PuTTY SSH proxy

This tutorial is aimed at Windows users and focuses on PuTTY as our SSH client of choice.

Are you stuck behind a firewall or looking to add some privacy to your browsing? Whenever I’m off my own network I fire up an SSH tunnel back to my own servers and send all my browsing information through it. Why? Because big brother may be watching, but I can bet you someone even worse is trying to. Also, it could be incriminating if people knew how often I was checking my 9th (out of 10) place Fantasy Football team stats.

What is Tunneling? The Over Simplified Definition

When your browser (or other client) requests a webpage (or anything off the Internet) it sends a request from your computer through a series of routers, switches, firewalls, and servers owned and monitored by other people, companies, and ISPs until it reaches its destination, then follows the same (or similar) path back to your machine with the kitten pictures you asked for.

Tunneling bypasses some of the rules that these companies or ISPs may be enforcing on you by creating a direct, encrypted, connection to your tunnel server that can’t be easily peered into by prying eyes. This means that web pages that are blocked can be seen and passwords that are sent can’t be looked at.

Install PuTTY

There are other SSH clients and tools that are designed specifically for SSH tunneling and SOCKS proxying. I prefer this way because PuTTY also gives you an SSH client, which you should no doubt be in possession of anyways.

1. Extract the contents of the putty archive into C:\bin

Configuring PuTTY

1. Type in a title under Saved Sessions and press Save
2. On the left side, go to Connection->SSH->Tunnels
3. In Source Port enter 8080 (this can be configured to be whatever you want, just remember it)
4. Choose the Dynamic radio button under Destination
5. Press Add, you should then see D8080 in the box above
6. Go back to Session on the left side and then press Save to save the changes

SOCKS Proxy

To utilize the tunnel to its full benefit, you need to set up a SOCKS proxy in your browser. Will describe how to use the FoxyProxy proxy switching plugin. It works for both FireFox and Chrome on Windows, which are really the only browsers you should be using.