ssh tunnel error : channel 3: open failed: connect failed: Connection refused

Question

I'm trying to access and browse internet through a ssh server so in my laptop (ubuntu 12.04) I do this:

ssh -D 9999 root@server-ip

then in the network proxy in my laptop I set:

HTTP proxy 127.0.0.1      port 9999

but when I try to open a page in my browser it doesn't connect and in my terminal I get errors like these :

channel 4: open failed: connect failed: Connection refused
channel 3: open failed: connect failed: Connection refused
channel 5: open failed: connect failed: Connection refused
channel 4: open failed: connect failed: Connection refused
channel 6: open failed: connect failed: Connection refused

I'm new to this and found this method on the internet so I'm don't know what I'm doing wrong. I'd really appreciate it if anyone can help me make this work.

Solution

The -D option does not creates an HTTP proxy. It creates a SOCKS5 proxy:

 -D [bind_address:]port
         Specifies a local “dynamic” application-level port forwarding....Currently the SOCKS4 and SOCKS5 protocols are sup‐
         ported, and ssh will act as a SOCKS server.

In order to use the proxy you will need to configure Firefox to use a SOCKS5 proxy as described in this document.

Comments

[larsks]

Note that -D does not create an HTTP proxy, it creates a SOCKS5 proxy...so make sure you configure your browser correctly (e.g., as described here.

[soroosh.strife]

oh! thank you it worked. I was setting http proxy instead of socks host.

[terdon]

@larsks you seem tohave solved this, care to post it as an answer?

[larsks]

I've gone ahead and posted it as an answer. Cheers!