Linux in a Windows World

SSH Server Configuration

In most cases, SSH is the preferred remote text-mode access method; this protocol implements security at its core, and it’s become almost as widely available as Telnet. SSH is, though, a much more complex protocol, and its server program implementations reflect this fact. Configuring and running an SSH server is therefore a more complex task than configuring and running a Telnet server, although the default SSH server configurations for most Linux distributions require little work to get running.

SSH Server Options for Linux

If you want to use SSH, you must first decide which of several SSH server packages to use:

SSH Tectia

SSH was developed by a company called SSH Communications Security (http://www.ssh.com), which sells its commercial SSH server under the name SSH Tectia. (Versions prior to 4.0 used the name SSH alone.)

OpenSSH

This may be the most popular SSH server in Linux. It was originally developed in association with OpenBSD, but most Linux distributions include it under the package name openssh or something similar. Its official web site is http://www.openssh.org, and it’s distributed under the BSD license.

FreSSH

This server, headquartered at http://www.fressh.org, is an independent SSH implementation that’s distributed under the BSD license.

lsh

For GPL fans, lsh is an SSH implementation under that license. You can learn more at http://www.lysator.liu.se/~nisse/lsh/.

Any of these servers should work well and interoperate with common SSH client programs, ...