[HECnet] Tunnel Bridge over SSH?

[Jordi Guillaumes i Pons]

> 
> Hi,
> 
> Has anyone managed to use the Bridge long term with the TCP/IP side tunnelled over SSH? Is it viable?

It is possible to link to a remote network (I assume you are talking about DECNET) using vde and ssh.

The way to do it is:

- At the “home” side, create a ‘vdeuser’ user (unless you want to use your own account to set up the tunnel).
- Set up the home user .ssh directory with rsa/dsa keys (to avoid using passwords).
- At the “remote” (ie. local) side, create a script with this content: (assuming your VDE control socket directory is at /tmp/vde.ctl)

#!/bin/sh
dpipe vde_plug /tmp/vde.ctl = ssh vdeuser@<home site name or IP address> vde_plug /tmp/vde.ctl

Running this script will establish a “pipe” to the home site. It is assuming BOTH the remote and the local sites run VDE and your SIMH machines are configured to use VDE networking.

How does it work? ‘dpipe” takes two commands separated by the ‘“‘ character, and redirects both stdin and stdout of both commands so they get linked via standard input and output. ‘vde_plug’ reads all packets from the vde virtual switch and outputs them (raw) to its stdout, while injects anything read from stdin into the switch. The net effect is your local vde switch gets plugged into the remote one using stdin and stdout, mediated by the ssh tunnel.

It is not very fast, but it works.

> 
> Mark @ DECtec.info
> twitter.com/DECtecInfo