SSH Auto Port Forwarder

Automatically detect and forward ports from a remote SSH server to your local machine. Similar to VS Code's port forwarding feature, but fully automatic.

Features

• Interactive TUI dashboard - View and manage tunnels in real-time
• Host selector modal - Choose from your SSH config hosts when no host specified
• Automatically discovers listening ports on the remote server
• Save friendly names for ports per SSH host
• Shows compact process names and working folders for discovered ports
• Forwards ports to your local machine via SSH tunneling
• Handles port conflicts by finding alternative local ports
• Remap ports to specific local ports via dashboard
• Auto-detects new ports and starts forwarding
• Auto-detects closed ports and stops forwarding
• Reads connection details from your SSH config
• Shows SSH LocalForward ports with "Auto (SSH Config)" status
• Skips well-known ports (< 1000) by default
• Configurable max auto-forward port (default: 10000)
• Auto-reconnect on connection loss with countdown
• Runs SSH scans in the background so dashboard navigation stays responsive

Installation

With uv (recommended):

uvx ssh-auto-forward hetzner

Install with pip:

pip install ssh-auto-forward

Install locally:

cd portforwards
uv sync

Running

Dashboard mode (default):

ssh-auto-forward hetzner

CLI mode (headless):

ssh-auto-forward hetzner --cli

With uvx (no installation):

uvx ssh-auto-forward hetzner

Dashboard Controls

Key	Action
X / Enter	Toggle port (open if closed, close if opened)
O	Open URL in browser (for forwarded ports)
N	Name the selected port
M	Remap port to specific local port
R	Refresh port list
L	Toggle log panel
Q	Quit

Arrow keys navigate the port list. Space works the same as Enter for selections.

Options

-v, --verbose              Enable verbose logging
-i, --interval SECS        Scan interval in seconds (default: 5)
-p, --port-range MIN:MAX   Local port range for remapping (default: 3000:10000)
-s, --skip PORTS           Comma-separated ports to skip (default: all ports < 1000)
-c, --config PATH          Path to SSH config file
-m, --max-auto-port PORT   Maximum port to auto-forward (default: 10000)
--cli                      Run in CLI mode instead of dashboard
--version                  Show version and exit

Examples

# Dashboard mode (default)
ssh-auto-forward hetzner

# CLI mode
ssh-auto-forward hetzner --cli

# Scan every 3 seconds
ssh-auto-forward hetzner -i 3

# Use specific port range
ssh-auto-forward hetzner -p 4000:9000

# Skip specific ports
ssh-auto-forward hetzner -s 22,80,443

# Verbose mode
ssh-auto-forward hetzner -v

# Only auto-forward ports up to 5000 (higher ports shown but not auto-forwarded)
ssh-auto-forward hetzner -m 5000

Performance

Throughput is 150-190 MB/s for large file transfers (45-70% of native ssh -L). HTML page latency is 2-3 ms median at up to 10 req/s with zero failures. The overhead comes from paramiko (Python) vs OpenSSH (C) - negligible for interactive use like web browsing.

See benchmarks/ for full methodology and results.

How it works

1. Connects to your remote server using your SSH config
2. Runs ss -tlnp on the remote to find listening ports
3. Creates SSH tunnels for each discovered port
4. Continuously monitors for new/closed ports
5. Handles port conflicts on your local machine

SSH Config Integration

The tool reads your SSH config file (~/.ssh/config) for connection details. It also respects LocalForward directives:

Host myserver
    HostName example.com
    User myuser
    LocalForward 5432 db.amazonaws.com:5432
    LocalForward 3000 localhost:3000

Ports forwarded via LocalForward appear in the dashboard with "Auto (SSH Config)" status. These are read-only since they're managed by SSH itself, not by ssh-auto-forward.

By default, hosts with LocalForward directives are hidden in the host selector. Toggle "Show hosts with local forwards" to display them.

Status messages

✓ Connected!
✓ Forwarding port 2999 (python3)
✓ Forwarding port 7681 (ttyd)
✓ Forwarding remote port 19840 -> local port 3000 (node)
✗ Remote port 2999 is no longer listening, stopping tunnel

Testing

Start a test server on your remote machine:

ssh hetzner "python3 -m http.server 9999 --bind 127.0.0.1 &"

Then run ssh-auto-forward hetzner and access it locally:

curl http://localhost:9999/

Stopping

• Dashboard: Press Q
• CLI mode: Press Ctrl+C

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• paramiko
• textual (for TUI dashboard)
• Remote server must have ss or netstat command available

Tests

Unit tests (run locally, no SSH required):

uv run pytest tests/ -v

Integration tests (Docker, default):

uv run pytest tests_integration/ -v

This starts a Docker container with SSH server and tests against it.

Integration tests (real SSH server):

SSH_AUTO_FORWARD_TEST_HOST=your-server uv run pytest tests_integration/ -v

Development

Code Formatting and Linting

We use ruff for fast Python linting and formatting.

# Install ruff (if not using uv sync)
uv pip install ruff

# Check code
uv run ruff check ssh_auto_forward/

# Auto-fix issues
uv run ruff check --fix ssh_auto_forward/

# Format code
uv run ruff format ssh_auto_forward/

Pre-commit Hooks

Install pre-commit hooks to automatically run ruff before each commit:

# Install pre-commit
uv pip install pre-commit

# Install the git hooks
pre-commit install

Now ruff will run automatically on git commit.