Ssh poor-man’s-vpn on android

TL;DR

1. Install Termux app on android

2. In termux install openssh pkg i -y openssh

3. ssh into server using dynamic port forwarding ssh user@server -D12345

4. Install Firefox Beta on android (as of now, plain Firefox doesn’t support configuring with about:config)

5. Open Firefox Beta, and go to about:config

6. Search proxy

7. Look for and set the following properties:

   network.proxy.allow_hijacking_localhost: true
   network.proxy.socks: localhost
   network.proxy.socks_port: 12345
   network.proxy.type: 1

   make sure network.proxy.socks_port matches with the port in the ssh command above

8. Done!, you are now navigating through the ssh server on Firefox

Full instructions using ssh-keys

Usage

1. Open Termux and run ssh user@server -D12345 (or just press Up+Enter if you have run this command previously)
2. Navigate using the proxy-configured Firefox
3. Done!, your traffic is going through the server

Setup Android

Termux

1. Install Termux

2. Configure ssh client by running the following commands:

   # Ask for storage permission
   termux-setup-storage &&
   # Install openssh
   apt update && apt upgrade -y &&
   apt install -y openssh &&
   # Generate an SSH key
   ssh-keygen -t ecdsa -f ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa &&
   # Set a password for the private key
   # Get public key
   echo -e '\nCopy the following public key:' &&
   cat ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa.pub

3. (Optional) If you have access to the server with ssh, then run:

   ssh-copy-id user@server

   If not, you need to manually add the public key to the server. This is explained below in the Setup server section

Firefox

1. Install Firefox Beta - normal firefox might work if you can access to about:config

2. Open Firefox and go to the url about:config, search proxy and set the following configurations:

   network.proxy.allow_hijacking_localhost: true
   network.proxy.socks: localhost
   network.proxy.socks_port: 12345
   network.proxy.type: 1

   make sure network.proxy.socks_port matches with the port used in the ssh command in the Usage section

Setup server

If you succesfully run the command ssh-copy-id there’s nothing to do here.
But if not, you need to manually add the public key generated:

echo 'public key' >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys