Some more good news. I managed to get other programs, such as VNC Viewer, to run through SSH SOCKS proxy.

I used the Debian Sid "armel" tsocks package. I installed everything manually using my Ubuntu desktop and sftp; Application Manager complains that the Debian package is "incompatible". Perhaps someone who knows how to package stuff for the N800 could repackage this?

The /etc/tsocks.conf file needs only two lines:

server = 127.0.0.1
server_port = 3210

The server_port is whatever you put after the -D in your ssh line. I use 3210, you can use whatever you'd like.

Then you just type:

tsocks vncviewer

and it's like you're inside your own home network.

EDIT: tsocks is available in the debfarm repository

Thanks qole. I finally got mine working.

A few posts before, I have given a link to tsocks. You can grab it and do what you want with it. It's the original deb package, no modification.

I have not tested it and won't. But if it is of any use, then good.

free:
Sorry, yes, you did say that. I'm blind.

more cool news: I just tested 'smbclient' with tsocks and it works!

tsocks /usr/bin/browser

does NOT work for me, however. So we're still stuck with about:config

Not only does the browser reset the proxy type to 0 on close/open, it also does it when the connection changes. I'm assuming this is because you can set proxies per connection - but it doesn't support SOCKS proxy type through the standard connection manager (it allows HTTP, FTP, RTSP).

I wonder why they didn't support SOCKS out of the box.

n810 / os2008

I'm able to proxy using openssh's dynamic port forwarding without using tsocks, at least with microb on an N800 running OS2008.

At about.config I set the values for network.proxy.:
.socks = localhost
.socks_port = 3129
.proxy_remote_dns = 1
.type = 1

And the command I'm running to get SSH to proxy it is:
chmod 0600 /media/mmc2/key/my_openssh_privatekey_file.asc
ssh -D 3129 -i /media/mmc2/key/my_openssh_privatekey_file.asc username@hostname
(The private key stuff is something you might not have to deal with, in that case the chmod'ing and -i parameter would be extra.)

After that I have a bookmark to activate the proxy setting:
about:config?prefname=network.proxy.type&prefvalue =1
And this one to turn it off:
about:config?prefname=network.proxy.type&prefvalue =0

Pidgin works fine with the connection.

I'm not sure if Skype is using it because I can't seem to force it to use the SOCKS5 proxy. If it's not up it either isn't using the proxy or it's poking around and then connecting. I've heard from network admins that Skype is particularly nasty in this way, finding its way around firewall blocks. Hm if I can figure out how to block everything but SSH traffic from the tablet that would help me test.

Hi InfinityDevil,

Your browser method is what I suggested in my earlier post. This method is kludgy and awkward, however. I want to get something like tsocks working with the browser so the socks5 redirection can happen automatically.

This is a bit of a moot point for me these days, however. I'm not really using any "open" wireless networks so I don't need proxy at the moment. I also "upgraded" to OS2008 and so I don't have smbclient anymore. sigh.

qole,
smbclient works with tsocks but browser not?

Did you try to track a bit the problem?
->If /usr/bin/browser overload LD_PRELOAD and maybe bypasses tsocks then?
->Network analyser?

Can you try with wget?

I have no socks server but I can understand that some people might need it..
Did anybody open a bug report "wish" on bugs.maemo.org?

InfinityDevil, the problem with your method is there's never any clear indication of if the proxy is being used since each new connection returns it to the unsocked configuration. The whole point (for me) is to always have a tunnel out of the untrusted network I'm on.

Thanks for writing it up - I definitely appreciate that. My intent isn't to be overly critical, it's just a flaw in not having an always-on configuration setting.

Ydant, how would you envision getting a clear indication of whether a tunnel is being used or not? Whatever app you're using to tunnel your data will run behind the scenes. It's a fault in the microb browser that it won't keep the proxy on between runtimes, not in anything you'll run to tunnel your data.

Perhaps a page could be written onto the local filesystem to detect the browser setting and display it and that would be your start page? Maybe click a link from there to turn on the proxy setting?

qole, you're right I basically mirrored what you're seeing. As I mentioned to ydant above, however, aside from getting a browser that remembers what your settings are, how is using the SSH call and then opening the app set to the SOCKS5 setting going to be improved by using tsocks?