sshtunnel2 0.4.1

Maintained drop-in fork of sshtunnel for Paramiko 3, 4, and 5

sshtunnel2

Maintained fork of sshtunnel. Drop-in runtime module: keep import sshtunnel. Fixes modern Paramiko crashes, including DSSKey removal.

Migration

Replace the dependency name only:

python -m pip uninstall sshtunnel
python -m pip install sshtunnel2

Your Python code should not change:

from sshtunnel import SSHTunnelForwarder, open_tunnel

sshtunnel2 intentionally installs the same top-level module name, sshtunnel, so it conflicts with the original PyPI package if both are installed in one environment. Install one or the other, not both.

Why This Fork

The original sshtunnel project is a useful MIT-licensed library by Pahaz White and contributors. It has also been effectively unmaintained for several years while Python, Paramiko, and OpenSSH have continued to change.

This fork keeps the original API and behavior, preserves the original copyright and MIT license, and limits the first release to maintenance: compatibility fixes, packaging, tests, and CI. New APIs and async support are out of scope for the first release.

Compatibility

Component	Supported
Python	3.9, 3.10, 3.11, 3.12, 3.13
Paramiko	3.x, 4.x, 5.x
Public API	Matches sshtunnel==0.4.0
Package name	sshtunnel2
Import name	sshtunnel

Fixed Upstream Issues

Upstream issue	Status in sshtunnel2
#302	Fixed: no hard reference to removed paramiko.DSSKey.
#299	Fixed: DSA/DSS key support is discovered only when Paramiko exposes it.
#288	Fixed: start() cleans already-created local listeners when startup fails.
#170	Covered: shutdown is attempted for every created server, even failed tunnel checks.
#173	Covered: stop(force=True) avoids blocking on active handler threads during close.
#127	Covered by daemon-thread defaults retained from 0.4.0 and force-close tests.
#201	Covered by explicit close behavior and CI regression tests.

Development

Run the pure unit tests:

python -m pip install -e ".[test]"
pytest

Run lint:

python -m pip install -e ".[dev]"
ruff check .

Run a matrix locally with tox:

tox -e py312-paramiko3,py312-paramiko4,py312-paramiko5

Run the real OpenSSH integration test:

pytest -m integration

The integration test starts a local sshd subprocess when OpenSSH server tools are available. The GitHub Actions workflow runs the same test after installing openssh-server.