SSH isn’t a replacement for VPNs. I’d argue that they complement each other.
For example, SSH port forwarding is TCP only, so if you need UDP, you‘ll need a VPN.
For example, SSH port forwarding is TCP only, so if you need UDP, you‘ll need a VPN.
The ssh SOCKS proxy supports UDP. I use Firefox with a SOCKS proxy via ssh (e.g. ssh -D 2222 hostname) to get around geoblocking and accessing papers via an institutional account. The tsocks program can also let you use a SOCKS proxy for an arbitrary command in linux. I find it much more convenient than a VPN, as it can be easily applied to single programs.
The less cooperative your applications are (even though cooperation can be somewhat enforced using tsocks, as you mention, which can be further made to apply system-wide using sshuttle [1]), the more a VPN will start to make sense.
http://lists.mindrot.org/pipermail/openssh-unix-dev/2017-Jan...
Alternatively, you might be unknowingly using un-proxied UDP: Many AV systems only enforce IP restrictions on the signalling protocol (which is often TCP); the actual media can then take whatever path it wants.
By the way, it seems like you can forward UDP over sshuttle [1] when used with tproxy (which seems to be a Linux-only feature)!
1080 is often default for socks, but I've also seen places where it's 1085 (for socks5 -- 1084 for socks4)
Ultimately it can be whatever you want.
I used to run a site-to-site VPN between two sites a couple of decades ago with a simple script doing just this. These days we'd use OpenVPN or strongSwan for such use-cases but despite the 'hackiness' of the former approach, it worked reliably for years.
Sometimes I actually wish SSH would offer UDP support for precisely this use case, but arguably, TCP VPN support is already a stretch in terms of scope for SSH.