Stop Tor from autorunning

[T.R.]

This isn't so much a problem as an annoyance: Tor autoruns when I start up my machine, and Privoxy can't control Tor if it's already running.

I've been able to work around this by using

sudo killall tor

in the terminal, but that's a temporary fix. I want to set it so Tor doesn't start a process until Vidalia tells it to.
I've read about sysv-rc-conf and from what I gather I think it can help me get what I want. However, I don't understand what the runlevels mean. (When I run sysv-rc-conf Tor is checked on levels 2 3 4 and 5.) Could someone help me figure out how to do this through sysv-rc-conf, or tell me another way to disable autorun on startup for Tor?

tl;dr I want Tor to only run when I tell it to, through Vidalia.

[bruno9779]

why don't you make a script like this:

#!/bin/bash

killall tor

save it and make it run at startup in preferences.

(I don't usually sudo the command killall, but it depends on the circumstances)

surely there is a better way, this is just a workaround

[Soul-Sing]

T.R. runs TOR in a relay? You can easily stop this via Vidalia.

[T.R.]

I'm not running it in a relay. It just runs on its own at startup.

[T.R.]

bruno: I tried the script it didn't seem to work. I think Tor might autorun just after startup, or it's lower priority than the autorun script.

It also seems I have to sudo killall with Tor. If I don't bash gives me an Operation not permitted message. I'll try adding sudo to the script to see if that changes anything.

Edit: adding sudo to the script didn't make it work.

If I can figure out sysv-rc-conf I could probably keep it from running at startup to begin with...

[bruno9779]

I am going to try and install tor tonite, to see where it ends up.

You could also check if it is from the services menu that you control it's behavior

[T.R.]

Bootup manager (bum) fixed it.

[exploding loaf of bread]

How did you manage to do that with bum?

I have been trying to do the same thing for the last 3 days with no success. I managed to stop tor from starting on startup with bum but then when Vidalia starts it gives me the error message "[Warning] If you set the "User" option, you must start Tor as root.".

[T.R.]

I just unchecked the box for Tor, and it worked.

EDIT: if bum isn't working, type

sudo sysv-rc-conf

in terminal, go down to tor, and toggle off all the runlevels for tor.

[anonSam]

This command always removes TOR from the start-up for me:

sudo update-rc.d -f tor remove

But also note that when TOR updates to a new version it does re-add its self to the start-up and I have to run the command again.

It's really too bad this is TORs default setting. I think it should be the other way around.


For Privoxy:

sudo update-rc.d -f privoxy remove