hintertuer

Automatically connect to a remote SSH server and remotely forward a local port using SSH's built-in remote forwarding feature (the -R argument).

The various parameters for setting up the port forwarding are configured using snap configuration parameters. Set the various values as follows (changing the values as needed):

 snap set hintertuer local-port="443"
 snap set hintertuer local-host="localhost"
 snap set hintertuer remote-port="10443"
 snap set hintertuer remote-host="myhost.example.com"
 snap set hintertuer remote-addr="localhost"
 snap set hintertuer user="ubuntu"

This example configuration will result in port 443 (local-port) on the host localhost (local-host), as if it were accessed by the client host (where the snap is installed), being made available on port 10443 (remote-port) on myhost.example.com (remote-host), bound to the address localhost (remote-addr).

In order to improve security, the remote host's key must be configured. You can obtain the key by using the ssh-keyscan utility, and configuring the snap with that key:

 snap set hintertuer host-key="..."

Or combine it into one line:

 snap set hintertuer \
   host-key="$(ssh-keyscan $(snap get hintertuer remote-host))"

The snap will generate a new SSH key called "id_ecdsa" and try to use that to connect to the remote host. This file is stored in the snap's common data path (normally /var/snap/hintertuer/common/). This file can be overwritten, or another file in that directory can be used by running the following command:

 snap set hintertuer ssh-key="id_ecdsa"

After changing any of the configuration options, make sure to restart the snap:

 snap restart hintertuer

The name "Hintertuer" comes from the German translation for "backdoor".