Surfin' From Home Anywhere!
OK, have you always wished you could surf from work or a hotspot just like you could at home? Do you hate the stupid web proxy crap that many places seem to install to keep the kiddies safe? Well now there is a way around it, and while not totally easy or quick, it is worth it in the long run.
For this you will need the following -
A high Speed DSL or Cable Modem Connection at home
A PC that is always on
A USB flash drive
A copy of Firefox Portable and Porta PUTTY
A copy of VMware Player
A copy of VMware Appliance Ubuntu Image for your proxy machine.
Usage of a free DNS service such as DynDNS
Once you have these components, we can move onto the first step.
First download and install the VMware player on your home PC or if you have a Mac you can use the Beta VMware Fusion player.
After that, you can get the appliance image for the Ubuntu Edgy install and copy the files down to your PC. Make sure to let them machine create a new UUID as well. when you login for the first time, you will get a chance to run through the config script for everything. Take the defaults for most everything in the script. The machine by default is set to DHCP so you should not have to worry about that. You will need to know the IP address for poking a hole in your firewall.
After you are done with initial config and reboot, you will log back in and issue the command "sudo su" which will put you into root mode. From there you will need to run the "apt-get update" command and then the "apt-get upgrade" followed by "apt-get install ssh" to install the SSH server which is what you will use to tunnel your browser through. After its done rebooting, then you should be ready for the next step.
Now, you can will need to poke a hole in your home router/firewall for the SSH session. SSH uses encryption for its sessions so all your traffic through the tunnel back home will be encrypted. You can use the default port of 22 which is usually allowed by even the most anal of DSL and Cable Modem providers. Worst case you may need to to use port 23. You need to know the address of the Ubuntu Server machine and map the port to that IP address.
You will need some way to keep track of your home IP address. By using a service such as DynDSN, you can give a hostname to your home machine so you don't need to know the IP. You will install the software(they have mutiple versions for XP, OSX, Linux, etc....) to associate your home machines external IP with a DNS name. Once you have this done you can move onto the next step.
Now you should be ready for the next step which is loading the Porta PUTTY and the Portable Firefox on your USB key drive. After you download the files , you can pick the USB drive as the location for the install files. I usually create an apps folder for all my USB flash drive apps. Install the two program s under there.
Run the PUTTY app, then create a session for your home machine. Put in the DNS name you used and make sure the port is the same that you used on your home firewall/router box. Under the SSH settings on the right under Tunnels, you will need to put in a port of 8080 as the source port and mark it as dynamic. Once that is done, save the settings for the session. You can test at this point bu opening the session. You should see a dialog box for the certificate for the first time so accept it and after that you should not see it again. Log in with the ID you logged onto the box from the VM console and if it works you are 95% done.
Next run the Portable Firefox program, this will be a little slower than your normal browser but it leaves no files on your PC, its all on the flash drive. Go to > Tools > Options to open up the window. Under there, you then select the advanced tab and the network tab under there. Click the settings button under connections and make sure the radio button for manual proxy connection is selected. The only one you need to fill in is the SOCKS connection field. put in the address of 127.0.0.1 and port 8080. Once that is done, you save the settings and you should be ready to surf through your proxy.
What this does is tunnel your browser request through your local machine back you that Ubuntu virtual machine back home so you bypass all the settings for the firewall or proxy server where you are. If you go to speedtest.com and run a test it thinks you are running from home because your HTTP sessions are coming from your home DSL line. Your program is on your USB drive so no history file to clean up or worry about on the local PC, you pretty much only have to worry about keyloggers at this point, but as long as you don't go banking, you can do pretty much anything without worrying about web filters. Just make sure you run the PUTTY session first for the encrypted tunnel.
Hopefully this will be helpful, I do hate web proxys they are usually all wrong or over paranoid.
For this you will need the following -
A high Speed DSL or Cable Modem Connection at home
A PC that is always on
A USB flash drive
A copy of Firefox Portable and Porta PUTTY
A copy of VMware Player
A copy of VMware Appliance Ubuntu Image for your proxy machine.
Usage of a free DNS service such as DynDNS
Once you have these components, we can move onto the first step.
First download and install the VMware player on your home PC or if you have a Mac you can use the Beta VMware Fusion player.
After that, you can get the appliance image for the Ubuntu Edgy install and copy the files down to your PC. Make sure to let them machine create a new UUID as well. when you login for the first time, you will get a chance to run through the config script for everything. Take the defaults for most everything in the script. The machine by default is set to DHCP so you should not have to worry about that. You will need to know the IP address for poking a hole in your firewall.
After you are done with initial config and reboot, you will log back in and issue the command "sudo su" which will put you into root mode. From there you will need to run the "apt-get update" command and then the "apt-get upgrade" followed by "apt-get install ssh" to install the SSH server which is what you will use to tunnel your browser through. After its done rebooting, then you should be ready for the next step.
Now, you can will need to poke a hole in your home router/firewall for the SSH session. SSH uses encryption for its sessions so all your traffic through the tunnel back home will be encrypted. You can use the default port of 22 which is usually allowed by even the most anal of DSL and Cable Modem providers. Worst case you may need to to use port 23. You need to know the address of the Ubuntu Server machine and map the port to that IP address.
You will need some way to keep track of your home IP address. By using a service such as DynDSN, you can give a hostname to your home machine so you don't need to know the IP. You will install the software(they have mutiple versions for XP, OSX, Linux, etc....) to associate your home machines external IP with a DNS name. Once you have this done you can move onto the next step.
Now you should be ready for the next step which is loading the Porta PUTTY and the Portable Firefox on your USB key drive. After you download the files , you can pick the USB drive as the location for the install files. I usually create an apps folder for all my USB flash drive apps. Install the two program s under there.
Run the PUTTY app, then create a session for your home machine. Put in the DNS name you used and make sure the port is the same that you used on your home firewall/router box. Under the SSH settings on the right under Tunnels, you will need to put in a port of 8080 as the source port and mark it as dynamic. Once that is done, save the settings for the session. You can test at this point bu opening the session. You should see a dialog box for the certificate for the first time so accept it and after that you should not see it again. Log in with the ID you logged onto the box from the VM console and if it works you are 95% done.
Next run the Portable Firefox program, this will be a little slower than your normal browser but it leaves no files on your PC, its all on the flash drive. Go to > Tools > Options to open up the window. Under there, you then select the advanced tab and the network tab under there. Click the settings button under connections and make sure the radio button for manual proxy connection is selected. The only one you need to fill in is the SOCKS connection field. put in the address of 127.0.0.1 and port 8080. Once that is done, you save the settings and you should be ready to surf through your proxy.
What this does is tunnel your browser request through your local machine back you that Ubuntu virtual machine back home so you bypass all the settings for the firewall or proxy server where you are. If you go to speedtest.com and run a test it thinks you are running from home because your HTTP sessions are coming from your home DSL line. Your program is on your USB drive so no history file to clean up or worry about on the local PC, you pretty much only have to worry about keyloggers at this point, but as long as you don't go banking, you can do pretty much anything without worrying about web filters. Just make sure you run the PUTTY session first for the encrypted tunnel.
Hopefully this will be helpful, I do hate web proxys they are usually all wrong or over paranoid.
posted by Junkman73 at 10:24 PM
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