Port Forwarding with Microsoft Internet Explorer

Port forwarding offers a quick and easy way of keeping your web surfing private and secure. The following instructions will help you quickly configure your TinyTERM product and Internet Explorer to work together to keep your online activities secure.

When using port forwarding, there are usually two external hosts that you will be communicating with: the secure host that is running SSH, and the unsecure host that acts as a web server proxy. These instructions will configure your desktop or laptop system to use a web server proxy that you connect to over the secure host.

In the examples below, proxyserver.com is used to represent the system that is running both the secure SSH server and the web server proxy.

To configure your TinyTERM product for port forwarding, you need to first establish a secure connection/session with your secure server. To do this, launch TinyTERM and then select Edit|Session Properties... to display the Session Properties menu.

Click on the "Session" tab.
Enter the name of your secure host in the "Host name, IP address or phone number" box.
Make sure the "SSH" connection type is checked.
Select "Apply" and then "OK"
Open a TinyTERM session to the secure host. You may be prompted to supply a username, password, and the secure host's encryption key may be displayed.

Next you need to secure your web connection. Select Edit|Session Properties... to display the Session Properties menu.

Click the "Port Forwarding tab.
Enter "MyHTML" in the "Connection name" box.
Make sure "Local to remote forwarding" is checked.
Enter "10080" in the "Local port" box.
Enter "80" in the "Remote port" box.
Click "Add" to add the MyHTML configuration to the "Port Forwarding Connection Data List" box.
Click "Apply". Click "OK".

Now that TinyTERM is setup for port forwarding, you need to configure Internet Explorer to operate through your new secure connection and communicate with the web server proxy. Launch Internet Explorer, and select "Tools|Internet Options..." to view the Internet Options menu.

Select the "Connections" tab.
Click on the "LAN Settings..." button to display the Local Area Network (LAN) Settings menu.
Make sure the "Use a proxy server" box is checked.
Enter "127.0.0.1" into the "Address" box.
Enter "10080" into the "Port" box.
Click on "OK"
Click on "Apply". Click on "OK".

You are now setup to browse the web over a secure, encrypted channel!

It is important to remember that TinyTERM must be running and a session established with your secure server in order for port forwarding to work properly. If TinyTERM is not running, or you don't have a session established, Internet Explorer will be unable to access any websites and will respond with a variety of error messages.

The server names used above should be changed to the names or IP addresses of your actual secure server and web server proxy. The 10080 port number used in the examples may be changed to anything above 1024. Port 80 is assigned to be the HTTP server and must not be changed.