Reverse SSH tunnel listens to the port on the remote machine and forwards all the data coming on that port to the specified port on your local machine via SSH. Reverse SSH Tunnel (Remote Port Forwarding) One other use case would be to access the database on the server securely without exposing the database ports. This is one of many use cases of local port forwarding. Ssh -L 8080::80 can access the restricted website with the URL “ in your local machine browser. In such a case, you can create an SSH tunnel to the machine inside your office network and access the restricted website: Let’s take a scenario where your office network only allows SSH connections to the inside resources/machines, blocks all other traffic from outside networks, and you want to access the website restricted to your office network securely. Local port forwarding is very useful while accessing the services hosted on a private network. Ssh -L 1234:farawayhost_IP:5678 this kind of implementation, all the data coming on “port 1234” of your machine will be forwarded to the “port 5678” on the farawayhost machine by remotehost machine (given that farawayhost allows the remote host to send data for port 5678). In the above example, “localhost” refers to the localhost IP of a remote machine.Īnother implementation of local port forwarding is the following: With the above command, all the data coming on “port 1234” of your machine will be encapsulated as SSH data and forwarded to “port 5678” of the remotehost. Ssh -L 1234:localhost:5678 this command, “-L” refers to the local side listening. Use the following command to set up the SSH tunnel between your machine and remote machine (given that you have SSH access to the remote machine): When you create an SSH tunnel with local port forwarding, the SSH tunnel forwards the data from the port on the client machine to the port on the server machine. Dynamic SSH Tunnel (dynamic port forwarding).Reverse SSH Tunnel (remote port forwarding).SSH tunneling can be implemented in three ways:

SSH comes with authentication and encryption built-in, meaning we can use SSH tunnels to transfer the data from unsecured services between two hosts. It’s important to note that SSH tunneling is frequently used by hackers, who build backdoors in internal networks so that attackers can easily access internal data.SSH tunneling is the feature offered by the OpenSSH tool, which lets us create a tunnel between two hosts so that data from some other protocol is encapsulated in the SSH header and transferred as SSH data between those two hosts. SSH keys use asymmetric encryption and provide an even higher level of security. SSH tunnels also offer increased security when you’re surfing on unfamiliar networks, for example in a hotel or coffee shop. A SSH File Transfer Protocol, SFTP for short, will be used for this. If you’re transporting data from services that use an unencrypted protocol, you can use SSH forwarding to encrypt the data transfer. This is similar to a Virtual Private Network (VPN) but is nonetheless different - try not to mix the two up. It will look like you are on this network, when you are in reality just accessing it using the SSH tunnel. The use of this virtual network allows certain restrictions on access to be bypassed. In most cases, SSH port forwarding is used to create an encrypted connection between a local computer (the local host) and a remote computer. There are various use cases for secure shell port forwarding.

Use ssh tunnel