How to create a SSH tunnel using Python and Paramiko?

I used sshtunnel for my projects. Example of the forwarding remote local MySQL port to the host local port:

pip install sshtunnelpython -m sshtunnel -U root -P password -L :3306 -R 127.0.0.1:3306 -p 2222 localhost

Even though this does not use paramiko, I believe it's a very clean solution to implement (similar to @dario's answer but without managing the thread in python).

There's this little-mentioned feature in openssh client that allows us to control a ssh process through a unix socket, quoting man ssh:

-M Places the ssh client into “master” mode for connection sharing. Multiple -M options places sshinto “master” mode with confirmation required before slave connections are accepted. Refer to thedescription of ControlMaster in ssh_config(5) for details.-S ctl_pathSpecifies the location of a control socket for connection sharing, or the string “none” to disableconnection sharing. Refer to the description of ControlPath and ControlMaster in ssh_config(5)for details.

So you can start background process of ssh (with -Nf) and then check (or terminate) it with a another ssh call.

I use this in a project that requires a reverse tunnel to be established

from subprocess import call, STDOUTimport osDEVNULL = open(os.devnull, 'wb')CONFIG = dict(SSH_SERVER='ssh.server.com',SSH_PORT=2222,SSH_USER='myuser',SSH_KEY='/path/to/user.key',REMOTE_PORT=62222,UNIX_SOCKET='/tmp/ssh_tunnel.sock',KNOWN_HOSTS='/path/to/specific_known_host_to_conflicts',)def start():return call(['ssh', CONFIG['SSH_SERVER'],'-Nfi', CONFIG['SSH_KEY'],'-MS', CONFIG['UNIX_SOCKET'],'-o', 'UserKnownHostsFile=%s' % CONFIG['KNOWN_HOSTS'],'-o', 'ExitOnForwardFailure=yes','-p', str(CONFIG['SSH_PORT']),'-l', CONFIG['SSH_USER'],'-R', '%d:localhost:22' % CONFIG['REMOTE_PORT']],stdout=DEVNULL,stderr=STDOUT) == 0def stop():return __control_ssh('exit') == 0def status():return __control_ssh('check') == 0def __control_ssh(command):return call(['ssh', '-S', CONFIG['UNIX_SOCKET'], '-O', command, 'x'],stdout=DEVNULL,stderr=STDOUT)

-o ExitOnForwardFailure=yes makes sure the ssh command will fail if the tunnel cannot be established, otherwise it will not exit.

Might I suggest trying something like pyngrok to programmatically manage an ngrok tunnel for you? Full disclosure, I am the developer of it. SSH example here, but it's as easy as installing pyngrok:

pip install pyngrok

and using it:

from pyngrok import ngrok# <NgrokTunnel: "tcp://0.tcp.ngrok.io:12345" -> "localhost:22">ssh_tunnel = ngrok.connect(22, "tcp")

I used paramiko for some project I had a year ago, here is the part of my code where I connected with another computer/server and executed a simple python file:

import paramikossh = paramiko.SSHClient()ssh.set_missing_host_key_policy(paramiko.AutoAddPolicy())ssh.connect(hostname='...', username='...', password='...')stdin, stdout, stderr = ssh.exec_command('python hello.py')ssh.close()

stdin, stdout and sdterr contain the inputs/outputs of the command you executed.

From here, I think you can make the connection with the database.

Here is some good information about paramiko.