AWS Systems Manager announces support for port forwarding to remote hosts using Session Manager

AWS Systems Manager announces support for port forwarding to remote hosts using Session Manager. AWS Systems Manager is the operations hub for your AWS applications and resources, providing a secure end-to-end management solution for hybrid cloud environments. Session Manager, a capability of Systems Manager, provides secure access to managed instances in your cloud, on-premises, or edge devices, without the need to open inbound ports, manage Secure Shell (SSH) keys, or use bastion hosts.

Session Manager port forwarding is used to tunnel communications between a client machine and a Systems Manager managed instance. Starting today, Session Manager supports forwarding connections from a client machine to ports on remote hosts. With remote port forwarding, you can now use a managed instance as a “jump host” to securely connect to an application port on remote servers, such as databases and web servers, without exposing those servers to outside network.

To get started, install SSM Agent version 3.1.1374.0 or later on the managed instances that you are establishing a port forwarding session with. You can start a port forwarding session from the command line using the AWS-StartPortForwardingSessionToRemoteHost Session Manager document. For more information about remote host port forwarding, visit the AWS Systems Manager product page and documentation.