The Tor status icon and Onion Circuits allow you to view the status of Tor.

  1. Tor status icon
  2. Onion Circuits

Tor status icon

The current status of Tor appears as an onion-shaped icon in the notification area:

  • Onion-shaped icon You are connected to Tor.

  • Onion-shaped icon crossed out You are not connected to Tor.

When you are not connected to Tor, all connections to the Internet are blocked by default.

Onion Circuits

Onion Circuits displays information about the current Tor circuits and connections.

To open Onion Circuits, click on the Tor status icon and choose Open Onion Circuits.

The circuits established by Tor are listed in the left pane. A Tor circuit is made of three relays:

  • The first relay or entry guard. If you configured a Tor bridge, your bridge is the first relay.
  • The second relay or middle node.
  • The exit node.

When you connect to a destination server, for example, when visiting a website, the connection appears in the list below the circuit it uses.

In the example above, the connection to check.torproject.org goes through the relays tor7kryptonit, Casper03, and the exit node blackfish.

If you click on a circuit, technical details about the relays of the circuit appear in the right pane.

Schematics of a connection to Tor with the client, the three relays, and the destination server.