Hi all, I was wondering if you guys have more experience solving a problem like this...

I have this network setup at my work:

Home Machine --ssh--> Trusted Host (TH) --ssh--> Work Machine

So to reach my work machine from home, I have to ssh to TH, then from TH ssh to my work machine. The TH acts as a firewall to block off all other non-ssh connections.

The trusted host can only accept SSH connection (both incoming/outgoing). And there is no direct connection Home Machine <---> Work Machine. I am trying to access the Work Machine from home using VNC (using port 5901). I have tried using a LocalForward with VNC but no luck. Does anybody have a better solution?

LocalForward should work, are you sure its setup correctly?
from the hom machine you should connect to the Trusted Host with something like this:
then on the Home Machine you use vnc client to connect to localhost:10000

Assuming nothing is blocking the Trusted Host from accessing port 5901 of the Work Machine(eg Trusted Host has to allow tunnels), this should work.

Yes, I did exactly what you mentioned. No luck. The problem is, somehow, the TH server will not allow any outgoing connection to any port other 23.

I have tried using 2 tunnels to solve this problem. There is not much performance impact.

[dookie23@homebox ~]$ more .ssh/config
Host th
HostName th
LocalForward 2200 workbox:22
Cipher arcfour

Host work
HostName localhost
Port 2200
LocalForward 5901 localhost:5901
Cipher arcfour

Thanks very much for your help. Do you have any better suggestion?