About Secure Shell Sessions
A Secure Shell session, or tunnel, is an encrypted network connection from a workstation to a host on the network that is running a Secure Shell server. In subsequent sections, you will find information on how to use tunnels to secure remote terminal logins and file transfers. You will also find information on how to direct otherwise insecure TCP-based protocols through an active tunnel to ensure that the data transmitted is secure.
Tunnels and Channels
Application data is carried over channels within tunnels. Establishing a new tunnel for each new application connection results in an unnecessary time overhead due to the authentication process required to establish each new tunnel. Therefore, Hummingbird applications that support Secure Shell attempt to create new channels within existing tunnels whenever possible. A tunnel is reused when its host address, port, and user ID values match those specified by the new connection.
In the case of SFTP connections, you may specify <> as the user name in the FTP client to suppress user name matching. Then, only the host address and port values must match for the new connection to reuse an established tunnel. This is useful if the established tunnel was configured with a blank user ID value.
Secure Shell Tunnel Profiles
Using the Connectivity Secure Shell Management Console, you can create and configure tunnel profiles. Each profile you create has the information required to launch a tunnel connection to a specific port on a specific host using specific authentication credentials. These profiles also record other tunnel configuration settings you may need to specify to suit different tasks, network configurations, and preferences.
You can access and launch tunnels either from Connectivity Secure Shell, or directly through Hummingbird applications that support Connectivity Secure Shell.