Good tool to manage ssh tunnels on OSX

Question

I'm looking for a good tool to manage ssh tunnels. Currently I'm using SSHTunnel (cocoa-sshtunnel) but its not very secure, if you look at a ps while connected you see the password in plaintext. And there is no way to configure a private key file per connection.

I also tried STM (http://projects.tynsoe.org/en/stm/index.php) however you cannot save your passwords, and also no private key option.

I'm working on osx Snow Leopard. I use the tunnels for Remote port forwarding. I have a local SVN server for website development, and checkout remotely. I cannot forward ports as I don't have access to the router.

What tools do you use?

Solution 1

SSH Tunnel Manager - This tool is great!

Solution 2

you should use the console and normal ssh for tunneling, at least thats what i always do. here a small introduction on how to use it. password saving is indeed something that doesn't work there but i always used keys anyway so you don't have to enter a password anymore

ssh tunnel from console:

http://www.revsys.com/writings/quicktips/ssh-tunnel.html

login with authkeys:

http://linuxproblem.org/art_9.html

this is both for linux and bsd but should work on mac os too, i remember using it there maybe some option has another shortcut, if it doesn't work look at man ssh

*EDIT

if you need a gui (comment) try jellyfissh seems it can do what you need

http://www.m-works.co.nz/jellyfissh.php

Solution 3

I wrote my own tool for this, Tunnel Boring Machine. It doesn't store passwords, but it works fine with SSH keys in ~/.ssh, which is how I use it.

It's possible that I'll get around to password storage at some point -- if you end up finding that TBM works for you but is missing some key feature like password storage, feel free to file an issue on GitHub, or, for that matter, implement it and send me a pull request.

Comments

[Paul Jacobse]

I know how to do it in the console, however some of my colleagues don't. And they should be able to create the tunnel when i'm not around. I know it is not a best practice to do it like this, but its only a temp solution until we finally get our remote accessible development server up and running.

[Xtroce]

then maybe just write a small script that is executable and put it on the desktop. would be the easiest way. they just have to copy the script and access it, if you need you could also write a kill script for the tunnel, one click start, one click kill ;) if it's a temp solution it doesn't matter if the server is hard coded in the script, i suppose

[Geoffrey Wiseman]

Jellyfish looks interesting -- I wish their screenshots covered tunnels more than they seem to.