How do I set up a port forwarding through SSH?

Question

I have a shell account (Debian) and I want all my localhost browser internet traffic to go through that shell account.

I know how to configure the internet browser and how to configure Putty for port forwarding, what I do not know is what I need to do on the server for this to happen.

Anyone knows what I should do on the server so that it will accept port forwarding? It does not seem to work with the default configuration.

Answer 1

Inside the sshd_config file just change the #PermitTunnel setting from no to yes.

from

#PermitTunnel no

to

PermitTunnel yes

Answer 2

I want all my localhost browser internet traffic to go through that shell account.

ssh -D 8080 -T -f -l username proxy_host

• Will create a dynamic port forwarding (SOCKS proxy).
• -T will not allocate a tty
• -f will make SSH to go immediately into background
  • For this to work you need to use public key authentication
  • at least on debian have a look at ssh-copy-id
• Now you just need to configure your browser to go thru the specified port

Leave out -Tand -f while testing the setup. The local port forwarding (-L [listenaddress]:localport:remotehost:remoteport ssh_host) will only work for the remotehost (e.g. ssh -L 8080:google.com:80 ssh_host will only forward traffic to google.com over the ssh_host not all web traffic)

If that doesn't work please update your question with the output of the SSH command with the -vvv switch added.

Answer 3

This article seems to have a lot of detail and should answer your question:

http://polishlinux.org/apps/ssh-tunneling-to-bypass-corporate-firewalls/

or there is always Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunneling_protocol