[ale] Quick tutorial on ssh port forwarding my mail?

[Robert Story]

On Thu, 29 Apr 2004 17:09:44 -0400 Benjamin wrote:
BS> In light of this, and other potential security issues, it seems
BS> that using the ssh port forwarding features might be a good solution for
BS> me. Is it?

That's what I do. Here's a snippet from my .ssh/config:

--- cut here ---
#
Host host-tunnel
HostName hosting.example.com
User myid
KeepAlive yes
LocalForward 42143 localhost:143
LocalForward 42110 localhost:110
LocalForward 42025 localhost:25
--- cut here ---

Then I set up my mail client to pop/imap from localhost:[42110|42143], and set
my mail server to localhost 42025. The high port numbers are arbitrary. I just
prefix the normal numbers with '42', which is easy for me to remember.

The second part of the forward lines will be resolved on the *remote* host, no
your localhost. So if you are ssh'ing into a corporate net, you can use local
names.


The other option, is to set your home mail server to use a smart-relay, i.e.
forward mail to your ISP's mail server.