ssh-tunnel

What This Skill Does

The ssh-tunnel skill provides OpenClaw with the capability to orchestrate complex SSH configurations, network tunneling, and remote access patterns. It enables the agent to act as a secure bridge between internal services, remote servers, and local environments without exposing internal services directly to the public internet. This skill manages the technical complexity of local, remote, and dynamic port forwarding, facilitating secure communication across firewalls. Whether you need to connect to a restricted production database, expose a local development application for testing on a remote server, or browse the web through a secure SOCKS proxy, this skill handles the underlying SSH plumbing reliably.

Installation

To integrate this skill into your environment, run the following command in your terminal: clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/gitgoodordietrying/ssh-tunnel Ensure that your OpenClaw environment has an active SSH agent and appropriate read/write permissions for your ~/.ssh directory.

Use Cases

• Secure Database Access: Tunnel into a remote database port (e.g., PostgreSQL, Redis) that is blocked by a firewall, allowing your local applications to connect as if the resource were local.
• Remote Web Development: Expose a local dev server running on port 3000 to a public or staging environment via a remote server with a known IP.
• Corporate Bastion Routing: Automate connections to deeply nested internal servers by chaining multiple jump hosts and bastion servers using ProxyJump.
• Encrypted Browsing: Configure a dynamic SOCKS proxy to route traffic through a trusted remote server, bypassing local network restrictions or masking your origin.
• File Management: Automate scp or rsync file transfers through complex network topologies requiring intermediate proxy hosts.

Example Prompts

1. "OpenClaw, please set up a local port forward for the remote database at 10.0.5.20 on port 5432 and let me know when it's ready for my local connection."
2. "I need to expose my local dev server on port 8000 to the remote machine 'staging-node'. Set up a remote forward so that the remote port 8080 maps to my local 8000."
3. "Connect to the internal production server using the 'bastion-alpha' host as a jump host and create a SOCKS proxy on local port 9090."

Tips & Limitations

• Resource Management: Always use the -f (background) and -N (no command) flags when setting up persistent tunnels to avoid leaving unnecessary shell processes open.
• SSH Config: For repetitive tasks, prefer adding configurations to your ~/.ssh/config file. The ssh-tunnel skill integrates perfectly with existing config settings.
• Security: Be cautious with remote forwarding, as exposing ports globally (0.0.0.0) can create security vulnerabilities if not strictly controlled via firewall rules.
• Network Stability: SSH tunnels are persistent but can drop due to network timeouts; consider using ServerAliveInterval in your config for long-running tunnels.