SSH Port Forwarding: A Beginner's Guide to Setting Up Local, Remote, and Dynamic Tunnels with Putty

Port forwarding is an essential feature of SSH (Secure Shell) that allows you to access remote services or resources by tunneling network traffic through a secure connection. In this article, we will explore the concept of local port forwarding, its benefits, and how to set up local, remote, and dynamic encrypted SSH tunnels using Putty.

What is Local Port Forwarding?

Local port forwarding is a type of SSH port forwarding that allows you to forward a port on your local machine (the ssh client) to a port on the remote SSH server, which then connects to a port on the destination machine. This technique is commonly used to access internal network resources or services that are not directly accessible from outside the network.

How to Set Up Local Port Forwarding with Putty

To set up local port forwarding using Putty, follow these steps:

1. Open Putty and configure your SSH connection settings as usual.

2. In the 'Connection' menu, select 'SSH' and then click on the 'Tunnels' button.

3. In the 'Tunnels' window, select 'Local' from the drop-down menu and enter the local port number you want to use for forwarding (e.g., 8080).

4. Enter the remote host IP address or hostname and the destination port number you want to connect to (e.g., 22).

5. Click on the 'Add' button to add the tunnel configuration.

6. Start your SSH connection using Putty.

Once the connection is established, any traffic sent to the local port (8080) will be forwarded to the remote host's port (22), which in turn connects to the destination machine's port.

In this article, we have explored the basics of local port forwarding and how to set up encrypted SSH tunnels using Putty. By following these steps, you can easily establish a secure connection between your local machine and a remote server or service, allowing you to access internal network resources or services that are not directly accessible from outside the network.

Putty tunnel setup