Mumble in Tails

The included shell scripts help the end user to host a Mumble server as a Hidden service in Tor in Tails.

Requirements

• Live running session of Tails in non-persistent mode.

• Tor should be up and running in Tails before running the script.

• Administrator password must be set at the Tails greeter screen.

• The scripts are expected to be executed in a root shell.

• The user should have access to the scripts locally or from a remote location.

  For persistent mode.

  • The persistent volume must be available and decrypted.

How to use

• Make sure the scripts are in accessible location like /home/amnesia/mumble-scripts.
  • For persistent mode, it would be helpful to put the scripts in /home/amnesia/Persistent/mumble-scripts so that they are available after a reboot.
• Open a Terminal window.
• Switch to root user by typing in sudo -i.
• Make sure the scripts are executable by running chmod 755 /home/amnesia/mumble-scripts/*.sh.
• To setup a Mumble server run /home/amnesia/mumble-scripts/setup-mumble.sh.
• Remember to launch Mumble as a non-root user from a new terminal window.
• Type in mumble and press enter, this should bring up the Mumble client.
• Share the .onion URL with the people who wishes to join your Mumble server.

Explanation of the scripts

setup-mumble.sh

1. Updates the apt(8) repositories.
2. Installs the Mumble client and Mumble server.
3. Sets up the hidden service for Mumble server.
4. Shows the .onion URL to the user.
5. Also copies the URL to the clip board for easy pasting.
6. For persistent mode, copies the Mumble server settings and hidden service settings to the persistent volume.

purge-mumble.sh

1. Removes the Mumble server hidden service.
2. Removes any unwanted additional packages that were installed as a part of installing Mumble client and Mumble server.
3. Removes the Mumble client and Mumble server.
4. For persistent mode, removes the Mumble server settings and hidden service settings from the persistent volume.

restore-mumble.sh

1. Used only for persistent mode.
2. Copies the Mumble server settings and hidden service settings to the persistent volume.
3. Restarts Tor service to host the Mumble server hidden service.
4. Shows the .onion URL to the user.
5. Also copies the URL to the clip board for easy pasting.

Potential improvements

• Give full support for saving / restoring states of server and service in persistent mode tails.
• Allow configurable variables for various things like Mumble port, Hidden Service port etc.
• Possibly extend the script to be functional outside Tails, in distributions like Debian for example.
• Add a GUI based installation mechanism to ease the end-user experience using tools like zenity(1).