Linux System-logging - web access

[Kaitain]

When travelling in unfriendly countries, using unencrypted wifi hotspots or otherwise in locations with inconvenient Websense policies (AOA is classified and blocked under the "games" category, for example) I like to tunnel my traffic to a computer under my TV in England.

Although slightly more complicated in practice, the crux of the matter is that I'm using the "poor man's proxy", ssh -DN username@address to worm my way out of networks in unfavourable locations.

At the moment it's only myself using this system. In the near future I'd like to let a couple of trusted friends use the proxy. However; I'm not that trusting. Is it possible just on a straight sshd port forward to add a few lines to the syslog config to keep a record of which username looked at which web address at which time? The system uses syslog-ng as a logger.

Otherwise would I have to go for a full squid or dante setup?

[Áedán]

I wasn't aware that straight SSHd offered anything beyond telling you that someone had connected to it. SOCKS doesn't care what the application layer is, it just makes the connection and relays traffic.

If you want to know what URL and which user, then you're going to have to go for something like squid with authentication.

[Gizmo]

Originally Posted by Áedán

I wasn't aware that straight SSHd offered anything beyond telling you that someone had connected to it. SOCKS doesn't care what the application layer is, it just makes the connection and relays traffic.

If you want to know what URL and which user, then you're going to have to go for something like squid with authentication.

As far as I am aware, that is correct: SSHD only tells you who connected. It doesn't give you any data on what they did while they were connected.

[Kaitain]

Thanks for confirming it. I couldn't find a way, but hoped that you two, with more experience, would know of one.

I'll start playing with squid later. It's not hugely important as it's still just me using the box under the box.