[[!meta title="Accessing resources on the local network"]]

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](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1918).

[[!toc]]

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 <span class="application">Tor Browser</span> 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 <span class="application">Tor Browser</span> 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.

<div class="caution">

<p>Connections made to the local network are not anonymous and do not go
through Tor.</p>

</div>

<a id="browser"></a>

Browsing web pages on the local network
=======================================

It is impossible to access web pages on the local network using <span class="application">Tor
Browser</span>. 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 [[<span class="application">Unsafe
Browser</span>|anonymous_internet/unsafe_browser]] instead.

<a id="http"></a>

Downloading files from web pages on the local network
=====================================================

[[!inline pages="doc/anonymous_internet/unsafe_browser/chroot.inline" raw="yes"]]

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 <span class="filename">http://192.168.1.40/document.pdf</span>
execute the following command:

    curl http://192.168.1.40/document.pdf

<a id="ftp"></a>

Downloading files from an FTP server on the local network
=========================================================

To connect to an FTP server on the local network choose
<span class="menuchoice">
  <span class="guimenu">Places</span>&nbsp;▸
  <span class="guimenuitem">Connect to Server&hellip;</span></span>.
