The term "local network" here refers to the set of computers and devices that can be reached directly from your computer without going through the Internet. For example, your home router, your network printer, or the intranet of your company are most likely on your local network, also called LAN for Local Area Network. In technical terms, this refers to the set of IP addresses defined in RFC1918.

Security considerations

Accessing resources on the local network can be useful in the context of Tails, for example to exchange documents with someone on the same local network without going through the Internet.

But an application that can connect to both resources on the Internet (going through Tor) and resources on the local network (without going through Tor) can break your anonymity. For example, if a website that you visit anonymously using Tor Browser could also connect to other web pages that are specific to your local network, then this information could reveal where you are. This is why Tor Browser is prevented from accessing the local network in Tails.

This page describes some of the security measures built in Tails to protect from such attacks and explains how to access some types of resources on the local network.

Browsing web pages on the local network

It is impossible to access web pages on the local network using Tor Browser. This prevents websites on the Internet from deducing your location from the content of other web pages that might be specific to your local network.

To access web pages on the local network, use the Unsafe Browser instead.

Downloading files from web pages on the local network

To download files from web pages on the local network, you can use the curl command instead. For example, to download a document available on the local network at http://192.168.1.40/document.pdf execute the following command:

curl http://192.168.1.40/document.pdf