The sys admin's daily grind: Httptunnel
Pierced Walls
Just a couple of hours after completing this article, Charly headed off on vacation. Before he left, he indulged in a spot of piercing to help him work around the paranoid firewalls waiting for him in the Internet cafes at his holiday location.
As a country boy, the first time I saw body piercing was in the nose of my grandfather's prize bull, long before people started to disfigure their faces and secondary sexual organs with bits of metal. Firewall piercing – setup tricks that route arbitrary TCP traffic through an existing hole such as HTTP(S) – started to become popular in the epoch between rings in bulls' noses and perforated humans, or about the time SUSE 5.3 was released.
Httptunnel [1], which I will be using on vacation, dates back to the same period. Although today, admins could replace the tool with just a couple of iptables lines, it has always been more user friendly, and it is available out of the box with most distributions.
A journey of approximately 12 hours will take me to Occitania [2], an area full of friendly people, beautiful landscapes, and Internet cafes, in which network access means strictly HTTP. Unfortunately, I was planning to publish the events of the international jellyfish-throwing contest, which is held in Occitania on IRC; in other words, I need SSH.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Kali Linux Waxes Nostalgic with BackTrack Mode
For those who've used Kali Linux since its inception, the changes with the new release are sure to put a smile on your face.
-
Gnome 50 Smooths Out NVIDIA GPU Issues
Gamers rejoice, your favorite pastime just got better with Gnome 50 and NVIDIA GPUs.
-
System76 Retools Thelio Desktop
The new Thelio Mira has landed with improved performance, repairability, and front-facing ports alongside a high-quality tempered glass facade.
-
Some Linux Distros Skirt Age Verification Laws
After California introduced an age verification law recently, open source operating system developers have had to get creative with how they deal with it.
-
UN Creates Open Source Portal
In a quest to strengthen open source collaboration, the United Nations Office of Information and Communications Technology has created a new portal.
-
Latest Linux Kernel RC Contains Changes Galore
Linux kernel 7.0-rc3 includes more changes than have been made in a single release in recent history.
-
Nitrux 6.0 Now Ready to Rock Your World
The latest iteration of the Debian-based distribution includes all kinds of newness.
-
Linux Foundation Reports that Open Source Delivers Better ROI
In a report that may surprise no one in the Linux community, the Linux Foundation found that businesses are finding a 5X return on investment with open source software.
-
Keep Android Open
Google has announced that, soon, anyone looking to develop Android apps will have to first register centrally with Google.
-
Kernel 7.0 Now in Testing
Linus Torvalds has announced the first Release Candidate (RC) for the 7.x kernel is available for those who want to test it.