar.

Also, we did some rubix puzzle solving, system breaking session and played xbox as well :)

I also learned about editing grub while booting by isagar. Another post on this, later.

Experience

It's been a long time since I have joined these open source communities in Delhi and have attended many meet-ups during the course. I learn something new at every meet-up, meet new people and make new friends. These community meet-ups make up most of my social interaction (Being shy and introverted, I tend to sit and watch others). These sessions have taught me to open up to new people, have conversation and so on. They also taught me many new skills and as we say at #dgplug,

 "Learn together, Teach others!"