SSH - Relay?
There are times when I'm at a client's system and I need to access my
home computer to tell it to resend data or do something similar so I've
just ssh'ed in to my home computer from outside. My firewall forwards
a port to my workstation and there's no need to go into the rest of the
security details. Basically, with my current ISP, I can just ssh to my
home system. I also have a few computers at client's sites that I may
need to reach that are behind firewalls, so I have a system where I can
post a connection request to a web page, those computers will see it,
and issue a command like this (with the variables replaced, of course):
ssh -l $user -nNT -R $port:localhost:22 $domain >/dev/null 2>&1 &
Then when it creates the reverse ssh tunnel, I can login to that system
through the tunnel.
I don't want to go into issues with my current ISP, but I would like to
switch to Verizon FiOS for a number of reasons. I'd rather not have to
pay the extra for a static IP and the ability to run a web server. I
considered it, but then *I* have to maintain that server and it's
roughly $50 a month more than what I'd be paying for home service. My
current hosting company (Westhost) charges me something like $10-$12 a
month. While it'd be nice to host my sites here in terms of some
conveniences, the price and security hassle outdoes the benefit.
The one issue with Verizon is that I see in their ToS that I can't run
any kind of server on my account and I know they block at least port
80. I don't plan to use port 80, but if I lost the ability to ssh into
my home computer, it'd hurt in terms of extra on-sight trips.
Is there some way to have two systems use ssh and "meet" in the middle,
at a relay site, then form a direct connection? I could use my hosting
site as a relay, but sometimes ssh connections have a latency issue, so
once I made a connection, I'd want to find a way to create a direct
connection.
If that can't be done, I'm open to other suggestions.
Thanks!
Hal
Reply to: