Persistent OnionShare VPS
OnionShare normally runs on a desktop with a transient .onion address that goes away when the laptop closes. Hosting it on a VPS makes the .onion address persistent across reboots and gives 24/7 reachability. AnubizHost provides VPS preconfigured with onionshare-cli in headless mode for share, receive, chat, or static website deployments. The encrypted persistent state lives on a LUKS partition that you control.
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OnionShare Modes
OnionShare supports four modes: share (one-time file send), receive (others upload to you), website (static .onion site), and chat (anonymous group chat). All four can run persistently on a VPS. The VPS install uses the same onionshare-cli binary that the desktop app uses, just in headless persistent mode without the GUI wrapper.
Persistent mode stores the v3 onion key in a JSON file so the .onion address survives daemon restarts. Without persistence, every restart generates a new address and every existing user loses their bookmark.
VPS-Side Setup
# Persistent OnionShare receive mode
onionshare-cli --persistent /etc/onionshare/receive.json \
--receive /var/lib/onionshare/uploads/The persistent file stores the v3 onion key so the address survives restarts. We ship the persistent file path inside an encrypted partition by default so a seized VPS yields ciphertext only.
Use Cases
Persistent OnionShare endpoints work well for: long-running source-submission boxes (lighter-weight than SecureDrop), file-distribution onions for software releases, anonymous group chats for closed communities, static .onion mirrors of clearnet sites. The receive mode is particularly useful: it lets sources submit documents without needing to install anything beyond Tor Browser.
Crypto Billing, Hardening Notes
BTC and XMR. Hardening: bind onionshare-cli to a unix socket consumed by Tor, never to a TCP port. LUKS-encrypt the uploads directory. Rotate the persistent key annually if threat model warrants.
Related: OnionShare receive, SecureDrop source, v3 onion Iceland, Tor hosting parent, Cwtch server.
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