Howto: Set up an SSH tunnel
What is an SSH Tunnel?
SSH tunnels provide a means to bypass firewalls that prohibit certain Internet services provided that outgoing connections are allowed.
Why an SSH Tunnel?
An SSH tunnel can be used to bypass filters at work, or stop an ISP from filtering bittorrent traffic. This means you can look at websites that your work previously blocked (like many gaming related sites)
The Guide:
Step 1. Get a free shell account. Its a slightly involved signup process for this free account. Or get a paid shell account.
Step 2 (Windows). Windows users download a program called PuTTY
(Mac users I’ll cover you later) and run it.
You will be greeted by this screen:

*This configuration is from my paid shell account. Just make sure the host matches the server where you have your shell account and “SSH” is checked.
Next, on the navigation pane on the left click Connections -> SSH -> Tunnels and you will see this screen:

*Any port will work, but for this example I am using 7777. Fill in the port number, check the ‘dynamic’ button and click ‘Add’. Then click the ‘Open’ button at the bottom and PutTTY should do its thing.
The next step is configuring your web browser to use your proxy. In Firefox this can be done by going to the Tools->Options menu item.
Then clicking on Advanced -> Network -> Settings and you should see this:

Check the box for “Manually configure proxy” and fill in the SOCKS Host with “127.0.0.1″. The “Port” number should match the port number from PuTTY, in this example 7777.
You should now be ready to go.
Remember to not close PuTTY unless you are down browsing or it won’t load any pages.





