How do I play an HTTP music stream over SSH? I know I can just do `mplayer <stream>` to _open_ and _play_ a stream on the local machine. However, I'm behind a firewall. Instead, I'd like to _open_ the stream on a _remote machine_ , but still _play_ it on _this one_. Remote connections are what SSH is for, but doing `ssh "mplayer <stream>"` both opens _and_ plays the stream on the remote. SSH's `-x` flag enables X11 display forwarding. Do I need that?

You can use `ssh`'s `-L` flag to create a tunnel from your system to a remote:


ssh -L :: @


You can then connect to your end of the tunnel with `mplayer` as you would otherwise:


mplayer localhost: