El Tor App

A modern VPN-like desktop and web app for connecting to the El Tor network - a privacy-focused network (Tor fork) that allows users to share bandwidth, as relays, or consume bandwidth as clients. Built-in payment capabilities using Lightning.

🚀 Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+ with pnpm
• Rust 1.70+
• eltord project at ~/code/eltord/
• setup env vars
• tauri https://v2.tauri.app/start/prerequisites/
• ./scripts/download-eltord.sh
• ./scripts/download-arti.sh

🌐 Web Mode

npm run web
# Frontend runs on `http://localhost:5173` (with vite proxy to backend at /api)
# Backend API on `http://localhost:5174`

Open http://localhost:5173

🖥️ Desktop Mode

npm run tauri

🌐 Architecture

This project supports dual deployment modes:

• 🖥️ Desktop App: Native Tauri application with system tray integration
• 🌐 Web App: Browser-based application with standalone Rust backend

┌─────────────────┐    ┌─────────────────┐
│  React Frontend │    │   Rust Backend  │
│                 │    │                 │
│ • UI Components │◄──►│ • Tor Control   │
│ • State Mgmt    │    │ • eltord mgmt   │
│ • Routing       │    │ • Process Ctrl  │
└─────────────────┘    └─────────────────┘
        │                       │
        ▼                       ▼
┌─────────────┐         ┌─────────────┐
│   Web App   │         │ Tauri App   │
│ (HTTP APIs) │         │ (IPC Calls) │
└─────────────┘         └─────────────┘

📁 Project Structure

eltor-app/
├── frontend/              # React Frontend (Vite + Tauri)
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── components/    # UI Components
│   │   ├── services/      # API abstraction layer
│   │   ├── utils/         # Platform detection
│   │   └── hooks/         # Custom React hooks
│   ├── src-tauri/         # Tauri desktop app
│   └── package.json
├── backend/               # Standalone Rust server
│   ├── src/
│   │   └── main.rs        # HTTP API server
│   └── Cargo.toml
└── README.md

🛠️ Development

Available Scripts

# Quick start
npm i
npm run tauri     # quick start to run the tauri app with rust invoke backend
npm run web       # quick start to run web frontend with rust rest backend

# Frontend
cd frontend
pnpm dev:web      # Web development mode  
pnpm dev:tauri    # Desktop development mode
pnpm build:web    # Bundle prod dist web
pnpm build:tauri  # Bundle tauri app

# Backend
cd backend
cargo build             # Build debug
cargo build --release   # Build release target 
cargo run               # Start HTTP server. Alternative command ./run.sh

# Docker
cd frontend && pnpm build:web && ../
npm run docker # to run locally
# package - remember to increment the version in package.json and backend/cargo.toml and frontend/src-tauri/cargo.yaml
npm run docker:build:arm
npm run docker:build:amd
npm run docker:push
npm run docker:manifest

Environment Setup

Copy .env.example to .env and configure:

cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your configuration

Key Environment Variables:

BIND_ADDRESS="127.0.0.1"
BACKEND_PORT="5174"
APP_ELTOR_USE_PHOENIXD_EMBEDDED="false"
APP_ELTOR_LN_IMPLEMENTATION="cln"
APP_ELTOR_LN_CONFIG="type=cln url=https://YOURURL:PORT rune=YOUR_RUNE default=true"
APP_ELTOR_LN_BOLT12="lno***"
APP_ELTOR_USER_DIR="$PWD"
APP_ELTOR_ELTORRC_PATH="$PWD/backend/bin/data"

# Tor Control Passwords (for authentication to Tor control ports)
APP_ELTOR_TOR_CONTROL_PASSWORD="password1234_"          # Client mode password
APP_ELTOR_TOR_RELAY_CONTROL_PASSWORD="password1234_"    # Relay mode password

ACCEPT_INVALID_CERTS=true

📦 Release El Tor VPN

Outputs platform-specific installers:

• Linux: .deb
• Mac: .dmg
• Windows: .exe

Tauri Build

Right now builds works locally on each platform, Windows, Linux and Mac.

Linux

cd frontend 
pnpm i
pnpm run deb
# this outputs to ./frontend/src-tauri/target/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/release/bundle/deb
# to install on linux
sudo apt install ./eltor_0.1.0_amd64.deb 
# uninstall
sudo apt purge eltor
# *troubleshooting - if you installed vscode or terminal using snap you might run into issues, just run the commands in the native os terminal

Mac

# run on a mac arm (M)
rustup target add x86_64-apple-darwin
rustup target add aarch64-apple-darwin
cd frontend 
pnpm i
pnpm run dmg
# this outputs to ./frontend/src-tauri/target/release/bundle/dmg/eltor_0.0.19_universal.dmg
# to compile just arm
pnpm run dmg:arm
# to compile just intel x86
pnpm run dmg:intel

Windows (not working yet)

cd frontend 
pnpm i
pnpm run win

Github Release:

1. create a folder in .release/0.0.19
2. add each dmg/deb to the folder
3. create a release

# 1. Create and push a tag
git tag v0.0.19
git push origin v0.0.19

# 2. Create a GitHub release via CLI (if you have gh installed)
gh release create v0.0.19 \
  --title "Release v0.0.19" \
  --notes "Release notes here" \
  --latest \
  .release/0.0.19/*

# Or create annotated tag with message
git push origin v0.0.19
gh release edit v0.0.19 --latest

4. Make sure update the eltor-website project the latest version to point downloads to

Github Actions

TODO: this does not fully work yet

Arm builds on Github is super slow, instead of using Github actions, you can use "act" https://nektosact.com/ to locally build arm64 based images. This allows you to build locally on a Mac M-series and still push artifacts to Github.

1. Install Prereqs

docker buildx create --name mybuilder --driver docker-container --use 
docker buildx inspect --bootstrap 
docker run --privileged --rm tonistiigi/binfmt --install all
# if you use orbstack and get errors you might need to turn off (or on?) rosetta 
orb config set rosetta false

brew install act
docker info | grep Architecture

2. Create ./secrets

GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_yourtokenhere
DOCKER_USERNAME=yourdockerusername
DOCKER_PASSWORD=dckr_pat_yourtokenhere

3. Run a actions build locally

npm run actions:build:linux:arm
# or
ACT=true act workflow_dispatch --secret-file .secrets -j build-linux-arm64 -P self-hosted=skip --bind

🔧 Features

Core Functionality

• Tor Network Control: Connect/disconnect from Tor
• Eltord Process Management: Start/stop eltord client processes
• Dual Mode Support: Web browser OR native desktop app
• System Tray Integration: (Desktop mode only)
• Real-time Status Updates: Process monitoring and notifications

Platform Detection

The app automatically detects whether it's running in web or desktop mode and uses the appropriate API layer:

• Desktop: Direct IPC calls to embedded Rust backend
• Web: HTTP requests to standalone Rust server

Umbrel

Community App Store https://github.com/el-tor/eltor-store

🖼️ Screenshots

📜 License

MIT License