port tunneling over ssh (not port-forwarding in the traditional sense)

Does anybody know of a way to do port forwarding over ssh not using the
standard ssh functionality, but rather by running a utility on the server
and using a special client that forwards data through the terminal session.

I think PPP and slirp would do the job, but I would prefer to have a
standalone client that exists solely to forward one (or several) ports,
rather than acting as my main network connection.

> Does anybody know of a way to do port forwarding over ssh not using the
> standard ssh functionality, but rather by running a utility on the server
> and using a special client that forwards data through the terminal session.
>
> I think PPP and slirp would do the job, but I would prefer to have a
> standalone client that exists solely to forward one (or several) ports,
> rather than acting as my main network connection.

I don't know of such a method, although it probably can be done. But I'm
having trouble understanding what the advantage is. You still have to run
an ssh client and ssh server. Then you want to add an additional client and
server that will communicate over the ssh connection, in order to forward
some ports. But the ssh session will already do this, so where's the
benefit?

Are you maybe thinking of automation? That is, you want to ports to be
forwarded automatically as soon as you boot or log in, without you having to
start an ssh client session? If so, then maybe autossh is what you want:
http://www.harding.motd.ca/autossh/.

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