I'm trying to make it so i can get files off my linux machine remotely from a windows machine. I'm using putty on my windows machine, but can't get it to connect to my linux machine. My linux machine is behind a router so I have my router forwarding a random port for ssh to use. When I use putty I go under the tunnel options and pick that port, say 34234 or whatever. I type that as source port and then type in localhost:34234 as destination and add that (where localhost is my ip address). Is ssh running by default in ubuntu, or is there something else I need to do to connect? Seems easy enough but it's not working.

I've never used Putty so I can't comment on it, but the ssh server is not generally installed on Ubuntu. To check to see if it's installed, do:

ps ax | grep ssh

You should see something like this, if ssh is running:

4692 ? Ss 0:00 /usr/sbin/sshd

If you don't, install it via apt-get.

sudo apt-get install ssh

Default port is 22. If you want to change that, you'll need to edit the following file:

/etc/ssh/sshd_config

Then you'll need to restart your sshd server:

sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart

Here's a nice tutorial on ssh tunneling for Putty:

http://sdf.lonestar.org/index.cgi?tutorials/SSH-SDF