y.st./source/pages/en/weblog/2016/03-March/07.xhtml

<?php
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$xhtml = array(
	'title' => "Onion addresses are fixed in a more recent version of $a[Tor]",
	'body' => <<<END
<p>
	<a href="http://www.joshwoodward.com/">Josh Woodward</a> wrote back today.
	He said that I couldn&apos;t use a $a[URI], but didn&apos;t comment on using a name other than my legal name.
	Hopefully, the fact that my credit card is issued under my preferred name instead of my legal name will get him to allow me to use my preferred name.
</p>
<p>
	Further testing of <a href="apt:tor">$a[Tor]</a> led me to some interesting new information about the bugs I ran into yesterday.
	And yes, it tuns out that the &quot;unparseable address&quot; issue was a second bug.
	The bug is in the error messages though.
	Instead of being unparseable, the addresses are actually <strong>*unresolvable*</strong>.
	Four of the addresses are outdated and no longer exist in $a[DNS].
	Instead of $a[Tor] saying that they can&apos;t be resolved, it says they cannot be parsed.
	Second, it seems that if I tell $a[Tor] to forward to $a[IP] addresses instead of $a[DNS] names, the pointer error goes away.
	I can forward as many ports as I like as long as I use numbers instead of names! It&apos;s of course suboptimal because $a[IP] addresses are more likely to change than domain names, but at least it allows me to make full use of my onion address.
</p>
<p>
	On <a href="ircs://irc.oftc.net/%23Tor">#Tor</a>, I mentioned the fact that using $a[IP] addresses instead of fixed the pointer error that I had mentioned yesterday, but that no one had cared about at the time.
	This time though, with new information, it piqued arma&apos;s interest.
	Arma wanted me to test on a much newer version of $a[Tor] though, as the Debian version is eleven months old.
	I usually prefer to use packages from the Debian repository, but I added the $a[Tor] repository anyway and upgraded.
	This lead to another issue: the newer version of $a[Tor] claimed that my file system was read-only, so it couldn&apos;t properly interact with my hidden service directories.
	As it turns out, the new version of $a[Tor] refuse to use hidden service directories that are outside of <a href="file:///var/lib/tor/">/var/lib/tor/</a>, but again, returns an incorrect error message.
	Weasel said that $a[Tor] resolves each domain name to a single $a[IP] address when $a[Tor] starts, which is a bit of a drag.
	It means that when a domain name has multiple A records, only one will be used.
	Then again though, arma also said that $a[Tor] doesn&apos;t have a round robin feature and that there is no point in trying to map one onion port to multiple destinations.
	However, as <a href="https://opalrwf4mzmlfmag.onion/">wowaname</a> pointed out, the round robin feature is actually documented in the manual (<code>man tor</code>).
	With the new version of $a[Tor] seeming to function fine for onion port forwarding, I finished testing $a[IRC] networks and setting up port forwards.
	I also refined my <code>torrc</code> file parser a bit more to clean up the output further.
	I need to get that function released at some point, but I&apos;ll probably put it off until the next unrelated update of include.d.
</p>
<p>
	I had planned to walk to my health care provider today.
	It would have been an all-day affair given how far they are from me, but it would have given me a chance to time the trip.
	Before I can schedule any appointments, I need to know how long before an appointment I should head out.
	However, I decided to put that off for a while.
	It turned out to be useful that I stayed at home.
	My $a[IRS] check came today when I would have been out, so I took it down to the bank to start an account.
</p>
<p>
	When I went down there, there was a huge line.
	Today was the first day in which this branch was officially Bank of the Cascades instead of Bank of America; it had caused a lot of confusion.
	At least one person was there to close her account because her account had been sold when the branches were, but she didn&apos;t want to transfer to Bank of the Cascades.
	She wanted her Bank of America account back.
	Another person had been on vacation, so he didn&apos;t get the email about his Bank of America debit card soon being canceled and the fact that he needed to activate a new Bank of the Cascades debit card.
	He got a nasty surprise when he tried to charge to his card.
	I found though that the savings accounts that they offer have a fairly low minimum balance for avoiding fees: \$100 $a[USD].
	I can only withdraw money a maximum of three times per month before dealing with fees, but I don&apos;t withdraw that often, and if for some reason I needed more money, I could start withdrawing in larger increments.
	As usual, the low-ranking bank representatives thought that having a telephone number was mandatory, but after speaking with their bosses to see if there was a workaround for this because I don&apos;t have telephone service, found that the workaround is to simply leave the telephone number field blank when entering my information into their computer system.
	A telephone number is not in any way needed, as usual.
</p>
<p>
	Whitanne_, from <a href="ircs://kitsune6uv4dtdve.onion:6697/%23Volatile">#Volatile</a>, said that I should add an $a[RSS] feen to my weblog.
	I suppose when I have time, I&apos;ll try to set that up.
	I don&apos;t know the $a[RSS] format though, so it might take a while.
	Hopefully, I&apos;ll be able to set up a script to update the feed automatically.
</p>
END
);