Local forwarding:

ssh -L8021:<dist>:21 <host>

Remote forwarding (you need to set “GatewayPorts yes” in sshd_config if you want to access the port from other addresses than localhost, then ”/etc/init.d/sshd reload”):

ssh -R8021:<dist>:21 <host>

Use another machine as a proxy, turning localhost into a SOCKS proxy, eg on port 8080:

ssh -D8080 <host>

It may be a good idea to open a ssh server on a web port (80/8080/443), because you will need to use this when you have a restricted connection, and port 22 may be forbidden as well (just add Port 22 AND Port 80 to sshd_config, or configure NAT port forwarding on your router, and then use ssh -p <port> <host>…).

Then configure your apps to use it:

• Firefox : Preferences | Advanced | Settings | Manual Proxy Configuration | SOCKS Host : localhost, Port : 8080
• Thunderbird : Preferences | Advanced | Network & Disk space | Settings | Manual Proxy Configuration | SOCKS Host : localhost, Port : 8080
• VLC : vlc --socks=“localhost:8080”
• Pidgin : Tools | Preferences | Proxy | Proxy type: SOCKS 4, Host: localhost, Port: 8080
• ssh, git, sshfs, scp, rsync : /etc/ssh_config

  # just to prevent from trying to use the proxy when you want to establish the proxy:
  Host <host>
      ProxyCommand socat STDIO TCP:%h:%p
  # for using the proxy for everything else:
  Host *
      ProxyCommand socat STDIO SOCKS4:localhost:%h:%p,socksport=8080

• KDE apps (Konqueror, but does not work with Kopete…) ~/.kde4/share/config/kioslaverc

  [Proxy Settings]
  ProxyType=1
  socksProxy=socks://localhost:8080