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I was wondering what people use as an SSHd server on Windows? I've decided that I want to be able to log in using SSH on my Windows computers but I don't want to use Linux full-time. What are my options, besides Cygwin (which I know of)? I've looked into some other server software but I don't know which are reliable and it's not easy to find reviews of some of them. Thanks!

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Stuff is out there, but ssh is pretty well useless for a lot of things one windows, because you need to do more via the gui. Instead, windows admins who don't want to log in to a full desktop can use mmc (microsoft management console), which can connect to remote machines. – Joel Coehoorn Feb 9 at 16:32
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6 Answers

up vote 5 down vote

Take a look at freeSSHd if you want to avoid cygwin. I don't really have any problems with it. Their freeFTPd tool is pretty nice as well.

Screenshots:

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Important: it doesn't accept domain auth and the forum is down (cannot post). In rest it could be a good solution. – Sorin Sbarnea Apr 30 '10 at 12:37
Problems I've encountered doing this in Windows 2008 R2 is that the FreeSSHd service doesn't seem to work--which means logging in and running the freeSSHd.exe whenever the server is rebooted... – Peter Ritchie Oct 31 '11 at 2:33
Domain admins don't work and local admins don't seem to work either via Remote Desktop in 1.2.6. – Wernight Feb 9 at 16:07
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up vote 2 down vote

I use copSSH; it's based on OpenSSH.

Use practices described here and here to lock it down.

I like the Bitvise Tunnelier client. In my experience, it has been better than putty (especially the auto-reconnect option).

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copSSH uses Cygwin – Goyuix Nov 1 '09 at 20:39
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Correct - totally forgot about that. I don't use Cygwin outside of running the ssh service. FWIW, the copSSH install is complete - you don't need to install Cygwin independently. – sean e Nov 1 '09 at 20:45
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up vote 1 down vote

I use OpenSSH. It does use parts form cygwin, but it installes what it needs & it's much smaller than a full cywin install. It's fairly easy to set it up as a service on Windows (XP at least) - no experience running it on Vista or Windows 7.

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up vote 0 down vote

I used to use OpenSSH but have switched to using KpyM (http://www.kpym.com) with some code modifications for my own purposes. Its a lot more lightweight than freesshd and can run as a service so good for networks where you just want to have it running all the time without a notification tray icon. plus for deployments you can use the /SILENT flag to install with the defaults.

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up vote 0 down vote

Cygwin OpenSSH.

Steps:

  1. Install Cygwin:
    • Select "OpenSSH" and "nano" (or "vim")
  2. Start Cygwin terminal (console) as (Local not Domain) Administrator
  3. $ ssh_config
  4. $ net start sshd

Add yourself (simplest):

  1. $ ssh-user-config (say YES to the first one only is enough)
  2. $ ssh my_username@hostname_with_cygwin_openssh from another machine

Adding other users:

  1. Create a new Windows user 'john'
  2. Should also log in once as that user
  3. $ mkpasswd from Cygwin to update /etc/passwd
  4. $ nano /home/john/.ssh/authorized_keys and paste your public SSH key
  5. You can now login as 'john' with your private SSH key

If you have issues, check /var/log/sshd.log

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Not a big thing, but the OQ did mention they knew cygwin, and were looking for non-cygwin alternatives. Nice writeup tho. – Rich Homolka Feb 9 at 16:41
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