SSH Tunnelling for web access

Today I set up an SSH tunnel for the first time, and I was surprised at how easy it was! Using nothing but a simple SSH command and Firefox, you can route all your web traffic over an SSH connection, ensuring that it is all encrypted, and bypassing petty firewall rules. Completely hypothetically, this could also be used to gain access to a WiFi connection which allows SSH connections but redirects all HTTP requests to a "please sign up with your credit card details to access our slow WiFi at extortionate rates" page (as is the case with many public WiFi hotspots). I hope I need not reassure my readers that this is definitely not, in any way, why I needed an SSH tunnel.

What you need:

• A computer located anywhere in the world with unfettered access to the internet, a static IP, and which is capable of accepting SSH connections. *
• A computer which has restricted access to the internet.
• Mozilla Firefox.
• PuTTY if the machine from 2) is running Windows.

If the restricted machine is running Linux, simply open a terminal and enter the command:

ssh -D 8080 user@123.456.789.123

where 'user' and the IP address are those for the unrestricted computer. This sets up a dynamic SSH connection which tunnels all traffic sent to port 8080 via SSH to the unrestricted machine. No set up on the remote machine is needed at all!

Now open Firefox and go to Options (or Preferences) -> Network -> Settings. Set to "Manual proxy configuration", fill in the SOCKS Host with "localhost" and the port with "8080". Leave the "HTTP Proxy" field blank. Press OK.

That's it. You should now have full web access through Firefox over the SOCKS proxy via the SSH tunnel!

If your restricted machine is running Windows, then you need PuTTY to make the SSH connection. Put the IP address of your unrestricted machine for "Host name (or IP Address)", then go to Connection -> Data in the tree menu on the left, and put the username for the unrestricted machine in the "Auto-login username" field. Finally go to Connection -> SSH -> Tunnels, put 8080 in the "Source port" field, select the "Dynamic" radio button, and hit the "Add" button. Press "Open" to open the SSH connection to the unrestricted machine. Firefox should now have full web access via SSH.

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* It's only $5/month for a digital ocean VPS. These work brilliantly for SSH tunnelling, as they have SSH access set up by default, and Digital Ocean is currently not charging for excess bandwidth. Here's my referral link for your convenience: https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=d7616f10aa59

If you use this link, I'll get $25 once you've spent $25 after signing up.