Create SSH tunnel for Firefox using Putty

Lets say you want to access a site which is not directly accessible from your computer but is accessible from a different computer that you can ssh to,  you can create a ssh tunnel to that computer and use that tunnel to access the site from a browser on your computer.

Here are few steps that you can use to achieve it in less than 5 mins:

  • Configure forwarder port using Putty
    • Open Putty, go to Connection > SSH > Tunnels
    • From this area, add in a source port (any unused port), and choose ‘Dynamic’.
    • Give the IP address of the destination to which tunnel is being created.
    • Then click ‘Add’ and you’ll get an entry under “Forwarded Ports”:
  • Create a ssh session to the destination IP using putty
  • Configure Firefox to use the tunnel
    • Open options -> Advanced and go to Networks tab
    • open settings under connections subsection
    • Select Manual proxy configuration
    • Set socks Host to 127.0.0.1 and set the port as forwarding port we configured
    • Select socksv5

Now your Firefox browser is ready to connect to any web server using the newly created ssh tunnel

One Comment

Leave a Reply

Required fields are marked *.


This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.