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Free book to master SSH tunneling concepts

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Re: Free book to master SSH tunneling concepts

#11

Post by tzs »

greggyb wrote: post #9
jdmark wrote: post #4

Quoted post unavailable.

From the very first paragraph of the README: > This repo contains the PDF book The Cyber Plumber's Handbook - The definitive guide to Secure Shell (SSH) tunneling, port redirection, and bending traffic like a boss. The book was first published in October 2018 for purchase, but now I'm providing it for FREE to anyone interested in learning more about the magic of SSH tunnels and port redirection. The license is a CC l…

He is right about it not being open [1], but since I don't see anything at the repo that claims it is open I don't see anything wrong here.

Books aren't computer programs, and most people even in the free/open source software world seem to be OK with book licenses being less open than software licenses. If the book is available in a good digital edition and can be freely copied and distributed they usually consider that good enough.

[1] It is a CC license, but it is not one of the 5 CC licenses that meets the "Open Definition" for data and content of the Open Knowledge Foundation [2].

[2] https://opendefinition.org/licenses/

Re: Free book to master SSH tunneling concepts

#12

Post by np1810 »

Thank you for such a thorough book...

This book does discuss autossh [1] which I came to know about recently while setting up my dynamic home ip (w/ CG-NAT) as the exit node in a wireguard network to overcome geo-restrictions on streaming services when traveling... :p

autossh [1] is such a simple and useful utility, wish I had known about it earlier when any connection changes in VPN/WiFi used to break my ssh tunnels to the corporate network during development...

If you're a frequent user of ssh tunnels, do check out autossh... ;)

[1] https://linux.die.net/man/1/autossh

Re: Free book to master SSH tunneling concepts

#14

Post by Spooky23 »

crims0n wrote: post #2

Looks interesting, will give it a read as it looks to cover more than the basics. Years ago I worked in a SOC doing managed services for a major telco provider, and for some reason they thought that we didn't have the need to do any kind of SSH tunneling to manage routers/switches/firewalls. They kept blocking it at various layers, and we kept having to find more and more creative ways to get around it. I think at on…

It’s pretty much impossible to validate that you are meeting the terms of your contract re: security policy if you’re doing that. You almost certainly were if you were providing SOC services to a big telco.

I have terminated contracts for cause and in one case got a vendor suspended from a big centralized procurement contract for pulling bullshit like what you described.

Re: Free book to master SSH tunneling concepts

#15

Post by usr1106 »

np1810 wrote: post #12

Thank you for such a thorough book... This book does discuss autossh [1] which I came to know about recently while setting up my dynamic home ip (w/ CG-NAT) as the exit node in a wireguard network to overcome geo-restrictions on streaming services when traveling... :p autossh [1] is such a simple and useful utility, wish I had known about it earlier when any connection changes in VPN/WiFi used to break my ssh tunnels…

I used autossh many years ago. There was nothing wrong with it. But with systemd user service managers available everywhere I just put a normal ssh command into a service file with RestartAlways and activate linger for the user.

No need to install an extra package. No idea whether it is maintained or not, but I know systemd is, both upstream and in the distro.

Re: Free book to master SSH tunneling concepts

#16

Post by bryanrasmussen »

Spooky23 wrote: post #14
crims0n wrote: post #2

Looks interesting, will give it a read as it looks to cover more than the basics. Years ago I worked in a SOC doing managed services for a major telco provider, and for some reason they thought that we didn't have the need to do any kind of SSH tunneling to manage routers/switches/firewalls. They kept blocking it at various layers, and we kept having to find more and more creative ways to get around it. I think at on…

It’s pretty much impossible to validate that you are meeting the terms of your contract re: security policy if you’re doing that. You almost certainly were if you were providing SOC services to a big telco. I have terminated contracts for cause and in one case got a vendor suspended from a big centralized procurement contract for pulling bullshit like what you described.

>You almost certainly were if

Don't you mean they almost certainly weren't? It's hard to understand the rest otherwise.

Re: Free book to master SSH tunneling concepts

#17

Post by nexuist »

fgh wrote: post #10
jdmark wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I am not selling anything and the author of this book is giving it away for free. The lab guide and access to the lab servers cost something.

OP, for what it's worth, this is a great resource regardless of license nitpicking. Thanks for publishing this repo.

Re: Free book to master SSH tunneling concepts

#18

Post by crims0n »

Spooky23 wrote: post #14
crims0n wrote: post #2

Looks interesting, will give it a read as it looks to cover more than the basics. Years ago I worked in a SOC doing managed services for a major telco provider, and for some reason they thought that we didn't have the need to do any kind of SSH tunneling to manage routers/switches/firewalls. They kept blocking it at various layers, and we kept having to find more and more creative ways to get around it. I think at on…

It’s pretty much impossible to validate that you are meeting the terms of your contract re: security policy if you’re doing that. You almost certainly were if you were providing SOC services to a big telco. I have terminated contracts for cause and in one case got a vendor suspended from a big centralized procurement contract for pulling bullshit like what you described.

The telco was providing the managed services in this case. That is interesting, so it sounds like this was a complete breakdown in the process somewhere. We weren’t doing it for fun or sport, we were doing it because it was the only way to effectively do our job.

Re: Free book to master SSH tunneling concepts

#20

Post by np1810 »

usr1106 wrote: post #15
np1810 wrote: post #12

Thank you for such a thorough book... This book does discuss autossh [1] which I came to know about recently while setting up my dynamic home ip (w/ CG-NAT) as the exit node in a wireguard network to overcome geo-restrictions on streaming services when traveling... :p autossh [1] is such a simple and useful utility, wish I had known about it earlier when any connection changes in VPN/WiFi used to break my ssh tunnels…

I used autossh many years ago. There was nothing wrong with it. But with systemd user service managers available everywhere I just put a normal ssh command into a service file with RestartAlways and activate linger for the user. No need to install an extra package. No idea whether it is maintained or not, but I know systemd is, both upstream and in the distro.

> I used autossh many years ago. There was nothing wrong with it. But with systemd user service managers available everywhere I just put a normal ssh command into a service file with RestartAlways and activate linger for the user.

Thanks, there will be multiple ways to do same thing, user can choose whichever they find the easiest...

Adding an example of such systemd file - https://gist.github.com/drmalex07/c0f9304deea566842490

> No need to install an extra package. No idea whether it is maintained or not, but I know systemd is, both upstream and in the distro.

Definitely not updated with the same frequency as systemd... https://salsa.debian.org/debian/autossh

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