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Torrentfreak TorrentFreak • Home • About • Archives • Categories ○ Anti-Piracy ○ Bittorrent Software ○ Breaking News ○ Copyright Issues ○ Legal Issues ○ Opinion ○ Pirate Talk ○ Politics and Ideology ○ Torrent Sites ○ Tutorial & How To • News Bits • Contact The place where breaking news, BitTorrent and copyright collide • Subscribe via RSS • Subscribe via Email • Tip Us Off! Top of Form Search TorrentFreak Search Bottom of Form BitTorrent: Bypass any Firewall or Throttling ISP with SSH • Ernesto • 14/10/2007 • 190 • bittorrent , firewall, ssh, ssh-tunnel, throttling • Print • On some networks it’s impossible to use BitTorrent. For example, if you’re at work, school, or connected to Comcast or a public hotspot. But there’s an easy solution to overcome this problem. By using a secure connection (SSH), you can bypass almost every firewall or traffic shaping application. Here’s a relatively simple 3-step guide that will show you how to set it up. I wouldn’t recommend BitTorrent over SSH as a permanent solution since it will cripple the servers of the SSH providers. If you’re looking for a long term solution check out a VPN service such as BTGuard. 1. Get an SSH account. You need an SSH account in order to get this working. You can try one of these free shell providers from this list. 2. Download, Install and Configure Putty Download Putty, store it somewhere on your computer and run it. In the session screen enter the host name, the port number (22), and tick the connection type box (SSH). Next, go to SSH –> Tunnels, enter a source port and tick the dynamic box. I’m using port 23456, but you are free to choose any post you like as long as it’s available. When you’re done, it might be a good idea to save the session so you don’t have to enter the info next time you run Putty. If you’re ready, hit the “open” button in the session screen. Acommand- line interface will pop-up so enter your username and password that you received from your shell-provider, and you’re done. 3. Configure your BitTorrent client. The last step is to configure your BitTorrent client. I will show you how it’s done in uTorrent and Azureus but other BitTorrent clients use a similar setup. uTorrent: go to Options > Preferences > Connection. Enter your port number (I use 23456), socks 4 or 5 as type, and localhost in the proxy field. Azureus: go to Tools > Options > Connection > Proxy Options. Tick the “Enable proxying of tracker communications” and “I have a SOCKS proxy” box. Next, enter your port number in the port field (I use 23456) and localhost in the host field. When you’re done, restart your BitTorrent client and you’re ready to go. BitTorrent over SSH tends to be a bit slower than your normal connection, but it’s a great solution when BitTorrent connections are blocked or throttled. For those on a Mac OSX, please check out this great tutorial (which in part inspired this article) for more details. It includes instructions on how to do this on a Mac, using Azureus. Related Posts • Bell Opens Video Download Store, but Continues to Throttle BitTorrent • Test: Does Your ISP Slow Down BitTorrent Traffic? • BitTorrent Throttling ISPs Exposed by Azureus • Help Azureus to Fight BitTorrent Throttling ISPs • Decluttering The Tubes, Solutions to the BitTorrent “Problem”? Share Post 2,766diggsdigg Share27 190 Comments Toggle Comments • #1 Ezekiel Crowe says: on: Oct 14 at 22:32 Continuing proof that however many millions are spent on techniques to throttle the p2p community, the tried and true combination of human ingenuity and too much spare time can overcome anything. • #2 Yatti says: on: Oct 14 at 22:58 Ill try it soon. • #3 davdavon says: on: Oct 14 at 23:31 My ISP throttles BitTorrent but this didn’t help… • # 4 Ernesto says: on: Oct 14 at 23:49 [quote comment="187302"]My ISP throttles BitTorrent but this didn’t help…[/quote] Which ISP are you on? • #5 Brian says: on: Oct 15 at 00:00 My university blocks common torrent ports and most arbitrary ports are firewalled or show up as “NAT OK?” in Azureus. Would this solve the problem? • #6 Ranger Bob says: on: Oct 15 at 00:00 YOU ROCK DUDE! I can now reach Demonoid.com again from Canada! • #7 Seanie says: on: Oct 15 at 00:14 http://www.digg.com/software/BitTorrent_Bypass_any_Firewall_or_Throttling_ISP_wit h_SSH • # 8 Ernesto says: on: Oct 15 at 00:23 [quote comment="187309"]My university blocks common torrent ports and most arbitrary ports are firewalled or show up as “NAT OK?” in Azureus. Would this solve the problem?[/quote] It should, let us know if it works! • #9 bernie says: on: Oct 15 at 00:38 any thoughts on os X? I might add ever thought I port port forward on the WAP I can never go green with Azureus, any thoughts? • #10 Ranger Bob says: on: Oct 15 at 00:39 Seani… erm SSH. “Secure Shell or SSH is a network protocol that allows data to be exchanged over a secure channel between two computers. Encryption provides confidentiality and integrity of data. SSH usespublic-key cryptography to authenticate the remote computer and allow the remote computer to authenticate the user, if necessary.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Shell • #11 Scott says: on: Oct 15 at 01:21 I’m at university in London and they have the most stringent network policies I’ve ever come across. I had to check the box “Use proxy server for peer-to-peer connections” to get it to work. This does mean all the traffic is going the proxy though which makes it a lot slower. Oh well, I can finally download my shows from America again. • #12 h33t says: on: Oct 15 at 01:42 silenceisdefeat.org probably did not design their service for bittorrent according to their site they have a server colocated on 10Mbps (i assume uncapped). how far does 10Mbps get you as a bittorrent proxy? oops • #13 k3lvin.key.as says: on: Oct 15 at 03:24 I hate torrent download. I like rapidshare, megaupload … So I create a site give to all mems around the world can use Premium Account(s): It’s Free ! http://k3lvinmitnick.blogspot.com • #14 Poxek says: on: Oct 15 at 04:34 Incredible! My (sucky) college normally blocks all torrent activity, and now I can get torrents to work! Granted, only 10kB/s, but that’s better than 0 by far! • #15 Hacker says: on: Oct 15 at 04:51 Confirmed, working ;-) This also works great as a browser proxy ;) • #16 dtstuff9 says: on: Oct 15 at 04:54 VPNs are so much better and easier and free! • #17 freako says: on: Oct 15 at 05:31 VPN free? which ones? most of them are free but give a bandwidth limit. :S • #18 inaequitas says: on: Oct 15 at 05:57 Tunneling things over SSH is a good idea in many situations to increase your level of security. Browsing, grabbing e-mail when on unsecured wifi etc. However, some ISPs block and/or throttle all encrypted traffic [known to me is Rogers in Canada]; while this was aimed at slowing down people using torrent encryption, it has negatively affected SSH usage in some places. So YMMV. • #19 Monkey says: on: Oct 15 at 06:14 I understand that secure shell is encrypted and everything but would this increase my security downloading torrents on a college campus? I have gotten a few cease and desist letters from the DMCA dept at my college because they some how tracked me but with this and peer guardian what is my level of safety? • #20 alexa says: on: Oct 15 at 06:16 I’ve had good experiences with vpntunnel (www.vpntunnel.co.uk). They charge $20 a month but I get 16Mbit/sec seeding and downloading!! • #21 Ajay says: on: Oct 15 at 08:44 I use http://www.your-freedom.net/ it works with openvpn • #22 Ink says: on: Oct 15 at 08:52 Most free shell providers have severely limited bandwidth and hardware specs. If a bunch of ppl start using those free services to tunnel their traffic through them they’ll sooner or later disable tunneling altogether. And keep in mind that even though the ssh provider isn’t able to read your incoming connections the outgoing onces are not encrypted and clearly readable. So if I was one of those free providers I’d start throttling bw and/or connections… which is pretty easy on *nix there are even ap2p kernel patches. • #23 Mr. Nutty says: on: Oct 15 at 09:03 Sounds dandy till traffic blocking and shaping occurs with SHH connections. • #24 Ink says: on: Oct 15 at 09:12 I don’t think they can do that Nutty (or at least they shouldn’t) most businesses even small onces encrypt all their traffic (http, ftp, tunneled db connection and all that). And all this traffic is indistinguishable from tunneled ssh traffic. In fact most of that is based on open-ssh. That would even slow down websites when you order from amazon. • #25 ChrisCocker says: on: Oct 15 at 09:28 Damn you for abusing a nice shell provider for p2p. That’s about as “good” as using TOR für torrenting. >:( • #26 Josh says: on: Oct 15 at 09:35 Read the silenceisdefeat TOS they sure wouldn’t like filesharers: http://silenceisdefeat.org/tos • #27 Anonymous says: on: Oct 15 at 10:56 Hey dumbasses: “Participating in activities including but not limited to spamming, port flooding, network scanning, distributing copyrighted works or using SD systems for any other type of illegal activity is strictly prohibited.” “Violators of any of the terms expressed above will have their account immediately terminated from SD, and in the event that illegal activities have occured, law enforcement authorities will be contacted and provided with any information felt to be useful in a thorough and complete investigation.” So no, do NOT abuse free unix shells to tunnel P2P.
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