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Tor hidden services expose a site without DNS or a public IP

david.alvarezrosa.com Editor score 6/10

A hidden service routes traffic to a local port using a Tor-owned directory, without DNS, a certificate authority or an exposed IP. The setup is a useful, compact example of privacy-focused network hosting.

What: A Tor hidden service makes a site reachable at an onion address without DNS, a certificate authority, or an exposed server IP.
How: Tor forwards the hidden service’s port 80 to a local port where nginx listens; Tor provides the connection’s encryption.
Why it matters: This setup lets engineers self-host a site over Tor while keeping the server’s public IP undisclosed.

Tor traffic reaches the hidden service, which forwards requests to nginx on a local port. Sketched from the article's own text.

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