So I thought I'd kick off your idea with something I recently posted to the UbuntuForums. This has helps me stick with Ubuntu at a client where I am currently stationed. I know this looks like a lot of reading but it is not that difficult and well worth the effort.
I needed an SSH server as the Corporate proxy does not have socks enabled. If socks was enabled I would simply have configured tsocks to point to that server.
1.Get access to the ssh server.
2.Login using
ssh acidhawk@10.0.0.23.Test connection to my mail server from the ssh server (if this didn't work I would have asked the sysadmin to enable socks support on the corporate network proxy.... )
telnet mail.acme.com 25 (smtp to send)
telnet mail.acme.com 110 (pop3 to receive)4.End ssh session
5.Download tsocks to my local machine
sudo apt-get install tsocks6.Change /etc/tsocks.conf to point to my local machine
change server = 192.168.0.1 to server = 127.0.0.16.From a local shell setup ssh tunnel
ssh -D 1080 acidhawk@10.0.0.2This opens a shell connection to 10.0.0.2 if you close this shell your ssh tunnel will also close
7.From a new shell on your local machine run
tsocks evolution &I didn't like having to type my password every time I connected so I did the following (which I got from
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-30709.html ):
1.From a cmd shell on your local machine run
ssh-keygen -t rsa2.Change to your homedir and then go to the .ssh dir (you need to copy the generated key to the ssh server)
3.Copy the id_rsa.pub file to your homedir on the ssh server by typing
scp id_rsa.pub acidhawk@10.0.0.2:./id_dsa.pub4.Connect to the ssh server
ssh acidhawk@10.0.0.25.Run the following commands to add your public key to a file that will allow you kay access to the ssh server
acidhawk@10.0.0.2:~$ touch authorized_keys2
acidhawk@10.0.0.2:~$ chmod 600 authorized_keys2
acidhawk@10.0.0.2:~$ cat ../id_rsa.pub >> authorized_keys2
acidhawk@10.0.0.2:~$ rm ../id_rsa.pub6.Exit from the ssh server and run the following
ssh -l acidhawk 10.0.0.27.After you have entered your passphrase you will be connected. Next time you run ssh acidhawk@10.0.0.2 you will not be asked for your password.
8.Next I didn't want the ssh shell to be opened (I wanted it to run in background) so now I run the following to setup the tunnel
ssh -N -f -D 1080 acidhawk@10.0.0.29.Check that ssh is still running
ps -ef | grep 10.0.0.2(you should see the command you just ran)
My next trick is to automate the tunnel setup if I am at this particular office. I don't want to run this when I am at home so I investigated editing my .bashrc as well as looked at setting the tunnel up from a startup script. Neither of these seemd like a good idea as I would have to still open a shell to run evolution like so (tsocks evolution &). I decided to create a script to run all the apps I wanted to be able to go through this tunnel (Evolution, RapidSvn, Eclipse etc) The following is the first attempt at this script. What I will do now is change all my menu launchers to the following
myLauncher evolution -or - myLauncher rapidsvn etc.myLauncher look as follows
Update: Now check if my 3G is connected and determine if I need to use tsocks when launching an app
#!/bin/sh
MYIP=`ifconfig eth0 | grep 'inet addr:' | cut -d: -f2 | awk '{print $1}'`
if [ "$1" = "" ]; then
echo "Usage: $0 "
elif [ "$1" = "stop" ]; then
pid=`ps -ef | grep 10.0.0.2 | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}'`
if [ "$pid" != "" ]; then
kill -9 $pid
fi
else
# Check if I am at ClientABC (My Address here is always 192.168.99.10)
if [ "$MYIP" = "192.168.99.10" ]; then
pid=`ps -ef | grep 10.0.0.2 | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}'`
if [ "$pid" = "" ]; then
echo "Setting up SSHTunnel for ClientABC..."
ssh -N -f -D 1080 acidhawk@10.0.0.2
fi
#Chech if my 3G is connected
PPP=`ifconfig ppp0 >/dev/null 2>&1`
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
echo "NO 3G detected - Launching $1 with \"tsocks\""
tsocks $1 >/dev/null 2>&1 &
else
echo "3G detected - Launching $1 without \"tsocks\""
$1 >/dev/null 2>&1 &
fi
#I am not at any client so will not use tsocks
else
$1 >/dev/null 2>&1 &
fi
fi
Basically what I am looking to see if I am at a particular client (I do this by checkin my ip address). I then check if there is already a PID for my ssh tunnel if there is I will not setup the tunnel again. However , if I am at ClientABC I will launch my app ($1) with tsocks. I can use this script at home as my ip address is different and I will then launch my app as simply $1.
Hope this helps
Acidhawk
