Tunnel4J is a software utility that allows secure access to resources behind firewalls through SSH connections. It is designed to help users access restricted data easily.
Here is an example of how Tunnel4J can be beneficial in a home-work scenario. Suppose you want to perform the following tasks while working from home: 1) mount remote directories from your office PC, 2) access Postgres and Mysql databases, and 3) reach intranet web applications not available outside of your office LAN. All these resources are behind firewalls in different places. You could establish several VPNs from your home to these locations, but that would be too powerful for your needs. Instead, you can open Tunnel4J, connect to the endpoint firewalls, and configure local ports for these tasks.
To install Tunnel4J, you need to unpack the downloaded file, change into the tunnel4j directory, and type "java -cp jsch.jar:Tunnel4J.jar org.beanizer.tunnel4j.Tunnel4J" in your console. Tunnel4J requires Java 1.4.2 or later to function.
In this release of Tunnel4J, version 0.1.30 of Jsch is used. Keep-alive messages are utilized to prevent session timeout, and session logs can be found in $user_home/.tunnel4j/tunnel4j.log. Overall, Tunnel4J is a useful application that grants you convenient access to remote resources while circumventing firewalls.
Version 1.5: N/A