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I need to ssh into a linux workstation from a linux desktop in my home. The workstation is behind a university firewall. The university has a vpn but this vpn server (juniper) does not have linux vpn clients that I can get to work (I did try hard).

On my android phone, I have a juniper vpn client that does work. Using something like juice-ssh or connectbot on the android, I can then ssh into the workstation. That is great, but I need to work from a linux desktop and so what I am looking for now is some way to work from my command line on the linux desktop and ssh through the android device to the remote workstation.

I would guess that some sort of ssh (reverse) tunneling and/or port forwarding magic is what I need, but I'm not sure how to proceed.

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  • What sort of Android phone do you have ? Is it rooted ? The easiest way I can think of would be to use the USB tethering feature to connect your computer to your Android. The VPN client should direct all traffic through the VPN so you could then access the workstation that way ? Just a wild stab in the dark though.
    – Lawrence
    Commented Jan 8, 2014 at 1:14
  • Is there a publicly accessible linux server on your university that you can hop on to? So SSH to that publicly accessible server, and then from there SSH to your linux workstation that is internal-only.
    – Darius
    Commented Jan 8, 2014 at 1:57
  • I initially tried tethering and it did not work at all, much to my surprise. However, I then tried clockworkmod and (after much pain getting it to install and trial and error with settings) it did work! After I figure out exactly how to set it up reliably, I will answer my own question.
    – mjandrews
    Commented Jan 8, 2014 at 13:10

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In answer to my own question, the way I got this to work was as follows. First, I used an android phone with a juniper vpn client to connect to the vpn. Then I usb tethered my phone to my laptop. Even though the internet on my laptop is going over my phone (and hence through the vpn client), ssh'ing from my laptop to the remote computer still would not work. However using the clockwordmod tether system (which requires an app for the phone and another client for the laptop) did allow me to establish a ssh connection from the laptop. I'm not exactly sure what clockworkmod is doing special, but I think I can live without knowing for time being.

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