I booked a stay at a particular hotel because the web page said "Free WiFi". It didn't say "all outgoing ports firewalled except for port 80 and a few other (useless) ones". Not having SSH access is most painful. Luckily, there's a solution.
You need a web server running Apache and SSH. Enable mod_proxy and mod_proxy_connect and add this to the first (i.e. default) virtual host configuration:
<VirtualHost whatever:80>
...
# allow ssh to localhost over http proxy
ProxyRequests on
AllowCONNECT 22
<Proxy localhost>
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Proxy>
</VirtualHost>
On the client side you need proxytunnel. Sadly, it's not packaged for Ubuntu yet, but compiling from sources is trivial. Edit ~/.ssh/config and add an entry for your proxied ssh connection:
Host pmyservername ProxyCommand proxytunnel -q -p myserver.mydomain.com:80 -d localhost:22
That's it. Now you can ssh pmyservername. (The p prefix is a reminder that I'm using a proxied connection: ssh fridge versus ssh pfridge. Also it reminds me of Terry Pratchett's Pyramids.).
For extra fun (e.g. IRC) use ssh's built-in SOCKS5 proxy: ssh -D 1080 pmyservername. Then tell the apps to use a SOCKS5 proxy on localhost. Since telling each app to use a proxy (and then, later, telling it to stop using it) is a big *pain*, and some apps (e.g. ssh) don't support proxies directly, a wrapper like tsocks is handy. Edit /etc/tsocks.conf and set the default socks server to 127.0.0.1, then use it to run apps:
$ tsocks xchat-gnome $ tsocks bzr push lp:myprojectname
tsocks is packaged for Ubuntu.
If your hotel doesn't have free WiFi, a prepaid SIM card with 3G access could be cheaper than roaming charges. Apparently you can get one with a virtually unlimited (for a short stay, anyway) data plan for 27 EUR in Amsterdam.
