The reports concerning SSH in Windows 10 post anniversary update systems, are a bit confusing on the Internet thus far. I have sifted through many, including the Windows developer sites, and it seems that Windows 10 does contain an SSH proxy setting service with the new system, for some cross platform cloud connectivity, but with some limitations like requiring Putty and/or Cygwin. Personally I rarely use any of the cross platform emulation tools like Putty, Cygwin, Wine, or even the old Ndiswrapper, finding them mostly unnecessary for my normal small business office network and system administration work. I most often connect one of my Linux laptops to the networks I maintain or configure, usually personally present in the offices, using an ethernet d/c, or an ad hoc wifi connection. My need to use SSH/SFTP is rare at best. All that said, the newest version of open SSH works well enough on Windows 10 so we are going to go ahead with a basic setup and test it connected to my Linux Lite 3.0 laptop.
*Setting up open SSH/SFTP in Windows 10
The first thing we are going to do is locate the newest open SSH version for Windows 10 download site. The link below is the correct link. Go to your Windows 10 computer and bring up the site. Scroll to the newest version which will be the first one (setupssh-7.3p1-2.exe) as of today, and click on the file. No need to download the source files listed below it separately. Save the file to downloads on your Windows 10 computer. Do not net install.
http://www.mls-software.com/opensshd.html It’s okay to scroll down and follow the tutorial on this download site below the file version listings, but with a few convenient changes since we intend to connect Windows 10 to a Linux computer and recognizing our Linux local users is more Windows work than it’s worth. Open File Explorer and find the setupssh exe. file in downloads and click on it to start the installer wizard. In the first set up window go ahead and select client, server, and Start Menu shortcuts. This will give you options to select where the files are installed (default is okay for this) and where the shortcut is placed. (Windows Administrative Tools folder is what I use) When the installation wizard window appears entitled “Install Local System or SSHD_Server account” you must select >Run as SSHD_server to connect in the simplest way to Linux connections. Click on the password, and backspace it out replacing it with a new strong password of 13 mixed characters. Write it down somewhere. This is the administrative password for the SSH server, not used (do not use it) for SSH login purposes. Click the radio button >No for user privilege separation. Choose an available listener port, or use default 22. Change the encryption bit depth for generating keys to 4096 if you like. In the installation wizard window entitled “Create Password and Group Files” click the radio button >Local Users. (which would be the users of your Windows 10 computer in this case) Click >Next and SSH will install to Windows 10, several terminal screens flashing by during installation depending on how many local users you have.
Open up a command prompt terminal in Windows 10 and type carefully: ssh -V and your openssh version will be listed. To check your open SSH installation without opening a terminal click >Start>Windows Administration Tools>Services and when the service listing window appears scroll through the services in right pane to find >Open SSH Server. It should read >automatic and should be running, as it starts upon installation. Close the service listing window and scroll through the >Windows Administrative Tools folder listings and find >Open SSH For Windows Web Site. Okay. Our installation is complete. Log out and reboot your Windows 10 computer.
Return to your Linux Lite laptop and open Thunar. Backspace out the URI address bar and type:
sftp://192.168.0.5 i/e the IPv4 address of your Windows 10 computer and hit enter. You will be prompted for a user name and password. Because our new open SSH server on our Windows 10 system is set to local users *(see note) simply type in the user name of the Windows 10 administrative account we have been using all along through these tutorials and enter the password and your Windows 10 files will appear in Thunar via SFTP including whatever Linux files you may have added with bash in the WSL system located at >Users / (the administrative account user name we have been using all along) / AppData / Local / lxss/rootfs. *(Note that in our original setup of samba for windows 10 HE we had to enter a Windows administrative account user name, a Windows user group, and password twice. Once for initial file access, and again for user privilege access, a method only best used over an ad hoc wifi or ethernet d/c because of the lack of encryption over radio and a DHCP connection.)
Now close Thunar leaving the Windows 10 volume mounted as in our previous tutorials, and open Double Commander on your Linux Lite 3.0 laptop. Look for an entry in the right pane reading something like sftp:host=192.168.0.5 i/e the IPv4 address of your Windows 10 computer, and click on it to expand and move through your Windows 10 directories, folders and files. Congratulations you now have SFTP enabled and working on Windows 10.
We’ll find the simplest way to set up keys and users for Windows 10 to Linux Lite in the next tutorial.
TC
