SSH Reverse Tunnel - ~/.ssh/config - PHP
 

My dads Laptop running Wheezy 64-bit and is behind NAT / Firewall.

I need sometimes connect the the machine over SSH to troubleshoot this or the other,
when TeamViewer does not work.

The usual SSH Reverse Tunnel he creates from his Laptop to remote SSH Server works the long way:


Create Authorized Keys for password less login:
ssh-keygen -t ecdsa -b 521
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa.pub "my-Server@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -p 54321"
or
scp -P 54321 ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa.pub my-Server@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:.ssh/authorized_keys


his-Laptop@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:12345
my-Server@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:54321
my-Laptop@@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:22222


SSH Reverse Tunnel:
ssh -R 11111:localhost:12345 my-Server@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -p 54321

Then I connect from my-Laptop to the remote SSH server:
my-Server@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -p 54321

And from my-Laptop connect to SSH tunnel connection on that SSH server:
ssh his-Laptop@localhost -p 11111



I have found that I can store on his-Laptop the whole SSH Reverse Tunnel command into:
vim ~/.ssh/config
########################################################################
Host reverse
HostName xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
Port 54321
RemoteForward 11111 localhost:12345
User my-Server
########################################################################
And "ssh reverse" on his-Laptop works


Then on my-Laptop create:
vim ~/.ssh/config
########################################################################
Host my-Server
HostName xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
Port 54321
User my-Server
########################################################################
"ssh my-Server" from my-Laptop does work


And on my-Server the same:
########################################################################
Host his-Laptop
HostName localhost
Port 11111
User his-Laptop
########################################################################
"ssh his-Laptop" works as well


But, I wanted to ask, is there any way that when he types "ssh reverse" on his-Laptop
the Terminal windows will either close, or go into background (execute the command and close)?

Or even better, have a PHP script that would do all this if he opened
his web browser and clicked on pre-set link either stored locally or on my-Server?

Or would cron job that would connect once his-Laptop starts be better option?

Probably the easiest way is to give him an icon that runs a terminal executing the script minimized.
There's no taint checking in PHP, I wouldn't have him type anything into a terminal that gets passed to PHP without an error checking script to clean up the input.