I need to test web apps with IE7 for $work. I work from home and use a reverse SSH tunnel into the corporate LAN. I run a SOCKS5 proxy using the -D option to ssh over the reverse tunnel. I use a Mac.

What’s a geek to do with these odds and ends?

I run VirtualBox (free VM from Sun) with WinXP for IE7. No problem. I use Putty to open a ssh SOCKS5 proxy over the reverse ssh tunnel. No problem. Problem: IE7 does not route DNS requests over SOCKS so even though I can theoretically get to the remote HTTP server, I can’t resolve names inside the corporate LAN using the corporate DNS server.

The Russians to the rescue.

A nice little Windows app that lets any Windows app proxy through it. Now I can test my web apps with IE7 under a VM on a Mac using a reverse SSH tunnel + SOCKS5 proxy.

How’s that for jargon overload on a Friday?