In article ,
John wrote:

| If the APRS software was socks-aware, I could use ssh (which has a
| built-in socks server) to allow APRS to reach the Internet through my
| home connection. I don't think WinAPRS supports socks?

Even if APRS doesn't support socks, it's possible to make it work.

ssh can also just redirect a port, transparantly. Using openssh,

ssh -L 1080:aprs-server:1080 remote-host

will log you into remote-host, and will also forward localhost:1080 to
aprs-server:1080, with the remote connection coming from remote-host.
(I don't know which port you're after. Replace 1080 with whatever it
is. And if your ssh client supports this functionality, you can use
it instead of openssh, but you're on your own about how to set it up.)

So, you run ssh on the same system that runs APRS (Cygwin comes with
openssh if you need it, http://www.cygwin.com/) and configure it to
talk to localhost:1080. If you cannot change the host that APRS uses
(never used WinARPS myself, only xastir) then put that hostname into
c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts (or wherever the file is) with
an address of 127.0.0.1. Eithe way, WinARPS will then connect to
localhost:1080, which ssh grabs and forwards along it's connection,
then it initiates a connection from the remote host to aprs-server on
port 1080. And then it all hopefully just works.

This doesn't work with everything, of course -- only TCP connections,
and with things that don't open up additional ports and connections --
but it may be all you need to do to make this work.

Another option would be a VPN of some sort. If port 22/tcp is open,
that may be all you need.

--
Doug McLaren, Reserve your bear to right arms.