June 9, 2009
I am very interested in using the services of Local services available remotely. I have a server on my LAN that I have SSH access to. I can connect to this server via SSH command line just fine.
I have a number of MacMinis at remote locations that I would like to have tunnel back to my office server, and be available on my LAN. The remote networks are clients of mine that often have third party IT support and it is a pain to get ports opened or forwarded for my systems. I am hoping to use Meerkat so I don't have to ask for ports to be opened, and just get client permission.
I tried to set up a test of this by using my own computer to connect to my server. I used the setup assistant and configured to have Local Services available remotely. I was not totally sure what to use for the hostname, local port, and remote port. I tried using 127.0.0.1 for the host name, 548 for the local port and 30500 for the remote port. Once the tunnel connected (it appeared to connect), I went to the finder on my server and chose Connect to server and put afp://127.0.0.1:30500. The connection just timed out. My server is behind a router, so I have to do port forwarding through the firewall.
I am able to get my server to show up on my home system just fine.
Does anyone have any insight?
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It sounds like you want to make services available on your local Mac, so you would want to use the first type of tunnel, Remote Services Available Locally.
It also sounds like the SSH account you have is on the LAN, local to the Mac you are running Meerkat on. This won't really help you much -- you will need an SSH account on the same network as the minis, maybe even on one of the minis (as long as they are all open to each other).
It would also help to know what type(s) of service(s) you wish to forward. Since you referenced port 548, maybe you are trying to access Apple File Sharing on these minis?
Say a mini had the IP 1.2.3.4, you had an SSH account on another machine on the mini's network, and you wanted to forward AFP (Apple File Protocol) to your local Mac.
This would allow you to connect to the mini's AFP through the SSH host, using it locally, but all traffic between your Mac and the mini's network would be encrypted.
You would setup a remote service available locally, using the SSH account, choosing 1.2.3.4 as the remote host and 548 as the remote port. Then put something >1024 like say 5548 as the local port.
Then, if you connect to afp://localhost:5548, you should tunnel through the SSH host and access 1.2.3.4's port 548.
That's kind of a whirlwind tour. Please let me know if helps or if you have any other questions.