Issue
We have a Jenkins server which is accessible only from within the VPC on the cloud. On Mac and Linux I use sshuttle to make a ssh connection to the bastion instance (to act a proxy) and open the Jenkins console in the browser. Everything works fine.
Now I'm on Windows and trying to do the same on WSL2. If I'm not mistaken previously, sshuttle didn't work on WSL1 (failed with some error message), but I managed to run it on WSL2 without any issue. The ssh connection is established and I can access my Jenkins (using curl).
Then I tried to access my Jenkins on Windows via WSL2:
1. I found the IP address of WSL2 and the port the ssh tunnle:
# lsof -i -n | grep ssh
sshuttle 1234 rad 5u IPv4 39270 0t0 TCP *:socks (LISTEN)
ssh 5678 rad 3u IPv4 40252 0t0 TCP 172.25.236.84:57578->bastion:ssh (ESTABLISHED)
2. I configured network proxy setting of Firefox (v77) to use my ssh tunnle:
Manual proxy configuration
SOCK host: 172.25.236.84
Port: 1080
SOCKS V5 (tested with V4 as well)
But loading the page fails with "The connection was reset" error on Firefox. I tested via Powershell that the SOCKS port is open and responding (using Test-NetConnection).
1. Any idea what the problem is? How to make it work?
2. If it's not gonna work, is there any other solution (e.g. Docker, etc)?
Thanks.
Solution
I'm not sure, but my guess is that sshuttle doesn't actually act as a SOCKS proxy and that's why the connection gets reset.
I managed to access my Jenkins on Windows machine using ssh SOCKS proxy: ssh -D 0.0.0.0:1080 rad@bastion and configured Firefox to use the SOCKS proxy.
Interestingly, for this you don't even need WSL. It seems Windows 10 has OpenSSH and you can use it. Just open CMD and type ssh -D 1080 rad@bastion and setup Firefox to use localhost as the proxy.
If there's any better solution or any comment/concern (apart from DNS over SOCKS) with this approach, please share.
Thanks.
Answered By - Rad Answer Checked By - Gilberto Lyons (WPSolving Admin)