SSH Tunneling

SSH Access Methods in Sliplane

Sliplane offers two ways to connect to services via SSH:

Direct SSH to Container Execute commands directly in your container. Great for debugging and admin tasks, but doesn't support SCP or rsync.

SSH Tunneling Access private services in the same Docker network. Supports full SSH functionality including SCP, rsync, and port forwarding.

SSH Tunnel Setup

SSH tunneling is ideal when you need to:

• Access private databases from outside the network
• Use SCP or rsync to transfer files
• Set up port forwarding to local development environment
• Connect to multiple private services through a single entry point

Deploy the SSH Tunnel preset. You can keep all the default settings:

After deploying the service (should take <15 seconds), you will find the port, host, and password in the service details.

Copy the host and port and use the following command to connect to your service:

ssh root@<your-subdomain>.sliplane.app -p 2222

It will ask for the password you set in your environment variables.

Using SSH Keys Instead of Password

To use SSH key authentication instead of password:

1. Copy your existing SSH public key (usually found at ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub):

   cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

2. Add the public key to your SSH tunnel service:

   • Navigate to your SSH tunnel service in Sliplane
   • Go to the “Environment Variables” section
   • Add a new environment variable:
     • Key: SSH_AUTHORIZED_KEYS
     • Value: Paste your entire public SSH key

3. Update authentication method:

   • Remove the ROOT_PASSWORD environment variable if you only want key-based authentication
   • Or keep both for dual authentication methods

4. Restart the service to apply changes

5. Connect using your SSH key:

   ssh root@<your-subdomain>.sliplane.app -p 2222

   No password prompt will appear if your key is correctly configured.

Note

The SSH tunnel service requires either ROOT_PASSWORD or SSH_AUTHORIZED_KEYS environment variable to be set. Without at least one of these, the service will fail to start.

For implementation details, see the Github Repository.

Once you are connected, you are in the same network as all your private services. You will be able to reach them via their service name.

You can also tunnel other private services to localhost by using port forwarding.

ssh -L 8080:<your-app.internal>:<your-app-port> root@<your-subdomain>.sliplane.app -p 2222

Here port 8080 on your local machine will be forwarded to port your-app-port on your service. The ports as well as the host are configurable and depend on the service you want to reach.

If you want to have console access to your service you will have to install a SSH server on the service you want to access. To learn how to do that, check out the SSH Server repository.