fftunnel – a simple SOCKS5 proxy script using Firefox

Amin Astaneh <amin@aminastaneh.net>
Copyright © 2012

Description

fftunnel is a simple bash script that:

• instantiates a SSH tunnel to the host you specify on localhost:9999
• starts Firefox with a special user profile called ‘Secure’
• kills the SSH tunnel when Firefox is closed

Setup

Create a Firefox Profile

• Start the profile manager using your CLI:
  Linux:
  

  
  
  $ firefox -ProfileManager
  
  

  
  Mac:
  

  
  
  $ /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -p
  
  

• Click Create Profile.
• Click Next.
• Name the profile “Secure”.
• Click Finish.
• Back in the Profile Manager, select the new profile “Secure” and click “Start Firefox”.
• Go to “Edit→Preferences”.
• Go to Tab “Advanced→Network”.
• Click “Configure how Firefox connects to the Internet”.
• Select “Manual proxy configuration”, under “Socks Host” type “127.0.0.1”, port “9999”.
• Make sure SOCKS5 is selected.
• Click “OK”, close Firefox Preferences.

Install Your SSH Public Key on the Remote Host

If you don’t know how to do this, there are many online guides available to show you how.

Usage

$ fftunnel user@server (additional options)

Since this wraps around the ssh binary, you can use options such as ‘-p’ to specify port.

Have Fun!