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troex
Asked: 2011-03-27 04:53:11 +0800 CST

Port forwarding on Linux without iptables?

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I have a Linux VPS (virtuozzo) server and I need to setup port forwarding, but my hosting provider does not allow iptables-nat kernel modules so iptables -t nat - is not working.

I'm looking for other ways how to do it. I know I can forward port using openssh, but I need to forward 20+ different ports, tcp and udp so this is not an option.

Is there is any software for linux that can do port forwarding?

linux port-forwarding

8 Answers

  1. Use the tool called "socat", it is great tool for such things and it is already packaged in many linux distribution. Read about it here : http://www.dest-unreach.org/socat/doc/README

    Port forwarding example with socat :

    socat TCP4-LISTEN:80,fork TCP4:www.yourdomain.org:8080

    This redirect all TCP connections on port 80 to www.yourdomain.org port 8080 TCP.

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  2. There's a tiny, light resources program called redir which is pretty configurable.

    apt-get install redir to install on Debian-based distributions.

    redir :SRC :DEST will run in the background as a daemon.

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  3. What about rinetd ?
    Its a daemon that redirects TCP connections. Have a look at the man page to see if it suits your needs: https://manpages.debian.org/unstable/rinetd/rinetd.8.en.html

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  4. xinetd supports a redirect attribute which will do what you want. As others have noted there are a number of programs which handle redirects.

    Using xinetd or other program which uses the tcpwrappers library will allow you to apply access restrictions if and when it becomes necessary.

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  5. xinet/inetd. For e. g.:

    redirect

    Allows a tcp service to be redirected to another host. When xinetd receives a tcp connection on this port it spawns a process that establishes a connection to the host and port number specified, and forwards all data between the two hosts.

    http://linux.die.net/man/5/xinetd.conf

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  6. Best Answer

    I found small util called portfwd http://portfwd.sourceforge.net/ it does exactly what I need (TCP and UDP forwarding), homepage says it was last updated in 2002, but latest release is 2007, and it works on 2.6 kernel.

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  7. SSH Does port forwarding, so long as you can tunnel in an SSL connection.

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  8. Ok here is the simple answer that should work, it's not rocket science but most people over complicate the answer and confuse all the new to Linux users.

    ufw allow 2xxx

    2xxx = what ever your port number is just type that command into your server terminal and your desired port is opened up.

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