SSH allows secure connections from one host to another. All traffic is encrypted. Authentication is usually by means of a key pair, where the private key resides on your local machine, and the public key is imported to the remote system. SSH keys have become particularly important for cloud computing, where users need to access cloud servers over a potentially hostile Internet.

Sometimes, the requirement is to access one system via another. You “hop” through the first system to reach the second. For example, an AWS server through a gateway or “jump” system. The following article shows how to do that, in a secure way, either by proxying or agent forwarding, without having to place a private SSH key onto the middle system. Continue reading →