Force SSH connection through a different interface

Question

I want to connect remotely using SSH.

However, I'm not able to while my VPN is active, so I disconnect from the VPN and then connect using the other connection.

How can I force the connection through my other connection when connected to the VPN?

I'm using Windows 7 and PuTTY client.

Answer 1

There are 2 options. First, you could modify your routes so that the SSH packets naturally go through the correct interface.

Or you could use the -b SSH option (or in a similar way the -B one):

     -b bind_address
             Use bind_address on the local machine as the source address of
             the connection.  Only useful on systems with more than one
             address.

It will bind your SSH client to a chosen local IP address, so that all packets will be emitted through the associated interface.

Answer 2

The issue was with the route taken.

The solution was to update the routing table. I used the route command to add a new route specifying the correct interface and gateway.

The command looks like route add <destination> mask <netmask> <gateway> <interface>, for example:

route -p add 10.100.10.10 mask 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.0 IF 13

-p is for persistent so it remains there after reboot. IF is for interface and you can get this number from the command route print.

Answer 3

You must change the route towards your destination.

A previous answer stated that the -b or -B options can be used, but normally, if the VPN is activated this does not work because it reroutes the traffic towards any destination through the VPN network interface - generally named tun0.

Therefore, you must reconfigure the route taken to reach your destination. Let us call it <destination>, and <gate1> the IP address of the gateway (technically the address of the nexthop router) associated to the different interface that you want to use. With ip route, route being deprecated, this should be:

ip route add <destination> via <gate1>

An alternative is

ip route add <destination> via <gate1> dev <different interface>

but given that the address <gate1> is already associated with your different interface, here <different interface>, that changes nothing.

What matters here, is to specify it is <gate1>, the gateway of your different interface, which has to be traversed, instead of that of the VPN.