Help! Need to connect LAN to Server thru SSH tunnel

Camilo99 · 07-06-2009, 02:52 PM

Hi everybody!

I have a hard question for well seasoned networking people.
I have a server located in the US, and a local network located abroad. I want all clients in the local network to be able to access the internet using the IP address of the server in the US over a secure connection.

So far, I have managed to enable the gateway in the local network to do so. This is what I did:

- Installed a SSH server (OpenSSH) and a proxy server in the US server.
- On the gateway of the local network I installed a SSH Client (putty) and configured port tunneling for the ports used.
- Configured the gateway applications to use a proxy server when connecting to the internet
- When the machine accesses the internet, it goes thru the secure SSH tunnel to the server, there the server proxy receives the requirements and then reaches the internet. So far so good.

Now, I need that the LAN Clients that use that PC as their gateway do the same but on a transparent way (no additional configuration on the client machines). In other words, I want any computer connected on that LAN to access the internet thru the SSH tunnel already configured on the Gateway by default. I thought about installing a proxy on the Gateway too, but that would require me to configure the local clients to use that proxy, something I don't want to. Also, some clients use some applications that don't have proxy configuration so I could not do that. I DO know the ports that I need to open, so, If I managed to somehow reroute all traffic thru the tunnel by default, all I would need to do is configure tunnels for all those ports.

I don't have a budget for this, so everything I'm using is open source. My server is a Windows Server and my LAN network is comprised of Windows XP and Vista machines. The gateway works by using Windows Internet Connection Sharing.

Any ideas?? This is driving me crazy!

Camilo

salvor_hardin · 07-07-2009, 02:19 AM

Tricky. I have similiar problem and so far unable to get answer on few forums... I know that solution lies in routing table configuration on gateway probably, I just don't know how to do it. I'm still searching...But maybe you should use NAT as gateway. Then you can direct all traffic from NAT to your server through SSH. As I understand, you are using pc as gateway?

07-06-2009, 02:52 PM	#1 (permalink)
Camilo99 Registered User Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 1 OS: Windows Vista	Help! Need to connect LAN to Server thru SSH tunnel Hi everybody! I have a hard question for well seasoned networking people. I have a server located in the US, and a local network located abroad. I want all clients in the local network to be able to access the internet using the IP address of the server in the US over a secure connection. So far, I have managed to enable the gateway in the local network to do so. This is what I did: - Installed a SSH server (OpenSSH) and a proxy server in the US server. - On the gateway of the local network I installed a SSH Client (putty) and configured port tunneling for the ports used. - Configured the gateway applications to use a proxy server when connecting to the internet - When the machine accesses the internet, it goes thru the secure SSH tunnel to the server, there the server proxy receives the requirements and then reaches the internet. So far so good. Now, I need that the LAN Clients that use that PC as their gateway do the same but on a transparent way (no additional configuration on the client machines). In other words, I want any computer connected on that LAN to access the internet thru the SSH tunnel already configured on the Gateway by default. I thought about installing a proxy on the Gateway too, but that would require me to configure the local clients to use that proxy, something I don't want to. Also, some clients use some applications that don't have proxy configuration so I could not do that. I DO know the ports that I need to open, so, If I managed to somehow reroute all traffic thru the tunnel by default, all I would need to do is configure tunnels for all those ports. I don't have a budget for this, so everything I'm using is open source. My server is a Windows Server and my LAN network is comprised of Windows XP and Vista machines. The gateway works by using Windows Internet Connection Sharing. Any ideas?? This is driving me crazy! Camilo Last edited by Camilo99; 07-06-2009 at 02:57 PM.

07-07-2009, 02:19 AM	#2 (permalink)
salvor_hardin Registered User Join Date: May 2009 Location: Zadar, Croatia Posts: 20 OS: XP, Ubuntu	Re: Help! Need to connect LAN to Server thru SSH tunnel Tricky. I have similiar problem and so far unable to get answer on few forums... I know that solution lies in routing table configuration on gateway probably, I just don't know how to do it. I'm still searching...But maybe you should use NAT as gateway. Then you can direct all traffic from NAT to your server through SSH. As I understand, you are using pc as gateway?