TOR process will not start automatically on Ubuntu 16.04

Solution 1:

Debian/Ubuntu encourage the use of multiple tor instances on a system as opposed to a single instance. As such, the decision was made to make the default instance tor@default as opposed to simple tor. To that end the installed tor.service file is invalid:

[Service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes
ExecStart=/bin/true
ExecReload=/bin/true

While Tor is installed with a valid /etc/init.d/tor service script, attempts to use this script on 16.04 result in systemd attempting to load the invalid tor.service instead. Removing or renaming offending file /lib/systemd/system/tor.service and reloading the scripts w/ systemctl daemon-reload will fix the problem.

Alternatively you can use the tor@default instance: E.g. service tor@default start, or you can create new instances with tor-instance-create.