Surfing The Web Through SSH on Windows

Sometimes you're using the Internet on an untrusted network, or sometimes your Internet provider won't let you access certain websites, just like what the Iranian and Chinese governments do. The simplest solution to bypass those restrictions and surf the web safely is to use SSH. However, this method is only possible if you have access to a remote machine, running SSH server.

First thing you need to do is to install SSH server on a linux machine and create a user that can access that machine remotely.

Next you have to forward SSH port to your machine in your router configuration. Since different routers have different configuration system, you need to figure that out by yourself.

Once you're done with SSH port forwarding, you need to find out about your public IP address. You can easily find it by going to www.whatismyip.com.

To make sure it's working try to access it from your Linux server by issuing the following command:

ssh username@ip-address-you-found-from-whatismyip.com

Once you were able to connect to your computer through the public IP, it's time to configure the windows client. First thing you need is to install putty. After you installed putty, run it. Enter the public IP address you found earlier and the port of your SSH server (The default is 22).

Then on the left panel click on SSH and then Tunnels. Then write a port number inside source port such as 9090. Leave the destination port empty and make sure to check dynamic and auto option right below it. Press Add. Now you should see the D9090 on the list.

Go back to session by clicking on it on the left panel. Enter a name for your session and save it. Then double click on the recently created session. A black screen will pop out and will ask you for your login name. Enter the login name assigned to you on the SSH server. Then enter your password. Note that in Unix/Linux environment when you enter passwords, you won't see anything happening (No * when you type your password). For the first time, putty will warn you about possible security issues, which you need to ignore and continue.

Welcome to remote Linux machine. In order to make sure if you're connected to the remote server, write

w

and make sure it returns your login name.

Right now, you're connected to remote machine through a SSH tunnel. Now we need to tell our apps to use this tunnel. That is, we open Firefox. Then from the tools menu, go to option -> general and then click on connection settings. Select manual proxy configuration and enter the following information in corresponding fields:

SOCKS Host: 127.0.0.1

Port: 9090

No Proxy For: localhost, 127.0.0.1

Once you entered those information try to go to www.whatismyip.com. If you've configured everything correctly, you should be able to see the same IP address you tried to connect to remote machine.

Surfing the web using this method is not as fast as surfing it directly. However, it will provide you additional security if you don't trust your network. It can also be used to visit websites that are restricted by your ISP.

Note that some advanced routers have built in SSH server. If you happen to own one of them, you don't need to install SSH server on a Linux machine or do the port forwarding part.

Published On: Aug. 4, 2010 --- Views: 1944

Tags: ssh proxy server linux windows putty

---

There are 1 comment(s):

---

Back To The Blog Page