Admin access: To install Tor you need root privileges. Below all commands that need to be run as root user like apt and dpkg are prepended with '#', while commands to be run as user with '$' resembling the standard prompt in a terminal. To open a root terminal you have several options: sudo su, or sudo -i, or su -i. Note that sudo asks for your user password, while su expects the root password of your system.

macOS

  1. Install a package manager

There are two package manager on OS X: Homebrew and Macports. You can use the package manager of your choice.

To install Homebrew follow the instructions on brew.sh.

To install Macports follow the instructions on macports.org/install.php.

  1. Package installation

If you are using Homebrew in a Terminal window, run:

# brew install tor

If you are using Macports in a Terminal window, run:

$ sudo port install tor

Debian / Ubuntu

Do not use the packages in Ubuntu's universe. In the past they have not reliably been updated. That means you could be missing stability and security fixes.

  1. Configure Tor package repository

Enable the Torproject package repository by following the instructions.

  1. Package installation

    # apt install tor

Fedora

  1. Configure Tor Package repository

Add the following to /etc/yum.repos.d/tor.repo and then install the tor package.

[tor]
name=Tor for Fedora $releasever - $basearch
baseurl=https://rpm.torproject.org/fedora/$releasever/$basearch
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://rpm.torproject.org/fedora/public_gpg.key
cost=100

  1. Package installation

    # dnf install tor

FreeBSD

  1. Package installation

    # pkg install tor

OpenBSD

  1. Package Installation

    # pkg_add tor

Installing Tor from source

  1. Download latest release and dependencies

The latest release of Tor can be found on the download page.

If you're building from source, first install libevent, and make sure you have openssl and zlib (including the -devel packages if applicable).

  1. Install Tor

    tar xzf tor-0.4.3.6.tar.gz; cd tor-0.4.3.6

    ./configure && make

Now you can run tor as src/app/tor (0.4.3.x and later), or you can run make install (as root if necessary) to install it into /usr/local/, and then you can start it just by running tor.