Delphi ActiveX

SSH Tunnel Authenticate with a Password

Demonstrates the Chilkat SshTunnel.AuthenticatePw method, which authenticates the SSH connection with a login name and password. The first argument is the login and the second is the password. Connect first, and call BeginAccepting afterward.

Background: Password authentication is the simplest option, but the password is a secret and should never be a hard-coded literal — obtain it from an interactive prompt, an environment variable, or a secrets vault. Public-key authentication is generally preferred for the unattended, long-running services that tunnels often are.

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var
success: Integer;
tunnel: TChilkatSshTunnel;
sshPort: Integer;
password: WideString;
waitForThreadExit: Integer;

begin
success := 0;

//  Demonstrates the SshTunnel.AuthenticatePw method, which authenticates the SSH connection with
//  a login name and password.  The 1st argument is the login and the 2nd is the password.

tunnel := TChilkatSshTunnel.Create(Self);

//  The tunnel forwards accepted local connections to this destination through the SSH server.
tunnel.DestHostname := 'db.internal.example.com';
tunnel.DestPort := 5432;

//  Connect to the SSH server.  This performs the TCP/proxy connection and SSH handshake, but
//  does not authenticate yet.
sshPort := 22;
success := tunnel.Connect('ssh.example.com',sshPort);
if (success = 0) then
  begin
    Memo1.Lines.Add(tunnel.LastErrorText);
    Exit;
  end;

//  Normally you would not hard-code the password in source.  You should instead obtain it
//  from an interactive prompt, environment variable, or a secrets vault.
password := 'mySshPassword';

success := tunnel.AuthenticatePw('mySshLogin',password);
if (success = 0) then
  begin
    Memo1.Lines.Add(tunnel.LastErrorText);
    Exit;
  end;
Memo1.Lines.Add('Authenticated.');

//  After authenticating, call BeginAccepting to start listening for local connections to forward.

waitForThreadExit := 1;
success := tunnel.CloseTunnel(waitForThreadExit);
if (success = 0) then
  begin
    Memo1.Lines.Add(tunnel.LastErrorText);
    Exit;
  end;