Frank Cox wrote:

The other approach would be to somehow do use some kind of ssh port-forwarding under Firefox so he could run Firefox locally on his own computer, and somehow access http://localhost/ledgersmb on the remote machine. Is there such a thing as a "remote localhost" that would work like that?

port forward localhost:8080 (or some other arbitrary port) to remote:80 via ssh.. for instance, in putty's somewhat wretched connection configuration dialog, go to connection->ssh->tunnels, leave 'local ports accept connections from other hosts' and 'remote ports do same' unchecked, enter the source port 8080, the destination localhost:80, check 'local' and 'auto' under destination, and click 'Add', then save this along with the rest of the session settings (host, user, tec) to a named session. make this connection, and point your local Windows web browser to http://localhost:8080/legersmb.....

note, this will NOT work for SSL sessions (https://...)

another approach is NX, but I don't know much about this. iit works more like the X-forwarding thing but uses a more efficient protocol than plain X.

Hi,

On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 15:04, Frank Coxtheatre@sasktel.net wrote:

Is there a way to provide a single application to a user instead of a complete desktop?

I think that is possible by changing the .xsession or .xinitrc files of the user, have them start up only Firefox, and maybe use a minimal window manager just to provide Window decorations, but I haven't ever seen a package that does all that config for you, I think you would have to find the pieces and assemble the puzzle for yourself... might be painful.

The other approach would be to somehow do use some kind of ssh port-forwarding under Firefox so he could run Firefox locally on his own computer, and somehow access http://localhost/ledgersmb on the remote machine.  Is there such a thing as a "remote localhost" that would work like that?

Yes, you can use "plink" (part of PuTTY suite: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/) on Windows to create a port forward to the server.

I think the command syntax would be something like this: C:> plink -ssh -L 8080:127.0.0.1:80 user@remotehost sleep 99999

And then point the local Firefox (on the Windows machine) to http://localhost:8080/ledgersmb

You might have a problem, however, if the remote host sends an HTTP redirect, since it will send a redirect to http://localhost/... instead of http://localhost:8080/..., in that case you should better match the local and destination ports, such as using -L 80:127.0.0.1:80 if port 80 is free for you on the local Windows machine (and you have enough rights to listen on it) or changing the remote port on the server to 8080.

I don't want to open anything other than ssh on the application server to the big scary world.

And what about VNC? By default it opens a new port to the world...

To complicate things a bit more, the accountant runs Windows on his computer. Maybe there is a simple way to accomplish this feat and I'm just not seeing it?

I guess port forwarding with "plink" is the simplest way to accomplish what you are looking for. Other alternatives might be setting up a VPN for that.

HTH, Filipe

On Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:04:08 -0600 Frank Cox wrote:

The other approach would be to somehow do use some kind of ssh port-forwarding under Firefox so he could run Firefox locally on his own computer, and somehow access http://localhost/ledgersmb on the remote machine. Is there such a thing as a "remote localhost" that would work like that?

Someone else just gave me the solution to this problem.

All I had to do was enter this at a commandline on my computer:

ssh frankcox@remotecomputer -L 8080:localhost:80

Now typing http://localhost:8080/ledgersmb into the Firefox on my desktop loads the ledgersmb program on my local computer.