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Pomerium Desktop and CLI Clients

Pomerium is capable of creating secure connections to services like SSH, Redis, and more by creating a TCP tunnel to the service with a local client. This article describes configuring a route to accept TCP connections, and using either the CLI or GUI client to connect to it.

Create a TCP Route​

  1. Specify this new Route as a TCP Route by prefixing tcp+ in the From field, along with a port suffix.

    The port is not used to connect to the Pomerium Proxy service from the internet; this will always be port 443 (unless otherwise defined in config.yaml). Rather, the port defined in From is part of the mapping to the individual route. In this way, you can create multiple routes that share a DNS entry, differentiated by the port to determine which route they use.

    For example, suppose we have a server called augur running behind Pomerium that has a MySQL server and also listens for SSH connections. We can create routes for tcp+https://augur.example.com:22 and tcp+https://augur.example.com:3306.

  2. The To field uses tcp:// as a protocol, and specifies the address and port the service listens on.

The example below demonstrates a route to the SSH service on the host running the Pomerium Core or Pomerium Enterprise service:

- from: tcp+https://ssh.localhost.pomerium.io:22
  to: tcp://127.0.0.1:22
  policy:
    - allow:
        or:
          - email:
              is: user@companydomain.com

See the "Configure Routes" section of TCP Support for more detailed information on TCP routes.

TCP Client Software​

You can connect to this route with either the Pomerium CLI or Pomerium Desktop client.

Install​

Download the latest release from GitHub.

  • Windows: The installer .exe file will install and open the Desktop Client. Right click on the system tray icon to interact with it.
  • Linux: We provide Linux binaries as .AppImage files, which can be executed in place or managed with a tool like AppImageLauncher. Interact with the client from the system tray icon.
  • macOS: Open the dmg and move the binary to Applications. Interact with the client from the system tray icon.
Autostart Pomerium Desktop

If you want Pomerium Desktop to start automatically when you log in to your computer, follow the steps below for your operating system.

Autostart for all users​

Copy the shortcut for the Pomerium Desktop app into C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup.

Autostart for your user​

Copy the shortcut for the Pomerium Desktop app into C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup, replacing username with your username.

Windows 11 also offers a GUI method, documented by windowscentral.com

Add a Connection​

A new connection to an SSH gateway

Name: A local name for the route.

Destination: Matches the From value of the route, without the protocol. Always include the port specified in the route, and do not include the https:// protocol.

Local Address: The local address and port number from which to access the service locally. If left blank, the client will choose a random port to listen to on the loopback address.

In most cases, you only need to specify the port (ex: :2222), and the client will listen on all available local addresses.

Tags: Use tags to sort and organize your TCP routes.

Long-lived connections behavior

When you create a TCP or Websocket connection, Pomerium validates the access policy at the time the connection is made.

Currently, there is no mechanism in place to terminate long-running connections if a policy becomes invalid.

Advanced Settings​

Pomerium URL: The Pomerium Proxy service address. This is required if the Destination URL can't be resolved from DNS or a local hosts entry, or if the Proxy service uses a non-standard port.

Disable TLS Verification: Allows untrusted certificates from the Pomerium gateway

Client Certificate & Certificate Key File or Text: For routes that require client certificates for mTLS, you can provide the certificate and key file to the Pomerium Desktop client.

For more examples and detailed usage information, see TCP Support

Advanced Configuration​

If Pomerium is listening on a port other than 443 (set with the address key), the full TCP URL can be specified with a bastion host:

pomerium-cli tcp tcp+https://ssh.localhost:pomerium.io:8443/ssh.localhost.pomerium.io:2222 --listen :2222