Port forwarding app ?

deadl0ck

Hi all,
Is there any free port forwarding app availabile ?
I have a VMWare image running a server (On VMPlayer) and I need people to be able to access the server on VMWare.
So my setup is

User -> My PC (Port Forward) -> VMWare runnign server

I am already using tcpmon but it's a bit heavy for port forwarding as it logs all the traffic and is a bit of a performance bottleneck.

Any suggestions would be great.

Thanks !

CreepingDeath

If you have a router, you can typically set it up to forward traffic to a specific IP address in your network.
You could then set up your VMWare server with that static IP address. No extra software required.

i71jskz5xu42pb

Yeah sounds like something that should be done at the router level.

If for what ever reason you do not want to/can not do this an SSH tunnel would do the trick. stunnel does pretty much the same thing.

deadl0ck

Not an option - it's on a corporate LAN, so I have no access to a router.
Also, the IP address of the VMWare image is only resolvable on the host machine, so the host machine must port forward to an IP address for a VLAN that exists only on itself (if that makes sense)

deadl0ck

Also - people need to connect directly on port 80, so SSH tunneling is not an option really.

That's why I'm specifically looking for a port forwarding app

i71jskz5xu42pb

deadl0ck wrote: »

Also - people need to connect directly on port 80, so SSH tunneling is not an option really.

I don't why stunnel (or ssh tunnelling) will not work in this situation?

You run one end of the tunnel listing on port 80 on your machine the other end connecting to port 80 on the VMware machine. People connect to port 80 on your machine and bob's your uncle.

Maybe I'm not clear on the problem

deadl0ck

It could be that I'm not clear

You could be right. I'll give it a whirl

Hobbes

VMWare should already have port forwarding options for you already (you need to run in NAT mode).

The ports would be related to your machine though. So if your trying to access the VM from say the internet then your router will have to be set up for port forwarding as well. Most routers these days do that.

deadl0ck

VMWare used to have that option, but now that they have made the VMWare player free, you don't have those options. Well, not that I can see anyhow

Anima

If its not in the player then you'll need the Workstation version.

deadl0ck

Workstation isn't an option as it costs money

deadl0ck

stunnel looks like it might work but I have no clue how to configure it.

i71jskz5xu42pb

Get stunnel running on both and

On your workstation stunnel.conf will look like this

[PHP]
client = yes
[your service]
accept = 80
connect = blah.vmware.box:98989
[/PHP]

You'll need to be sure there's nothing else running on port 80 on this machine. Otherwise use some other port, just be sure your users know to use it.
98989 is any random high port


On your vmware bosca stunnel.conf will look like this

[PHP]
[your service]
accept = 98989
connect = localhost:80
[/PHP]

deadl0ck

Cool - Thanks !

Hobbes

deadl0ck wrote: »

VMWare used to have that option, but now that they have made the VMWare player free, you don't have those options. Well, not that I can see anyhow

Get VMWare server. It is also free.

http://www.vmware.com/products/server/

deadl0ck

Jebus !
Never realised is was free also - it's wasn't when I used it back a few years ago...

stephenlane80

You can set up a remote forwarding ssh connection to the pc out side the corporate network that you want to connect to. After the ssh connection has been made, all traffic directed to port 80 on the remote pc will be forwarded to port 80 on the vm inside the corporate network.

http://www.ssh.com/support/documentation/online/ssh/winhelp/32/Local_And_Remote_Forwarding.html

This is based on the assumption that you can access the pc out side the network with ssh, which should be possible assuming you dont have to traverse a corporate http proxy, if you do you can do this with putty on windows or corkscrew on linux. If the proxy needs ntlm authentication you can use ntml maps
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ntlmaps/

If you are not a network administrator for you company, make sure to run this by your admins as you may be creating a security bottleneck if the remote pc is not secure.