it looks like one is the daemon and one is the RPC client, same exact version numbers

bitcoin-server --version
Bitcoin Core Daemon version v0.12.0.0-g188ca9c

bitcoind --version
Bitcoin Core RPC client version v0.12.0.0-g188ca9c

thanks so much usually the startup command for me is

bitcoin-server &

but I seem to have trouble passing -listenonion, -rescan, or anything to bitcoin-cli or bitcoin-server

If I can figure out what I'm doing fundamentally wrong, when I see all the guides talk about passing in these options, maybe I can figure it out!

I'm trying to do "Automatically listen on Tor"
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/tor.md

"Starting with Tor version 0.2.7.1 it is possible, through Tor's control socket API, to create and destroy 'ephemeral' hidden services programmatically. Bitcoin Core has been updated to make use of this.

This means that if Tor is running (and proper authorization is available), Bitcoin Core automatically creates a hidden service to listen on, without manual configuration. This will positively affect the number of available .onion nodes.

This new feature is enabled by default if Bitcoin Core is listening, and a connection to Tor can be made. It can be configured with the -listenonion, -torcontrol and -torpassword settings. To show verbose debugging information, pass -debug=tor."


I tried:
bitcoin-cli -listenonion

but I get error:

error: too few parameters

so how can I run bitcoin on Tor?