---
id: sshtunnel
version: "0.4.0"
license: MIT
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: aging
---

# sshtunnel — Pure python SSH tunnels

License: permissive · Maintenance: aging · Popularity: top 1,000 on PyPI

## Install

pip install sshtunnel
uv add sshtunnel
poetry add sshtunnel

## Description

|CircleCI| |AppVeyor| |readthedocs| |coveralls| |version|

|pyversions| |license|

**Author**: `Pahaz`_

**Repo**: https://github.com/pahaz/sshtunnel/

Inspired by https://github.com/jmagnusson/bgtunnel, which doesn't work on
Windows.

See also: https://github.com/paramiko/paramiko/blob/master/demos/forward.py

Requirements
-------------

* `paramiko`_

Installation
============

`sshtunnel`_ is on PyPI, so simply run:

::

    pip install sshtunnel

or ::

    easy_install sshtunnel

or ::

    conda install -c conda-forge sshtunnel

to have it installed in your environment.

For installing from source, clone the
`repo <https://github.com/pahaz/sshtunnel>`_ and run::

    python setup.py install

Testing the package
-------------------

In order to run the tests you first need
`tox <https://testrun.org/tox/latest/>`_ and run::

    python setup.py test

Usage scenarios
===============

One of the typical scenarios where ``sshtunnel`` is helpful is depicted in the
figure below. User may need to connect a port of a remote server (i.e. 8080)
where only SSH port (usually port 22) is reachable. ::

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------...

## AI interpretation — verify before relying

sshtunnel creates SSH port forwarding tunnels in pure Python, allowing you to reach services behind firewalls or on private networks by routing connections through an SSH server.

Verdict: sshtunnel is a stable, low-friction tool for SSH tunneling with no known vulnerabilities and permissive licensing. However, it has not been actively maintained since early 2021—over four years old—and classifiers indicate alpha status. Suitable for established use cases, but consider whether the package's age and lack of recent updates align with your project's maintenance expectations.

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/sshtunnel) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/sshtunnel/)