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Mike B
Asked: 2012-01-18 10:48:05 +0800 CST

Can I use an SSH tunnel to access a web server that's listening on a different IP/Port on the same server?

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I've got a web server that isn't quite ready for general availability but I'd still like to test some things remotely. Can I leverage an SSH tunnel to connect to the server and then use the tunnel to route to the web service that is operating on the same server? If so how?

I realize that implementing firewall exceptions would be easier but that isn't an option at this time.

Sorry if this is confusing. I agree that it's a unique scenario.

CentOS 5.x

linux centos ssh ssh-tunnel putty

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I know cherokee management works this way, so let's say you have bound your webserver to your localhost on port 8080

    ssh -L 8080:localhost:8080 your_servers_ip

    After that you can access the remote interface through http://localhost:8080 and every request will be forwarded to the remote IP running your webserver.

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  2. What Lucas said, where "localhost" can also be any reachable IP address from the SSH host.

    Note that if you're using name virtual hosts, you will also need to do a /etc/hosts hack, so that you append something to the existing 127.0.0.1 line, something like:

    127.0.0.1   localhost  secretwebserver.example.com

    Your browser can then use http://secretwebserver.example.com:8080.

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