Setting up an SSH Tunnel between CPRS & VistA

Begin by installing putty onto your Windows client machine. Download from here: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html You need the program Plink (a command-line interface to the PuTTY back ends).

Here is a shortcut that uses the program "plink.exe" to construct an encrypted path between the local machine (127.0.0.1) and a remote location (here it is 192.168.5.102). The remote machine at address 192.168.5.102 needs to be listening at port 9210, in this example, and has to be configured with a password (here it is "remotepw".

"C:\Program Files\PuTTY\plink.exe" -N -ssh -l remoteaccess -pw remotepw -L 9210:127.0.0.1:9260 192.168.5.102

translation (from plink documentation):

   -N    Do not start a shell
   -ssh  encrypted link
   -l    user name on the remote system, here we have set up "remoteaccess"
   -pw   password for the remote user, in this example it is "remotepw"
   -L    local_port:address:remote_port remote_address

Now, if the Windows shortcut for CPRS will use the local port and address, a secure connection will be made to the remote port and address at the other end. So you replace

... -s 192.168.5.102 -p 9260 ...

with

... -s 127.0.0.1 -p 9210 ...

and the CPRS client will connect exactly as before but now over the secure SSH tunnel.

under construction, input welcome. --JL.Z 07:00, 21 Aug 2009 (PDT)