Practical Security: Creating SSH Tunnels

"There are two primary reasons to use ssh for tunneling. Before I give those reasons, I'll describe what tunneling is.

"Tunneling with ssh is the process of wrapping some network communication with the encrypted ssh protocol. Tunneling involves an ssh client connecting to an ssh server, just as in "regular cases." But when the ssh client connects to the server, the client specifies the source and the destination for the tunnel.

"The source is simply a bound network port that other processes can connect to. This port must either be managed by the ssh client or the ssh server.

"The destination is another bound network port; but this time, it's some other network server that the other end of the ssh tunnel can communicate with. If this seems a bit unclear, don't worry; I'll get into more detail shortly with an example. For now, you can just think of ssh tunneling as secure port forwarding."

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