SSH Tunnels Are Like a Free Cheap VPN

If you’re not already familiar with the concept I bet you’d be very interested to learn that you can simulate VPN access to a network as long as you have access to a linux host on that network.

These instructions work on OS X and Linux. Putty also has tunneling capabilities, but those are beyond the scope of this post.

There are many uses for the technology.

SSH Tunneling Applications

1. Get online at a client site - If you’re visiting a client site and don’t have proxy access you can use a SSH SOCKS proxy to bypass the LAN proxy and get on the web
2. Encrypt traffic - to keep LAN admins from seeing what you’re looking at
3. Bypass corporate web filters - bypass corporate firewall to get access to Gmail, Facebook and other restricted resources.
4. Defeat QOS limitations - Bypass rate limiting and other service caps imposed by QOS rules
5. Access your database server - Access your database server even though remote access is disabled.

Access your database server

Port forward Postgresql


ssh -f root@server.yourdomain.com -L 5432:localhost:5432 -N


Access the web using a Socks Proxy

$ssh -D 9999 username@ip-address-of-ssh-server

Then go to Firefox->Preferences->Advanced->Network->Settings to configure the socksproxy. The address is localhost.

Further Reading on SSH Tunneling

• Kees Cook tells us how to tunnel DNS lookups
• Don McArthur points out his excellent article that addresses the same issue
• verevi says the FoxyProxy extension