An utility to manage ssh tunnel connections easily via systemd.
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Archlinux AUR: sshtunnel-git
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Fedora: sshtunnel (by metanova, thanks!)
First read /etc/sshtunnel.conf, understand it, and configure your new tunnel there.
Tunnels are run as the user sshtunnel. In order for sshtunnel to work, you’ll
need to set up key-based authentication without a passphrase. Because of
security concerns, you’re highly advised to create a new user with the shell
set to /bin/false on the server:
# mkdir /var/lib/sshtunnel # groupadd -r sshtunnel # useradd -r -g sshtunnel -d /var/lib/sshtunnel -s /bin/false -c sshtunnel sshtunnel # chown sshtunnel:sshtunnel /var/lib/sshtunnel
On the client, generate a new key with an empty passphrase like this:
# sshtunnel ssh-keygen
Then copy the echoed key by hand to /var/lib/sshtunnel/.ssh/authorized_keys.
Now open a test-connection to the tunnel to accept the host key:
# sshtunnel test <name>
Note this will call x11-ssh-askpass because ssh isn’t controlling the
terminal.
If you’re not running X, you might want to do this by hand:
# su sshtunnel -s /bin/bash $ ssh sshtunnel@example.com exit
When you finished the setup procedure, you can now start the tunnel using sshtunnel, and then view its status:
# sshtunnel start <name> # sshtunnel status <name>
Feel free to mail me at sshtunnel@the-compiler.org for any questions.