Author: Pahaz
Repo: https://github.com/pahaz/sshtunnel/
Inspired by https://github.com/jmagnusson/bgtunnel, which doesn’t work on Windows.
See also: https://github.com/paramiko/paramiko/blob/master/demos/forward.py
Requirements
Installation
sshtunnel is on PyPI, so simply run:
pip install sshtunnel
or
easy_install sshtunnel
or
conda install -c conda-forge sshtunnel
to have it installed in your environment. For installing from source, clone the repo and run:
python setup.py install
Testing the package
In order to run the tests you first need tox and run:
python setup.py test
Usage scenarios
One of the typical scenarios where sshtunnel is helpful is depicted in the figure below. User may need to connect a port of a remote server (i.e. 8080) where only SSH port (usually port 22) is reachable.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
-------------+ | +----------+
LOCAL | | | REMOTE | :22 SSH
CLIENT | <== SSH ========> | SERVER | :8080 web service
-------------+ | +----------+
|
FIREWALL (only port 22 is open)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Fig1: How to connect to a service blocked by a firewall through SSH tunnel.
If allowed by the SSH server, it is also possible to reach a private server (from the perspective of REMOTE SERVER) not directly visible from the outside (LOCAL CLIENT‘s perspective).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
-------------+ | +----------+ +---------
LOCAL | | | REMOTE | | PRIVATE
CLIENT | <== SSH ========> | SERVER | <== local ==> | SERVER
-------------+ | +----------+ +---------
|
FIREWALL (only port 443 is open)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Fig2: How to connect to PRIVATE SERVER through SSH tunnel.
Usage examples
API allows either initializing the tunnel and starting it or using a with context, which will take care of starting and stopping the tunnel:
Example 1
Code corresponding to Fig1 above follows, given remote server’s address is pahaz.urfuclub.ru, password authentication and randomly assigned local bind port.
from sshtunnel import SSHTunnelForwarder
server = SSHTunnelForwarder(
'pahaz.urfuclub.ru',
ssh_username="pahaz",
ssh_password="secret",
remote_bind_address=('127.0.0.1', 8080)
)
server.start()
print(server.local_bind_port) # show assigned local port
# work with `SECRET SERVICE` through `server.local_bind_port`.
server.stop()
Example 2
Example of a port forwarding to a private server not directly reachable, assuming password protected pkey authentication, remote server’s SSH service is listening on port 443 and that port is open in the firewall (Fig2):
import paramiko
import sshtunnel
with sshtunnel.open_tunnel(
(REMOTE_SERVER_IP, 443),
ssh_username="",
ssh_pkey="/var/ssh/rsa_key",
ssh_private_key_password="secret",
remote_bind_address=(PRIVATE_SERVER_IP, 22),
local_bind_address=('0.0.0.0', 10022)
) as tunnel:
client = paramiko.SSHClient()
client.load_system_host_keys()
client.set_missing_host_key_policy(paramiko.AutoAddPolicy())
client.connect('127.0.0.1', 10022)
# do some operations with client session
client.close()
print('FINISH!')
Example 3
Example of a port forwarding for the Vagrant MySQL local port:
from sshtunnel import open_tunnel
from time import sleep
with open_tunnel(
('localhost', 2222),
ssh_username="vagrant",
ssh_password="vagrant",
remote_bind_address=('127.0.0.1', 3306)
) as server:
print(server.local_bind_port)
while True:
# press Ctrl-C for stopping
sleep(1)
print('FINISH!')
Or simply using the CLI:
(bash)$ python -m sshtunnel -U vagrant -P vagrant -L :3306 -R 127.0.0.1:3306 -p 2222 localhost
Example 4
Opening an SSH session jumping over two tunnels. SSH transport and tunnels will be daemonised, which will not wait for the connections to stop at close time.
import sshtunnel
from paramiko import SSHClient
with sshtunnel.open_tunnel(
ssh_address_or_host=('GW1_ip', 20022),
remote_bind_address=('GW2_ip', 22),
block_on_close=False
) as tunnel1:
print('Connection to tunnel1 (GW1_ip:GW1_port) OK...')
with sshtunnel.open_tunnel(
ssh_address_or_host=('localhost', tunnel1.local_bind_port),
remote_bind_address=('target_ip', 22),
ssh_username='GW2_user',
ssh_password='GW2_pwd',
block_on_close=False
) as tunnel2:
print('Connection to tunnel2 (GW2_ip:GW2_port) OK...')
with SSHClient() as ssh:
ssh.connect('localhost',
port=tunnel2.local_bind_port,
username='target_user',
password='target_pwd',
)
ssh.exec_command(...)
CLI usage
$ sshtunnel --help
usage: sshtunnel [-h] [-U SSH_USERNAME] [-p SSH_PORT] [-P SSH_PASSWORD] -R
IP:PORT [IP:PORT ...] [-L [IP:PORT [IP:PORT ...]]]
[-k SSH_HOST_KEY] [-K KEY_FILE] [-S KEY_PASSWORD] [-t] [-v]
[-V] [-x IP:PORT] [-c SSH_CONFIG_FILE] [-z] [-n] [-d [FOLDER [FOLDER ...]]]
ssh_address
Pure python ssh tunnel utils
Version 0.1.5
positional arguments:
ssh_address SSH server IP address (GW for SSH tunnels)
set with "-- ssh_address" if immediately after -R or -L
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-U SSH_USERNAME, --username SSH_USERNAME
SSH server account username
-p SSH_PORT, --server_port SSH_PORT
SSH server TCP port (default: 22)
-P SSH_PASSWORD, --password SSH_PASSWORD
SSH server account password
-R IP:PORT [IP:PORT ...], --remote_bind_address IP:PORT [IP:PORT ...]
Remote bind address sequence: ip_1:port_1 ip_2:port_2 ... ip_n:port_n
Equivalent to ssh -Lxxxx:IP_ADDRESS:PORT
If port is omitted, defaults to 22.
Example: -R 10.10.10.10: 10.10.10.10:5900
-L [IP:PORT [IP:PORT ...]], --local_bind_address [IP:PORT [IP:PORT ...]]
Local bind address sequence: ip_1:port_1 ip_2:port_2 ... ip_n:port_n
Elements may also be valid UNIX socket domains:
/tmp/foo.sock /tmp/bar.sock ... /tmp/baz.sock
Equivalent to ssh -LPORT:xxxxxxxxx:xxxx, being the local IP address optional.
By default it will listen in all interfaces (0.0.0.0) and choose a random port.
Example: -L :40000
-k SSH_HOST_KEY, --ssh_host_key SSH_HOST_KEY
Gateway's host key
-K KEY_FILE, --private_key_file KEY_FILE
RSA/DSS/ECDSA private key file
-S KEY_PASSWORD, --private_key_password KEY_PASSWORD
RSA/DSS/ECDSA private key password
-t, --threaded Allow concurrent connections to each tunnel
-v, --verbose Increase output verbosity (default: ERROR)
-V, --version Show version number and quit
-x IP:PORT, --proxy IP:PORT
IP and port of SSH proxy to destination
-c SSH_CONFIG_FILE, --config SSH_CONFIG_FILE
SSH configuration file, defaults to ~/.ssh/config
-z, --compress Request server for compression over SSH transport
-n, --noagent Disable looking for keys from an SSH agent
-d [FOLDER [FOLDER ...]], --host_pkey_directories [FOLDER [FOLDER ...]]
List of directories where SSH pkeys (in the format `id_*`) may be found