[TriLUG] question 2: ssh tunneling with putty

[Chris Hedemark]

On Wednesday 20 February 2002 09:57 am, you wrote:

> if I ssh into my box I assume my login and password are sent to my server
> encrypted.

That's the main argument for replacing telnet with ssh.

> If I execute a command.. say xclock is all that X traffic coming back to my
> local machine from my server encrypted as well?

Only if ssh was configured at both ends of the connection to pass X through 
the ssh tunnel.  If you are ssh'ing into an OpenBSD box it is highly likely 
that you will NOT be passing X through the tunnel as it seems to be disabled 
by default on the 3.0 systems I've set up.  Red Hat Linux 7.2 on the other 
hand seems to pass it by default through the encrypted tunnel.

> What about if I redirect my display after ssh'ing in then start another
> xterm?  Is the encryption inherited to that new shell which started when I
> executed the xterm & command?

If you change your DISPLAY after you ssh in, you're no longer going through 
the tunnel.  If you don't touch your DISPLAY setting and start an xterm 
(through the tunnel) everything on that xterm is encrypted.

If the connection is slow you can also compress your X traffic BTW through 
ssh.