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I recently installed Cygwin + OpenSSH (package) on Windows 8.1. However, I'm only using one passwordless Windows account on that machine, but I would like to login with SSH remotely with password (for obvious reasons). Is this possible and how would it be done?

I've been following various instructions for setting up SSH on Cygwin, and apparently the most typical install uses ssh-host-config. This process creates two users; "cyg_server" and "sshd", but you're strongly recommended not using these for login purposes, as they pose an additional security risk and risk to be deleted in case you need to un-install openSSH. (Should it really be necessary to create 3 additional accounts just to accomplish that?)

At the moment I am using cyg_server, but I'm unhappy with this solution, since it's using /var/empty as home directory and lacks all other necessary home directory structure. And the sshd account seem invisible to Windows.


EDIT: I have since resolved the issue, by creating a new user and using that for SSH logins. Most likely it is not possible to do what I described above, since the passwords used by Cygwin are hardcoded from those of the Windows users. The other option is to set the home directory of the ssh user to that of the other Windows user, but this may have unpleasant consequences, especially regarding (Windows) file ownerships. The third option is to use a passwordless (key-based) ssh login to the Windows account, but I have not bothered pursuing this.

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