hi i want to use ssh to do this ...
ssh -fN -L 3389:windows.location:3389 username@location

which is to open a connection from my linux box to a windows terminal server.

when i enter the above command i'm prompted for a password
then i type rdesktop localhost and the program does nothing, it
doesn't even produce any error messages.

i also would like some help with hosts.deny, how do i allow traffic on some ports
but not all?

right now i changed my hosts.deny file from
ALL:ALLENY to
3389:3389:ALLOW

is this right?

what do i do?

isn't one of the developers of arch supposed to be periodically offering advice on this forum?
-- heres my problem again
i go to ucr, im a cs major, im currently taking cs 14 and cs61. being a cs major i have certain access to some of the servers at ucr, and i get a very limited amount of space on their system.
i dont run windows at all so untill recently i've had to walk my ass to school to access the lab computers to do my cs 61 programming assignments. (the cs 61 assigmnemts require me to use software that is only available on windows, ive tried wine emulating it and it doesn't work.)

So, after making frinends with a sys admin at school he told me how to access a windows terminal server from home using port 3389, ssh, and rdesktop.

i did this in gentoo and it worked, i switched over to arch linux and i get problems, i can log in, enter my password but when i do rdesktop localhost i get nothing except a "connection timed out" error after a while. what is the problem? im not going back to gentoo but i am considering redhat 9 at this point.

Arch developers do look in here from time to time. Arch is not a commercial distro though so they have other stuff to do as well. You are more likely to catch them at
bbs.archlinux.org.

I have never dabbled with ssh so I really can't help you there.
I think you use your host-files to allow specific hosts. To close or open ports you should use iptables (the kernel packet filter).

If you want to allow a specific host you should add the name/ip-address of the host in /etc/hosts.allow. If you have a firewall (iptables-script) running you must also edit it to allow traffic on the ports you wish to use. (BTW. If you do not have a firewall I higly recommend setting one up, if you don't know how just ask for help).