Deadly simple sock proxy via ssh tunnel

You are in front of PC A, e.g. your company firewall

PC A is under a network with a firewall that blocks outbound traffic to some websites.

You also have a public server (PC B) that is not under any firewall (or the firewall rule is set up by yourself.

There is a way that allows you to view the blocked website. With the following ssh tunnel, you can use your browser under PC B's name from PC A

In PC A's command, execute

autossh -o "ServerAliveInterval 30" -o "ServerAliveCountMax 100" -D 1234 -CqNfT sammy@example.com

Command explanation

• autossh: same command interface as ssh, however autossh automatically restarts the command if it is terminated. autossh need to be installed manually. This command can be replaced with ssh.
• o "ServerAliveInterval 30": for every 30 seconds, send a ping package to the server in order to prevent the ssh connection from being terminated due to inactivity.
• -o "ServerAliveCountMax 100": the number of server alive messages sent when the server does not respond, before terminating the connection.
• -D sock channel port specifier
• -C: compress data
• -q: quiet mode, no warning
• -N: open SSH connection with no command to be executed
• -f: run background
• -T: do not allocate a TTY-terminal, save a tiny amount of memory

Now your localhost serves as a SOCKS proxy server at port 1234

Open firefox -> preference -> network setting -> Proxy -> manually Sock host. And set

Host: localhost
port: 1234

For Chrome (mac), execute http_proxy=socks5://localhost:1234 open -a '/Applications/Google Chrome.app'

For Mac with any browser, go to System Preferences, and choose "Network". In your currently connected network, click "Advanced", select the Proxies tab, check "SOCKS Proxy" and fill the host and port with "localhost" and "12345" respectively. Click "OK", then "Apply".

To open this sock connection whenever your PC startups. Refer to this blog post to set up a startup script.

Happy coding! <3