Using openssh to port forward for IRC fails when the server is openssh-2.5 or openssh-2.9. On a Red Hat 7.1 or 7.2-beta box, try: ssh -L 6667:irc.openprojects.net:6667 (some7.1or7.2box) and in another terminal type: irc somenick irc.openprojects.net (any server seems to show the same behaviour) tcpdump and observe the traffic on both the loopback interface and the link to the outside world. You'll see that the IRC client is sending commands which aren't being forwarded by sshd. ircii and xchat suffer, but strangely using telnet or nc to connect makes it work. When the server is a 7.0 box with openssh-2.3.0p1-4, it works fine.
Argh. I need more coffee. Obviously the irc command has to be: irc somenick localhost
This problem still exists in the latest openssh erratum. (2.9p2-9)
I've verified that a clean build of the OpenSSH 3.0p1 RPM does not have this problem. Either it's been fixed in the 3.0 release, or it was a Red Hat patch which introduced the bug.
A clean build of the OpenSSH 2.9p2 RPM also has this bug - so it wasn't introduced by one of the Red Hat patches, it was present in the original source. This means that upgrading to 3.0p1 ought to fix it. What are the chances of an erratum release, or do we have to find a remote root before that can happen?
Verified. This problem is incredibly annoying. Got 3.0.* RPM's somewhere David?
ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/OpenSSH/portable/rpm/
Is this expected to be fixed by the openssh-2.9p2-11 erratum?
This might be the same problem that's giving me fits with fetching email: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openssh-unix-dev&m=100852334213359&w=2 Now that I've been told by the upstream developers that there was a relevant bug fix in openssh 2.9.9, I would really like to see us issue something newer than 2.9.
3.1 is going out as an errata soonish, but the fixes may show up in Raw Hide before that.