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I'm trying to use a SOCKS proxy to forward the traffic from my Windows machine to a Linux machine. The Linux machine is running an ssh server (on a different network) on a port I'll call 2222. To get this to work, I had to go into my router settings and set up port forwarding for that.

Currently, I'm trying to get PuTTY's SOCKS proxy to work, but traffic isn't going through. According to the tutorials I've found online, in the Tunneling menu you're supposed to give a random port, such as 8888 for example.

Is this random port used on the client's side or is it server-side and something I would need to setup in my router's forwarding settings?

Also, is there any advantage to use PuTTY instead of starting a proxy with the ssh command directly?

Luke Thistlethwaite
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  • `Is this random port used on the client's side or…?` – Compare [this](https://superuser.com/a/1308648/432690). Your PuTTY acts like `ssh` in the linked answer. So yes, SOCKS proxy opens the port on the client (PuTTY) side. Then you need to point software that talks SOCKS to this port. – Kamil Maciorowski Jan 30 '20 at 16:04
  • Thanks, that thread cleared things up. `Then you need to point software that talks SOCKS to this port` this would be for example a web browser that is told to use `localhost` on port `8888`, right? – Luke Thistlethwaite Jan 30 '20 at 16:59
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    Right. Just make sure the browser is told to use SOCKS, not HTTP proxy. – Kamil Maciorowski Jan 30 '20 at 17:03
  • If it doesn't work then it's possible the SSH server disallows forwarding (I'm not sure if and how clearly PuTTY would report such problem to you); or the firewall there blocks what SSH server sends in your behalf to the sites you want to visit. – Kamil Maciorowski Jan 30 '20 at 17:22
  • I found this helpful: [How To Route Web Traffic Securely Without a VPN Using a SOCKS Tunnel](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-route-web-traffic-securely-without-a-vpn-using-a-socks-tunnel) – ashleedawg Nov 26 '20 at 12:38

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