VNC via socks SSH proxy tunnel

Question

I can connect to my private work network using Putty with the following settings:

• Hostname: login.example.com
• Port: 502
• SSH Forwarded Ports: D8888

This opens an SSH socks proxy which allows me to access internal servers. I again use Putty to connect to the internal Ubuntu server using the socks proxy above.

Now I want to get the server GUI using VNC, but I am unable to connect with the socks proxy. I tried forwarding the ports, but since I am newbie to this, I may have done it incorrectly. So how can I run VNC from my Windows machine to access the remote VNC server?

This article did not help me to connect using vncserver. RDP isn't working, either. The VNC session is on a different server accessible only from login.example.com as a socks proxy.

Note: I am able to SSH to the internal servers using the configuration above with the login.example.com as socks proxy in Putty.

Solution

If you're using the RealVNC viewer, as shown in the article you cited, then you should be able to do the following:

1. Use PuTTY to connect to login.abc.com and set the D8888 forwarding (which you said you've already been doing).
2. Start RealVNC viewer and click the Options... button.
3. Select the Connection tab.
4. Click the Use these proxy settings radio button.
5. Set Proxy type to SOCKS 5.
6. Set Proxy address and port to localhost:8888.
7. Now try connecting to the actual VNC server, e.g. vnc-server.abc.com:1. Don't use localhost:1, as you should be going through the SOCKS proxy.

Comments

[jjlin]

What VNC client are you using? Is the VNC session on login.abc.com, or a different server?

[suuser]

@jjlin on a different server accessible only from login.abc.com via a socks proxy. I followed the same client and steps as in the linked above article

[suuser]

the above linked artile vncserver does support socks. But the problem is that ssh://login.abc.com:5022 is the only accessible server which runsopenssh using which I need to connect to other internal servers inaccessible from outside. I am already able to do this , but the only thing is that it does not work with vnc

[Brian]

The client needs to support going through a SOCKS proxy. Simple port forwarding isn't a SOCKS proxy.