[dest]

Very nice. I'd consider pinging the guys of OpenBSD to suggest upstreaming this interesting, user friendly, syntax into SSH itself.

[8fingerlouie]

is the ssh syntax for doing the same thing really that bad ?

I find it easy to remember, it's just one flag (-L) with local_port:remote_ip:remote_port

to forward local port 3306 to mysqlhost:3306:

    ssh -L 3306:mysqlhost:3306

The strength of using ssh is that you can forward multiple ports with the same connection. i.e.

    ssh -L 3306:mysqlhost:3306 -L 8080:webhost:80

[dest]

If it's easy for you to remember ssh syntax, then for you ssh is the better tool. As far as I'm concerned, I never remember the different syntax between -L, -R, -D, etc. Always have to read a doc somewhere.

In the same topic, do you remember the syntax of tar? I don't. https://www.xkcd.com/1168/

[8fingerlouie]

I use tar daily, so yes, i remember the syntax :)

copy files from a to b:

    (cd /src && tar cf - .) | (cd /dest && tar xf -)

operations are easy :(c)reate, e(x)tract, (t)est options the same: (f)ile, (v)erbose, g(z)ip compression. the only illogical ones is bzip2 compression and xz compression with -j and -J

I think i can remember cpio syntax as well, though i haven't used that i a decade, but did use it quite often in my old sysadm job.

copy files from a to b by piping :

    find /somewhere -print | cpio -o | (cd /destination && cpio -i)

or simply for all you kids:

    find /somewhere -print | cpio -p /destination

[dest]

Well, it turns out we have different expectations regarding those tools.

My brain chooses to store other things in life.

[melq]

This seems to imply that he is not 'storing other things in life' because he's able to remember that L=local forwarding R=remote forwarding and D=socks proxy

[colemickens]

The irony being that remembering that is almost guaranteedly easier than acquiring and installing mole on every machine where you may need to Port forward.

[ryall]

It was fun when I mixed up source and destination in my tar command and overwrote 4 hours of work ;)

[peterwwillis]

You can do the same thing with the ~/.ssh/config file. Add a configuration block for the host you want to connect to with the ports you want to map. I agree that an official user interface to editing the config with the most common examples would be really handy.