How to install ssh

Disclaimer

According to some cygwin gods, the only official document that you should use is /usr/share/doc/Cygwin/openssh.README
which is probably true.
The purpose of this tutorial is for Windows users who are perhaps less familiar with Unix commands wanting to try out the famous Open Source ssh server (openSSH) on a desktop Windows XP

Please don't send any questions to the cygwin mailing list to ask questions about this page as it seems to provoke them severely. They considered and declared the instructions on this page "broken" and "random" but won't constructively say what is "broken"; instead some went on launching personal attacks. The information here is provided "as is, in good faith" with no guarantee it will work. If it doesn't work, then it doesn't work. Don't send any questions to the Cygwin mailing list to ask why and provoke them. If you must go to Cygwin mailing list to ask, you better completely remove Cygwin before you go to the mailing list to ask questions and don't even mention that you have looked at this web page (to avoid pissing them off).
Read this Disclaimer.

Constructive comments are of course welcome, in the original spirit of the Internet, sharing experience and knowledge regarding bug fixes and improvements to benefit other users of the Internet community.
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How to install ssh on a Windows 2000/XP

How to install a ssh client (called ssh, from OpenSSH)

(1) Create a folder c:\cygwin

(2)

Download cygwin's setup.exe from http://www.cygwin.com/ and save setup.exe in c:\cygwin

Click Start...Run...and type c:\cygwin\setup.exe

When it asks for "Local Package Directory", type c:\cygwin
When a selection screen comes up, you can resize the windows to see better,
click the little View button for "Full" view ,
find the package "openssh", click on the word "skip" so that an appears in Column B,
see this illustration.

Click to start installing cygwin and ssh.
Size of the basic cygwin system is about 40 Meg, this may take a while if you have a slow connection.

Take a coffee break.

(3) Right click My Computer, Properties, Advanced, Environment Variables
See this illustration (red dots)
Click the "New" button to add a new entry to system variables:
variable name is CYGWIN
variable value is ntsec or tty ntsec

(4) Right click My Computer, Properties, Advanced, Environment Variables
See this illustration (green dots)
Select the Path variable and click the "Edit" button:
append ;c:\cygwin\bin to the end of the existing variable string.

(5) Double click the icon, a black screen will pop up.
Optional: type
ssh-user-config this will create private and public key for the user.

You can also use putty (an excellent freeware ssh client).

Just download and run putty.exe from http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/

Disclaimer

Last revised: December 29, 2007