News

OpenSSH Protocol for Windows Coming Soon

• By Kurt Mackie
• 05/01/2017

Microsoft said that its integration of the open source Secure Shell (OpenSSH) protocol into Windows (Win32) is almost finished.

The collaborative effort started almost two years ago, when Microsoft indicated that it was contributing code to the OpenSSH community. Microsoft also donated money to the OpenBSD Foundation, a nonprofit that oversees OpenSSH development and other open source projects.

The aim of the collaboration is to enable secure two-way remote server management, using Windows to manage Linux servers or vice versa. The integration will support the use of PowerShell as a common tool for remote management of those servers.

Microsoft had expected to roll out a production-quality release of the integrated OpenSSH product in the first half of last year, but that schedule slipped. The team initially worked with NoMachine, which had already published code designed to bring OpenSSH to Windows. However, in the current production phase, Microsoft has now enlisted the help of Casaba Security to perform penetration testing. The testing is expected to take place over "the next 1-2 months," the announcement indicated.

The Win32 port of OpenSSH is currently a project housed at the GitHub software repository. Microsoft intends it to be a contribution to the OpenSSH community, and it plans to "dedicate significant time to OpenSSH core as well," the announcement added. No timeline for a product release was announced.

In other PowerShell news, Microsoft touted community efforts last week behind Desired State Configuration (DSC), which is Microsoft's PowerShell push-pull approach for keeping server configurations in a desired state. Thanks to community efforts, the PowerShell Gallery, Microsoft's repository for PowerShell modules and scripts, now houses 181 DSC modules, Microsoft announced. Those modules "collectively include 766 DSC resources."

Microsoft also released a DSC Resource Kit last month. The new kit contains updates to five DSC resource modules, including PSDscResources, xCertificate, xDatabase, xPSDesiredStateConfiguration and xSQLServer.