Python urllib2 Tor 514 Authentication Required

Question

I am trying to use Tor with python and urllib2 and am stuck. The following

print opener.open('http://check.torproject.org/').read()

And

telnet 127.0.0.1 9051

gives me the following error:

514 Authentication Required.

Here is the code I want to use: But I receive the same 514 Authentication Error on the urllib2.urlopen call.

import urllib2
# using TOR !
proxy_support = urllib2.ProxyHandler({"http" : "127.0.0.1:9051"} )
opener = urllib2.build_opener(proxy_support)
urllib2.install_opener(opener)
# every urlopen connection will then use the TOR proxy like this one :
urllib2.urlopen('http://www.google.com').read()

Any suggestions on why this is occurring?

The Tor Vidalia browser -> settings -> Advanced: Authentication set to 'Randomly Generate'

I am Using Python 2.65 urllib2 Tor

Answer 1

Google search suggests (and Tor manual confirms) that 9051 is Tor's default control port. Actual proxy is running on port 9050 by default, which is the one you need to use. However, Vidalia does not use the default ports without extra configuration.

The other problem is that urllib2 is by default unable to work with SOCKS proxies. For possible solutions see these two questions.