Access company intranet (http/https) using SSH (AllowTcpForwarding might be set to "no")

Question

How can I access web services inside my company's LAN from the outside? I can SSH in to a machine that's inside the LAN.

I tried to use Putty to set up dynamic port forwarding and configured Firefox to use localhost as a SOCKS proxy, but that didn't seem to work. I can't access any page at all with this proxy configuration in Firefox.

Can it be that AllowTcpForwarding is set to no? How do I check?

Can it be anything else?

I want to be able to connect to several different web sites/services inside the LAN, both using http and https and running on port 80, 433, as well as other ports. I do not have root access to any machine inside the LAN.

So, how can I access web services inside my company's LAN?

EDIT:

$ cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/ppp0/forwarding
cat: /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/ppp0/forwarding: No such file or directory
$ cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/eth0/forwarding
0

So I guess that means AllowTcpForwarding is "no".

EDIT 2:

Lynx isn't installed, but I guess I could compile it and install it to ~/bin/, but I'm affraid that wouldn't help. One of the services I need to access is a fancy drag-and-drop web page, so I need to be able to use a modern graphical browser to access it.

EDIT 3:

So it looks like the SOCKS proxy I set up with Putty does work. But only for some URLs. We have a .pac file for automatic proxy configuration at work. The sites that I can access without the proxy config at work I can also access through my SOCKS proxy.

So to get everything working through my SOCKS proxy it seems like I need to incorporate the rules from the .pac file somehow. Anyone have any idea how to do that?

Answer 1

The easiest way is using simple port forwarding. In putty, head to the Connection->SSH->Tunnels category and enter:

• a local port of your choosing in the Source port field
• the host+port of your internal web service in the destination field
• press Add

Here is an example:

After connecting, you can enter http://localhost:8081/ in your web browser and it will show you the web site which is hosted in your company LAN at the address http://192.168.1.17:80.

You will have to repeat the process for every web service you want to access, giving out new port numbers, e.g. you could access a second HTTPS service using Source port 8082 and Destination 192.168.1.18:443.

Answer 2

you could use lynx. won't give you fancy graphics but will "access web services inside your company's LAN" on both 80 and 443, of course it has to be installed...