Using Linode as SSH Proxy for Web Browsing

Just learned a neat trick today: Using your linode as a secure proxy server for web browsing.

I am trying this in Windows, so I used cygwin’s ssh. You should have ssh already if you are on a linux desktop.

To create a proxy server, simply run this command:

$ssh username@linode-ip-address -D 9999

Enter the password to login when prompted.

This will create a proxy server in your own computer (localhost) at port 9999.

So in you browser, say Firefox, just need to configure the proxy setting to localhost:9999 and that’s it, you have a secure proxy as all web traffic will be tunneled through this ssh connection.

NOTE: I found that you need to keep all other proxy setting blank, only set the proxy for SOCKS, else it may not work.

With that, have fun browsing, securely!

References:

http://embraceubuntu.com/2006/12/08/ssh-tunnel-socks-proxy-forwarding-secure-browsing/

http://keystoneit.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/ssh-tunneling-with-firefox/