[[!meta title="Managing the circuits of Tor"]]

<span class="application">Onion Circuits</span> displays information about
the current Tor circuits and connections.

To open **Onion Circuits**, click on the
Tor status icon ([[!img lib/symbolic/tor-disconnected.png alt="Tor status menu" link="no" class="symbolic"]]
or [[!img lib/symbolic/tor-connected.png alt="Tor status menu" link="no"
class="symbolic"]]) in the top-right corner and choose **Open Onion
Circuits**.

<h1 id="view">Understanding Tor circuits</h1>

If Tails is already [[connected to the Tor network|doc/anonymous_internet/tor]], a list of Tor circuits appears in the left pane of *Onion Circuits*.

<!-- Note for translators: the entry guard in use when you take the screenshot
onion-circuits.png is in a position to identify you. You might prefer to leave it
untranslated.-->

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

If you cClick on a circuit, to display the technical details about theeach relays of the circuit appear in the right pane.

Click on a circuit to display the technical details about each relay in the right pane.

[[!img onion-circuits.png link=no]]

Each Tor circuit is made of 3 Tor relays. In the example above, the connection to **tails.net** goes through the 3 relays **drk**, **kicka**, and **Quetzalcoatl**.

The first relay, here **drk**, is called the *entry guard*.

The first relay or *entry guard*. If you configured a Tor bridges, one of, your bridges is the first relay.your entry guard.

If you configured a Tor bridge, your bridge is your entry guard.

The second relay or, here **kicka**, is called the *middle noderelay*.

The second relay, here **kicka**, is called the *middle relay*.

The third relay, here **Quetzalcoatl**, is called the *exit node*.

[[!img doc/anonymous_internet/tor/tor.svpng link="no" alt="Schematics of a connection to Tor with the client, the 3 relays, and the destination server."]]

[[!img doc/anonymous_internet/tor/tor.png link="no" alt="Schematics of a connection to Tor with the client, the 3 relays, and the destination server."]]

<h1 id="change">Closing and replacing a Tor circuit</h1>

You can close a given Tor circuit to help replace a particularly slow Tor circuit or troubleshoot issues on the Tor network. To do so:

Right-click (on Mac, click with two fingers) on the circuit that you want to close.

Choose **Close this circuit** in the shortcut menu.

When you close a circuit that is being used by an application, your
application gets disconnected from this destination service.