SSH Programs for Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000

There is an increasing number of ssh-supporting terminal emulators available for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000. Products usually fall into one of three categories: free, free for non-commercial use, or commercial. This page contains information on all three types and more information about where you can download each of the programs. This list of products is not exhaustive, but it contains recommended client programs for PHA users.

One important consideration to take into account when evaluating which product to use is which protocol each supports. All of the clients on this page (with the exception of TeraTerm) support SSH-1 and SSH-2. The two protocols are NOT compatible, so if a client does not support both, it probably won't be as useful. Some bundle an scp and/or sftp program (SSH-2 only), while others do not. Keep in mind that eta and Computer Center machines are running SSH-2 with SSH-1 fallback support enabled for SSH-1 clients, but that some computers only accept SSH-2 connections. (For other ssh programs, such as Java applets, see the Sources of more information section of the SSH Users Guide)

SSH Secure Shell (non-commercial) - **Recommended**

SSH Communications Security offers SSH Secure Shell. This product is available for Windows 95/98/NT/2000 and Linux/UNIX. Although SSH Secure Shell costs $99 for commercial users, it is free for non-commercial and educational use and is highly recommended. A major advantage of this product is that it is one of the few "free" program that offers support for SSH-1 and SSH-2, as well as integrated sftp and scp2 command line clients. The SSH Secure Shell package includes a secure copy client capable of transferring files to and from SSH-2 servers (scp2), but will not support SSH-1 server transfers (scp1). SSH Communications Security is the company founded by the original author of SSH, so one can reasonably expect that this client will be among the best.

SSH Secure shell can be downloaded from one of the mirror sites on the SSH Communications download site.
Detailed support is available at http://www.ssh.com/support/ssh/index.html.

Putty (free) - **Recommended**

Putty is a very small, yet robust ssh client and set of scp utilities that is of interest because they will fit on a floppy and are suitable for travel. For everyday use, it is not necessarily recommended because it does not support X11 forwarding or DSA keys (the default in SSH-2). It has support for SSH-1 and SSH-2 (including scp1), but not sftp. A development version of sftp is available for testing on Putty's site. If you will be traveling, and are not sure if you will have SSH at your destination, you can download the following four programs onto a Windows formatted floppy:

putty - the actual ssh terminal program
pscp - command line secure copy utility (supports scp1 and scp2)
psftp-x86 - sftp client (this program is still in development, so it may not be absolutely stable, however cursory testing by the Computer Center found it to work well).

Once you have the progams on disk, simply doubleclick the icon of the program you would like to run. All three will fit onto a single floppy.

Mindterm (free) - **Recommended**

A second alternative to use when travelling is the Mindterm client. Since it is written entirely in Java, it will work in a web browser on any platform (as long as the Java Runtime Environment on the client machine is up-to-date). Supported browsers are Netscape 4.06 and higher or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.x and higher. Mindterm supports both SSH-1 and SSH-2 and scp2/sftp will be available shortly. Click on the Mindterm link above to use the client.

SecureCRT (commercial)

Van Dyke Technologies offers a commercial implementation of ssh for Windows. Students can buy copies for $20 each, otherwise the price is $99 (less if more than ten are purchased at a time). Some users feel that this product is the best one available because it has good, configurable terminal emulation. It is being improved continuously. You can download and try a copy for thirty days for free. SecureCRT supports both SSH-1 and SSH-2 and is bundled with a command line utility, called vcp that will do scp2, but not scp1. For a full GUI sftp implementation, you will need to purchase a separate product from Van Dyke, called SecureFX for an additional $59.

Here is a tutorial on setting up an authentication mode called RSA Authentication with SecureCRT. RSA Authentication is more secure than Password Authentication (the default). (But password authentication is just fine -- your transactions are encrypted with both modes. RSA is for advanced users and is basically a password for your password.)

F-Secure (formerly DataFellows) SSH Client (commercial)

The company F-Secure offers commercial implementations of ssh for Macintoshes, several versions of UNIX and PC's. Hopkins Information Technology Service (HITS) purchased a site license for this product - it costs $53 ($35 + $15/media). For more information on obtaining a copy, please call 410-516-HELP or send email software@jhu.edu. It is another solid product that supports both SSH-1 and SSH-2. Like Secure Shell and SecureCRT, however, it does not support scp1 transfers. F-Secure SSH Client does contain both a commandline scp2 utility and and a GUI sftp client. Homewood Academic Computing explored a site license for Data Fellows in 1998 but did not acquire one.

Tera Term Pro SSH (free)

 The ssh-enabled version of Tera Term Pro used to be one of the leading free ssh clients, however it's popularity is fading because it does not support SSH-2 or scp, nor will it in the near future. In testing TeraTerm connecting to an SSH-2 server with SSH-1 fallback, TeraTerm did not work reliably, so it is recommended that you switch to another client.