Perl, SSH port forwarding, and secure VNC

xorl has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hello,

I'm trying to write a script that sets up ssh -L x:localhost:y remotehost

without me typing my password on remotehost. I know Net::SSH:Perl will let me login without me having to type my password at run time. However I don't see where I can pass more options (specifically the -L option) to ssh.

This is only one part of the script. I'm trying to automate a secure vnc connection. I'm using the info at http://www.uk.research.att.com/archive/vnc/sshvnc.html Basically once I get the SSH port forwarding done, I'm just going to do an exec("vncviewer localhost").

So maybe I should have started this post with - "Is this the best way to set this up?"

Thanks in advance.

Comment on Perl, SSH port forwarding, and secure VNC Download Code

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Re: [OT] Perl, SSH port forwarding, and secure VNC by davis (Vicar) on Feb 21, 2005 at 20:57 UTC
You can do it without perl. Create an ssh publickey and copy it into `remotehost`'s ~/.ssh/authorized_keys. This avoids using any password at all (and is actually more secure in some respects). then you can do: `ssh -L 5900:vnctarget:5900 remotehost` [download] and then `vncviewer localhost` [download] will get you VNC access to `vnctarget`. Just tested it. davis It wasn't easy to juggle a pregnant wife and a troubled child, but somehow I managed to fit in eight hours of TV a day.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: [OT] Perl, SSH port forwarding, and secure VNC by johnnywang (Priest) on Feb 22, 2005 at 05:30 UTC
just want to add that this also requires setting the sshd configuration to allow this, check the /etc/ssh/sshd_config, turn on: RSAAuthentication, PubkeyAuthentication	[reply]
Re^3: [OT] Perl, SSH port forwarding, and secure VNC by xorl (Deacon) on Feb 22, 2005 at 13:31 UTC
Yes this is correct. I aparently already had that turned on for some other reason.	[reply]
Re^2: [OT] Perl, SSH port forwarding, and secure VNC by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Feb 23, 2005 at 11:17 UTC
Note that if you connect to localhost, VNC will assume you have a fast link and will disable all compression. That can make things very slow if the remote host is not on a LAN with the local machine, in which case you'll have to supply the appropriate `-encodings` to get a semblance of speed. Note also that with TightVNC, you can avoid the `ssh -L` / `-encodings` dance by simply saying `vncviewer -via remotehost vnctarget` Makeshifts last the longest.	[reply]
Re^2: [OT] Perl, SSH port forwarding, and secure VNC by xorl (Deacon) on Feb 21, 2005 at 21:29 UTC
Ah Cool. It does work! Thanks.	[reply]