Use SSH to Create an HTTP Proxy
April 16th, 2009 by Rich Lundeen in
SOCKS is built in to OpenSSH, so it's a trivial matter to set up a local SOCKS proxy with the -D flag. For example:
$ ssh -D 12345 myuser@remote_ssh_server
will open up the port 12345 on your local machine as a SOCKS proxy so all your HTTP traffic can be specified to go through the SSH tunnel and out remote_ssh_server on the other end. Your proxy server is now set up.
Next, set up your browser to use the proxy server. Most browsers include proxy support. For Firefox 3, go to Edit→Preferences→Advanced→Network→Settings, and specify that you want to use a Manual Proxy, localhost, port 12345 and SOCKS v5 (although OpenSSH supports both versions 4 and 5).
Now your browser is using a secure tunnel to your remote SSH server.
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No easy
On May 13th, 2009 Frank Merlott (not verified) says:
I don't think it is that easy, what about the server side configuration? Now that is the difficult part.
SOLVED: I'm getting white screens
On May 4th, 2009 Renich says:
Ok, the problem was that I had something in HTTP Proxy (The first input). I had to leave it blank and add this config to SOCKS only.
SOCKS Host: 127.0.0.1 port: 12345 (I, actually, used 8080) with
ssh -C2qTnN -D 8080 user@my_server
but I'm sure it's gonna work with port 12345, hehe.
__________________________It's hard to be free... but I love to struggle!
Renich Bon Ciric
http://www.woralelandia.com/
http://www.introbella.com/
I'm getting white screens
On May 4th, 2009 Renich says:
I'm using Firefox 3.0.10 and Fedora 10.
It seems to work partially. I'm getting white screens instantly and, if I shutdown the ssh tunnel, it gives me an instant error.
What could be wrong with my proxy? I'm using my super-cool Dreamhost server for the tunnel... anything they could be blocking?
__________________________It's hard to be free... but I love to struggle!
Renich Bon Ciric
http://www.woralelandia.com/
http://www.introbella.com/
plink.exe putty.exe on windows
On April 27th, 2009 Border (not verified) says:
You can use plink.exe or putty.exe on windows.
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html
More details; also tunneling the DNS requests
On April 24th, 2009 Gerard Braad (not verified) says:
ssh -D 8080 -f -C -q -N myuser@remote_ssh_server
-D 8080 : This does the dynamic stuff and makes it behave as a SOCKS server.
-f : This will fork the process into the background after you type your password.
-C : Turns on compression.
-q : Quiet mode. Since this is just a tunnel we can make it quiet.
-N : Tells it no commands will be sent. (the -f will complain if we don’t specify this)
In Firefox use about:config
network.proxy.no_proxies_on : localhost, 127.0.0.1, 192.168.0.0/24, .yourcompany.com
network.proxy.socks : 127.0.0.1
network.proxy.socks_port : 8080
network.proxy.socks.remote_dns : true
network.proxy.socks_version : 5
network.proxy.type : 1
The setting remote_dns will make sure also your dns requests will be tunneled over the SOCKS proxy
When surfing web sites, just displays a blank page
On April 23rd, 2009 gtkfreak (not verified) says:
I did exactly as the tip stated. Logged into the Ubuntu box and gave above ssh command.
However, when I enter www.google.com, it just displays a blank page. Would anyone know what it the problem.
Thanks
I'm wearing two pairs of Socks
On April 22nd, 2009 Kvetch says:
If you find a protocol/port blocked by a corp. proxy or just needing to tunnel more than just simple http/https thru your SOCKS proxy but your app doesn't support SOCKS check out proxychains. http://sourceforge.net/projects/proxychains/
Install proxychains
Create your ssh SOCKS proxy
# ssh -fqND 5555 thedoc@tardis
Edit the /etc/proxychains.conf
uncomment the "dynamic_chain", comment out the line "strict_chain" and add a line containing the ssh socks5 port "socks5 127.0.0.1 5555"
Then just run your app with the normal cli command but with proxychains prepending the line.
For example to run the command "emerge --sync" (part of everyone's favorite package management tool, portage) just do this
# proxychains emerge --sync
-nick
DNS requests won't be proxied!!
On April 22nd, 2009 Anonymous (not verified) says:
If you want your DNS requests from web browsing to be proxied also (SOCKSv5), make sure to open up "about:config" in Firefox and change "network.proxy.socks_remote_dns" to True.
It is called a SOCKS proxy
On April 19th, 2009 Ebrahim (not verified) says:
It is called a SOCKS proxy, not an HTTP proxy. An HTTP proxy is told to a proxy whose protocol is HTTP, e.g. Squid.
I'm agree with you.
On April 22nd, 2009 guomsh (not verified) says:
I'm agree with you.
another great tip
On April 16th, 2009 Tuxly_Tuxford_McTuxtington says:
I'm learning a lot with these little tips. Keep it up! :)
Background the process
On April 16th, 2009 Vivek (not verified) says:
For those of us who want to use terminal to do something else other having an ssh session open while running the proxy, you can prepend
-f -q -Nlike so:ssh -f -q -N -D 12345 myuser@remote_ssh_serverprovided that you can login into your remote ssh server without a password. See this page on how to log in without a password:
http://linuxproblem.org/art_9.html
Cheers
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