---
Title: Resurrecting tor-sasl
Author: edk
Date: 2016-09-05T16:09+01:00
Slug: resurrecting-tor
---

As many of you will no doubt be aware, freenode used to run a Tor hidden
service, providing anonymous access to the network. Unfortunately, this had to
be disabled due to concerns about abuse.

We regret that it has taken some time to resolve this issue but we are now
almost ready to deploy some software updates that will allow us to re-enable the
gateway. We've made one important change: password-based SASL authentication is
disabled over the Tor gateway, so you'll need to generate a client certificate
and add its fingerprint (`/msg NickServ CERT ADD`) over a regular connection
before connecting.

We'd appreciate your help testing this setup on [our
testnet](ircs://testnet.freenode.net:9003). Further instructions can be found
in `#freenode` there. (if you already have a certificate set, the hidden
service is at
[ircs://testnet67chdulhs.onion:6697](ircs://testnet67chdulhs.onion:6697))

Expect the occasional interruption—even if nothing exciting happens, we still
have a few configuration things to take care of. The test network may be reset,
rolled back, or shut down at any time.

Thanks for your patience, and thank you in advance for helping to bring Tor
access back as fast as possible!
