Using a vnc client through ssh tunnel

Question

Laptop(osx-home network)------>Host1(linux-pc-college network)---->Host2(linux-pc-using vncserver on port 5901, can only be accessed from host1)

I can access host2 through ssh using:

• [user@laptop ~]$ ssh user1@host1
• [user1@host1 ~]$ ssh user2@host2

I need to access host2 vncserver using a ssh tunnel from "laptop". Any recommendation, also, which vnclient is suitable for this task?

Solution

Several options are available. First you need to setup a TCP tunnel.

If the port forwarding to the local network is not disabled in the sshd_conf at host 1, then this would be enough:

ssh -t -L 5901:ip-of-host2:5901 user@Host1

Otherwise you need to build a chain of port forwardings:

ssh -L 5901:127.0.0.1:15901 user1@Host1 ssh -L 15901:127.0.0.1:5901 user@host2

if the password authentication is used to connect to host2 then add a -t option to the first ssh:

ssh -t -L 5901:127.0.0.1:15901 user1@Host1 ssh -L 15901:127.0.0.1:5901 user@host2

Then use vncviewer of your choice to connect to the display localhost:1. I prefer to use TigerVNC.

Comments

[ampc]

Thanks @serge that worked. Now I just need to config vncserver. It displays file manager windows like this:i.imgur.com/wns0q.jpg

[Serge]

I don't know why. I have no experience with Mac