Secure remote access to your Freenet installation

The safest way to access your Freenet installation remotely from another machine on your network or from another location on the Internet, is to use SSH tunneling to forward the FProxy port (8888 by default).

###Requirements

1. A working Freenet installation
2. SSH running as a server on the Freenet machine
   • This should be the default on Linux, BSDs
     • If it isn't enabled already, try running:
       • service ssh start or service sshd start
   • On macOS, you may need to turn it on:
     • Look at System Preferences -> Sharing -> Remote Login
3. An SSH client available on the other machine(s)
   • Linux, BSD, and macOS all usually come with OpenSSH preinstalled, which should be fine
   • For Windows you will need to install PuTTY or another SSH client

###Linux

On Linux this is very easy.

Just open a terminal, and run the following command:

Note: replace "user" and "freenet_ip" with the correct username and ip address of your Freenet machine:

ssh -L 8888:127.0.0.1:8888 -L 9481:127.0.0.1:9481 -N user@freenet_ip

Now you should be able to open FProxy: http://127.0.0.1:8888

You should also be able to run software that uses FCP, such as FMS, without any configuration changes.

###Windows

We will be using PuTTY here, but there are other SSH clients for Windows. If you prefer another one, just use the information below to configure the tunnel in that client instead.

####Create a new session, entering your Freenet machine IP address in the window

Make sure you type a name for the session in the lower box and click Save

####Configure the Tunnel

Open the Connection -> SSH -> Tunnels panel, and fill in Source port and Destination as follows, then click Add

Now go back to the Session panel and save the session again.

####Open the session

Just click the Open button, a terminal will appear allowing you to enter your username and password.

Now you should be able to open FProxy: http://127.0.0.1:8888

You should also be able to run software that uses FCP, such as FMS, without any configuration changes.

###Troubleshooting

If you can't load the FProxy page, take a look at your Freenet web interface configuration to make sure it is still listening on the correct address. The boxes with an IP address should say 127.0.0.1,0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1.