ssh client as SOCKS server

This is probably basic stuff for some of you but it was a surprise for me.

Your ssh command line client can work as a SOCKS server. Its actually very simple to use:

ssh -D 5566 remote.server

The -D 5566 will make ssh start a SOCKS (v4 and v5 supported) server at port 5566. You can now set your SOCKS server for your preferred apps as 127.0.0.1:5566.

The connections will be made by the remote.server to the destination host.

Very useful indeed.