can not access psiphon

Hi Damien. Unfortunately the following is not adequately described in our INSTALL document:

For each URL that Psiphon will be accessed by, there must be a corresponding Proxy entry in the Proxies table.

For example, if you wish to access Psiphon by requesting https://myname.dyndns.org/001, you need to have a corresponding Proxy entry.

Similarly, if you wish to access Psiphon by requesting https://192.168.1.30/001, you need to have another corresponding Proxy entry.

You can follow step 4 (Configure Proxies) from the INSTALL document to help you do this.

Sorry for the confusion.

Hi Admin,
I met similar problem as the user above.

I even cannot access https://127.0.0.1/001 because I install Psiphon on a remote virtual private server hosted in other country. This is a very frequent case if the psiphon user lives in country with censorship.

How do I access psiphon server https://myip/001/ from remote place?

Thanks.

Hi Peter. There are several options to access Psiphon server.

1.ssh with X11 forwarding into your remote VPS and run firefox https://127.0.0.1/001/, login as admin, go to profile->proxies and add another proxy with the domain name or IP of your remote server.

2. ssh into your remote VPS without X forwarding and open https://127.0.0.1/001 with a text only browser such as lynx and do the same procedure as above.

3.ssh into your remote VPS, and run the following command:
echo "INSERT INTO proxy(hostname, login_url) VALUES ('xxx.yyy', '/001/')" | mysql -upsiphon -p psiphon
assuming that xxx.yyy is either IP or domain name of your remote server.
Enter the psiphon DB password when prompted.

Hope that helps.

P.S. There is some info on X11 forwarding and displaying Ubuntu applications remotely here:

http://www.techotopia.com/index.php/Displaying_Ubuntu_Linux_Applications_Remotely_(X11_Forwarding)

Dear e.fryntov,
My VPS has no X11. I followed your step 2. I ran the Lynx and it is a TOTAL SUCCESS even though it is a very ugly browser that I haven't seen before (I started to browser with Netscape 2). I guessed and tried lynx's function and I finally set up an internet ip which I can access psiphon server from outside the VPS!!!

It is a TOTAL SUCCESS!!! It will help so many people!!! *tip my hat*

BY the way, psiphon login page can only be read by IE. It does not work with Firefox.

In addition, the user categry shows: Power user, user, etc... The privilege of each category is not defined in the admin control panel. Could you recommend more information about this to me?

Sincerely,
Peter Poon

Also,
The installation program kept asking for mysql root password and psiphon server password. It is really necessary for protecting my psiphon guests' information from being hacked by their country's government???

I heard that MySQL is very fragile.

Try clearing history and cache of your FF. It should work.

You can read more about the users and roles in section 5.3. of the
Psiphon design doc, here's the direct link:
https://docs.google.com/a/psiphon.ca/View?id=dccxjzk4_0f76vf8g8&pli=1

On 28 July 2011 14:16, Peter Poon <email address hidden> wrote:
> Question #145766 on psiphon changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/psiphon/+question/145766
>
> Peter Poon requested more information:
> Dear e.fryntov,
> My VPS has no X11.  I followed your step 2.  I ran the Lynx and it is a TOTAL SUCCESS even though it is a very ugly browser that I haven't seen before (I started to browser with Netscape 2).  I guessed and tried lynx's function and I finally set up an internet ip which I can access psiphon server from outside the VPS!!!
>
> It is a TOTAL SUCCESS!!!  It will help so many people!!!  *tip my hat*
>
>
> BY the way, psiphon login page can only be read by IE.  It does not work with Firefox.
>
>
> In addition, the user categry shows: Power user, user, etc...  The privilege of each category is not defined in the admin control panel.  Could you recommend more information about this to me?
>
>
> Sincerely,
> Peter Poon
>
> --
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.
>

It should be:
The installation program kept asking for mysql root password and psiphon DB password.

Choosing strong passwords is generally a good practice but
if somebody manages to gain root access to your VPS then there is no
way to protect information stored in the mysql DB because:

a) The psiphon DB password can be found in clear text in the PHP source code.
b) The adversary can restart mysqld daemon with --skip-grant-tables
option. This enables anyone to connect without a password and with all
privileges.

Thus having a strong account password is much more important.

Make sure that mysqld doesn't allow allow connections from outside of
localhost by verifying that you have the following line:

bind-address = 127.0.0.1

in your /etc/mysql/my.cnf and it is not commented out.

Additionally you might run sudo netstat -tap | grep mysql and verify
that mysqld is listening on localhost only, the output should look
similar to that:

tcp 0 0 localhost.localdo:mysql *:*
LISTEN 983/mysqld

and not

tcp 0 0 *:mysql *:* LISTEN 983/mysqld

or

tcp 0 0 0.0.0:mysql *:* LISTEN 983/mysqld

On 28 July 2011 14:31, Peter Poon <email address hidden> wrote:
> Question #145766 on psiphon changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/psiphon/+question/145766
>
> Peter Poon requested more information:
> It should be:
> The installation program kept asking for mysql root password and psiphon DB password.
>
> --
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.
>

GREAT SOFTWARE!!!

Everything is running very well, a good option besides psiphon version 1.6 for win!!! I will fine tune the security measure as you suggested.

For now, lets talk about the user experience. For psiphon 2.6, proxy user still cannot watch youtube video. Is there a chance to make it work?

Also, can you suggest a inittab entry so psiphon service can start whenever the VPS reboot? I am afraid the server will not start again if I make it myself ;))

not_sure /install_dir/apache2/bin/apachectl start