Comparison of SSH servers

An SSH server is a software program which uses the secure shell protocol to accept connections from remote computers. SFTP/SCP file transfers and remote terminal connections are popular use cases for a SSH server. This article compares a selection of popular servers.

Contents

General

Name Developer Status Date of first release Last release Date of last release License Official web page
CopSSH Itefix Active 2003-08-12 4.2.2 2011-12-13 GPL CopSSH
Dropbear Matt Johnston Active 2003-04-06 [1] 0.53.1 2011-03-02 MIT Dropbear
GoAnywhere Services Linoma Software Active 2009-09-01 2.5.2 2011-08-11 Commercial GoAnywhere Services
lsh Niels Möller Active 1999-05-23 [2] 2.9-exp 2007-04-04 GPL LSH
OpenSSH The OpenBSD project Active 1999-12-01 5.9 2011-09-06[3] BSD OpenSSH
Pragma Fortress SSH Server Pragma Systems, Inc. Active 2004-05-24 5.0 2011-04-20[4] Commercial SSH SFTP Server for Windows
Tectia SSH Server SSH Communications Security (formerly Tectia) Active 1995-07 6.2.3 2011-12-15 Commercial SSH.com: Centrally manageable SSH SFTP servers with PKI support for all major platforms including IBM z/OS mainframes
WinSSHD Bitvise Active 2001-05 5.26 2011-11-17 Freeware Bitvise

Platform

The operating systems or virtual machines the SSH servers are designed to run on without emulation; there are several possibilities:

The list is not exhaustive, but rather reflects the most common platforms today.

Name Mac OS X Mac OS Classic Windows Cygwin BSD Linux Solaris Palm OS Java OpenVMS Windows Mobile IBM z/OS AmigaOS AIX HPUX iPhone[Note 1] / iPod Touch WebOS Google Android
CopSSH No No Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
Dropbear Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No Yes[Note 2] Yes
GoAnywhere Services Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No No No Yes Yes No No  ??
lsh Yes No No No Partial[Note 3] Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No  ??
OpenSSH Included No Yes[Note 4] Included Included Included [Note 5] Yes No No Yes No Yes Yes Yes[Note 6] Included Yes[Note 7] Yes[Note 2] Partial
Pragma Fortress SSH Server No No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No  ??
Tectia SSH Server No No Yes No No Yes Yes No No No No Yes No Yes Yes No No  ??
WinSSHD No No Yes  ?? No No No No No No No No No No No No No  ??

Features

Name SSH1 SSH2 Port forwarding SFTP SCP IPv6 support Compatible with OpenSSH authorized keys Privilege separation Centrally manageable (when multiple SSH servers are in use) FIPS-140-2 certified Multi-processor support (multi-threaded) Support available: community support by volunteers Support available: commercial online support Support available: commercial telephone support 8x5 Support available: commercial telephone support 24x7 Support for x509v3 certificates in server authentication Support for x509v3 certificates in user authentication Support for GSSAPI/Kerberos Compatible with RFC 4716 public key format Support for UTF-8 Easy SFTP jailing/virtual file system Support for local/domain user accounts (Windows) Key management available Configurable domain policies (Windows) Support for standard OS log facilities (SMF, Event log, syslog) Full SSH server implementation (all SSH basic services are available (varies by platform a bit)) Support for network shares (Windows) Support for multi-homed machines (multiple independently configurable listeners) Support for standard Windows logon types (interactive, batch, network, network-cleartext) Support for MVS datasets (zOS)
CopSSH Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes[5]  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??
Dropbear No Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes No  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??
GoAnywhere Services Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??
Lsh No Yes Yes Yes Yes ?  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??
OpenSSH Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes[6] Yes[Note 8]  ??  ?? Yes  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ?? No  ??  ??  ?? Yes[Note 8]  ??  ?? Yes  ??  ??  ?? No
Pragma Fortress SSH Server Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??
Tectia SSH Server No Yes Yes Yes Yes No[Note 9] Yes Partial[Note 10] Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No[Note 9] Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
WinSSHD No Yes Yes Yes Yes  ? Yes Yes  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??  ??

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Unless otherwise noted, iPhone refers to non-jailbroken devices.
  2. ^ a b OpenSSH and Dropbear are available as optware packages installed by PreWare (maintained by WebOS-Internals.org)
  3. ^ lsh supports only one BSD platform officially, FreeBSD.
  4. ^ SSHWindows, last release on 2004-07-09
  5. ^ The majority of Linux distributions have OpenSSH as an official package, but a few do not.
  6. ^ Openssh 3.4 was the first release included since AIX
  7. ^ Only for jailbroken devices.
  8. ^ a b Supported via following products: Tectia Manager
  9. ^ a b Scheduled to arrive in 2012 for all supported platforms (z/OS, Win, Linux, Unix)
  10. ^ Different exploit protection mechanism in use

References

  1. ^ Changes in Dropbear in official web page
  2. ^ Archive of lsh releases in official web page
  3. ^ OpenBSD changes in official web page
  4. ^ [1]
  5. ^ sshd_config(5) manual page 2008-04-05. Retrieved on 2008-04-27.
  6. ^ sshd_config(5) manual page 2008-04-05. Retrieved on 2008-04-27.