iroh-ssh

SSH over Iroh.

Description

Use Iroh node_id even behind NAT firewall to connect to a remote SSH server.

Quick Start

Download from releases or cargo install iroh-ssh.

On your server you run:

iroh-ssh server

On your client you run:

iroh-ssh user@<NODE_ID>

ToDo's

[x] add ssh basic password login [ ] add -i support for certificates [ ] decide what other ssh native features to support

More Details

iroh-ssh operates in two modes: a server mode for the machine you want to access, and a client mode for the machine you are connecting from.

1. On the remote machine (the one you want to connect to)

Start the server. It will listen for incoming Iroh connections and forward them to the local SSH server (sshd).

# Start the server, forwarding to the local SSH port 22
iroh-ssh server

# The server will print its Iroh nodeid. Copy this ID.
# Node ID: [your-node-id-will-be-here]

You can optionally specify a different SSH port: iroh-ssh server --ssh-port 2222.

2. On your local machine (the one you want to connect from)

Use the nodeid from the server to open a connection.

# Paste the ssh user and nodeid from the server
iroh-ssh user@<NODE_ID>

3. Connect with your SSH client

In a new terminal, use your standard ssh client to connect to the local address provided by iroh-ssh.

# Use the address and port printed by iroh-ssh
ssh user@127.0.0.1 -p 52695

How It Works

iroh-ssh server: Starts an Iroh node, prints its unique nodeid, and listens for connections. For each incoming Iroh stream, it opens a corresponding TCP connection to the local sshd and proxies all data between them.
iroh-ssh <NODE_ID>: Starts a local TCP listener. When your ssh client connects to it, iroh-ssh opens a stream to the target nodeid over the Iroh network and proxies data between your local ssh client and the remote sshd.

This creates a secure end-to-end tunnel, with Iroh handling peer discovery and NAT traversal.

License

Licensed under either of

Apache License, Version 2.0
MIT license at your option.

iroh-ssh 0.1.2