Ok, nevermind, I am an idiot ? this is "by design" and requires appropriate setting of GatewayPorts=userspecified on the server. From: Rudoef Potucek <RudolfPotucek at smarttech.com<mailto:RudolfPotucek at smarttech.com>> Date: Monday, 16 December, 2013 8:22 PM To: "openssh-unix-dev at mindrot.org<mailto:openssh-unix-dev at mindrot.org>" <openssh-unix-dev at mindrot.org<mailto:openssh-unix-dev at mindrot.org>> Subject: Puzzled by -R dropping first argument Hi All! I am puzzled. I am using openssh 5.3p1 on RHEL/CentOS but am seeing the same behaviour for osx and debian: ssh -R xxx:yyy:yyy:yyy remotehost Will effectively drop the first (xxx) argument and result in ssh -R 127.0.0.1:yyy:yyy:yyy remotehost ssh -R yyy:yyy:yyy remotehost I had a look at the source code where apparently all 4 values are ready and handed down to the appropriate forwarding request. Yet in the end the first argument gets dropped / replaced? I can see two important uses of -R and would really like to make this work, even if this means I have to patch all my ssh client and server packages: (1) Allowing the reuse of a local port if something is already listening on that port and the client can only be pointed at an IP, not a custom port: ssh -R 127.0.0.2:ppp:127.0.0.1:ppp remotehost which works perfectly in reverse ssh -L 127.0.0.2:ppp:127.0.0.1:ppp remotehost but poses a security risk because now the client would know the server password. (2) Picking an interface in a multihomed system Any suggestions welcome, Rudolf
