Royal Apps

I am setting up a warpgate SSH Proxy and for authentication I need to pass my username and for a password I need to put the host that I want to connect to.

The password is how WarpGate determines which internal host to route to since SSH does not have SNI like an HTTP reverse proxy would use.

I also need to send my private key to authenticate my username to WarpGate as the password is simply the host I want to connect to.

Currently, as far as I can tell, RTS support either password or key, but not both.

I am also open to recommendations for a better way to reverse proxy SSH.

Thanks for the reply Stefan.

My key does not have a passphrase, for this application I am required to use both password and key auth.

I also looked into using SSH JumpProxy as an alternative, but I haven't been able to get that to work with the Rebex plugin.

I hadn't tried with Putty yet, but here is in Powershell 7.

PowerShell 7.3.6
PS C:\Users\Austin> ssh -i <PATH_TO_KEY_FILE> RoyalTS:styx.dmz.example.com@192.168.127.2 -p 2222
 Warpgate  Selected target: styx.dmz.example.com
 Warpgate  Host key (ssh-ed25519): AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIEe53izW3TzMqppiS1R5cOlm0sqRvVBGaXdxM3/NkgYv

 ✓ Warpgate connected
Last login: Wed Aug 16 13:11:37 2023 from 192.168.22.202
[admin@styx ~]$

So now, I tested with Putty, standalone, not in RTS.

In the host name and port I used RoyalTS:styx.dmz.example.com@192.168.127.2 port 2222.

I then included the private key in the SSH Auth settings.

Using username "RoyalTS:styx.dmz.example.com".
Authenticating with public key "REDACTED"
 Warpgate  Selected target: styx.dmz.example.com
 Warpgate  Host key (ssh-ed25519): AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIEe53izW3TzMqppiS1R5cOlm0sqRvVBGaXdxM3/NkgYv

 ✓ Warpgate connected
Last login: Wed Aug 23 21:39:45 2023 from 192.168.127.2
[admin@styx ~]$

Hi Stefan,

I did not see an area to configure the Putty plugin in this way.

I was looking for an area to append additional CLI options in the connection properties.

I did see a bunch of options under Advanced, but nothing like this.

I was able to successfully connect using this command line.

putty -ssh RoyalTS:styx.dmz.example.com@warpgate.example.com -P 2222 -i <PATH TO PRIVATE PPK>

I find it interesting that you are parsing it in such a way.

It is commonly used as a connection string to be USER:PASSWORD@HOST:PORT.

I would think that your parsing logic should split at the @ symbol, then split the 1st section on the : to get the username and password and the 2nd section at the : to get the host and port.

That being said, I'm not sure how this translates to the application as there are separate fields for user and password as well as host and port in the connection properties.

Your comment actually got me thinking and I tired one more thing.

In the credential for the connection, I put the RoyalTS:styx.dmz.example.com as the username without filling in the password field and selected my private key as well with the Rebex plugin.

This actually worked, so I'm not sure anything code based needs to change, unless you want to add a checkbox to enable the sending of both the password and private key, then I don't have to have a funk username and it would be more obvious to future users.