Install Win32 OpenSSH test release • Hacker News Board

Re: Install Win32 OpenSSH test release

#11

Post by EvanAnderson » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 12:28 AM UTC

quanticle wrote: post #9

0x0 wrote: post #8

Interesting that the build instructions refer to Cygwin. It's a bit surprising, I'd have expected something more native. What does this bring to the table that regular Cygwin OpenSSHd couldn't do 10 years ago?

Powershell integration. Cygwin SSH drops you into a bash prompt running on the Windows box. Powershell is much more deeply integrated with Windows, and is more useful for actual system administration (e.g. configuring IIS, SQL Server, etc) than Cygwin's bash.

What "integration" are you seeing? It looks to me like they're just dumping you out to a CMD.EXE instance and leaving it up to you if you want to run Powershell. It's nice to see MSFT embracing SSH and all, but this is nothing that we haven't already been able to do for going on 10 years (likely longer) w/ OpenSSH on Win32.

Re: Install Win32 OpenSSH test release

#12

Post by YCOmega » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 12:35 AM UTC

Microsoft is going about the whole SSH thing in a very backwards way.

If all they did was make or back an official POSIX environment, all of this comes for free.

Insisting that PowerShell be the focal point for all these changes is just bizarre.

Just install msys2.

Re: Install Win32 OpenSSH test release

#13

Post by tthayer » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 12:35 AM UTC

voltagex_ wrote: post #2

Backspace doesn't work from a Linux box SSHing into Windows (strange world we live in), but otherwise it's great.

What about ^H?

Re: Install Win32 OpenSSH test release

#14

Post by EvanAnderson » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 12:46 AM UTC

YCOmega wrote: post #12

Microsoft is going about the whole SSH thing in a very backwards way. If all they did was make or back an official POSIX environment, all of this comes for free. Insisting that PowerShell be the focal point for all these changes is just bizarre. Just install msys2.

They purchased a reasonably nice POSIX environment when they bought Interix in 1999 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interix). Interix was a lot of fun to use, and I really wish it still existed as a product. I used to have fanciful dreams of a POSIX-based Linux-like "distribution" of Windows that kept a lot of the things I like about the Windows NT environment (NTFS filesystem, kernel object manager, service control manager) but jettisoned those things I don't.

Re: Install Win32 OpenSSH test release

#15

Post by Sanddancer » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 12:57 AM UTC

EvanAnderson wrote: post #11

quanticle wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Powershell integration. Cygwin SSH drops you into a bash prompt running on the Windows box. Powershell is much more deeply integrated with Windows, and is more useful for actual system administration (e.g. configuring IIS, SQL Server, etc) than Cygwin's bash.

What "integration" are you seeing? It looks to me like they're just dumping you out to a CMD.EXE instance and leaving it up to you if you want to run Powershell. It's nice to see MSFT embracing SSH and all, but this is nothing that we haven't already been able to do for going on 10 years (likely longer) w/ OpenSSH on Win32.

This is just a very early step one in their roadmap [1]. The deeper integration is in the next few steps in their development plan.

[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/b/powershell/archive/2015/10/19/openss...

Re: Install Win32 OpenSSH test release

#16

Post by DiabloD3 » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 1:03 AM UTC

YCOmega wrote: post #12

Microsoft is going about the whole SSH thing in a very backwards way. If all they did was make or back an official POSIX environment, all of this comes for free. Insisting that PowerShell be the focal point for all these changes is just bizarre. Just install msys2.

I don't know why YCOmega is getting downvoted, msys2 is actually an extremely nice environment, now that Interix has been dead for quite some time.

I wish msys2 would figure out how to port Cygwin's sshd, or figure out how to use Microsoft's new one to give me a msys2'ed zsh prompt instead of Powershell.

Re: Install Win32 OpenSSH test release

#17

Post by YCOmega » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 1:06 AM UTC

EvanAnderson wrote: post #14

YCOmega wrote: post #12

Microsoft is going about the whole SSH thing in a very backwards way. If all they did was make or back an official POSIX environment, all of this comes for free. Insisting that PowerShell be the focal point for all these changes is just bizarre. Just install msys2.

They purchased a reasonably nice POSIX environment when they bought Interix in 1999 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interix ). Interix was a lot of fun to use, and I really wish it still existed as a product. I used to have fanciful dreams of a POSIX-based Linux-like "distribution" of Windows that kept a lot of the things I like about the Windows NT environment (NTFS filesystem, kernel object manager, service control…

Yeah, it went through a pile of rebrands until Windows 8 when it ended up getting pulled in one of the preview releases IIRC. I've wanted similar to you just so that people could target some kinda baseline on Windows with FOSS.

I mean, I get that coming from the other direction, powershell seems like a nice treat. And if you use it, colour me impressed. I know in some cases, it's the only option for doing script work on Windows machines. But there is a much bigger and more sane ecosystem waiting if MS just rallied around SFU again. Probably cheaper too, tell the investors that.

Re: Install Win32 OpenSSH test release

#18

Post by zrm » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 1:11 AM UTC

Feature request: Domain group policy setting for authorized keys. Make some ssh key(s) authorized to logon as some domain user(s) for every machine in the domain.

Re: Install Win32 OpenSSH test release

#19

Post by EvanAnderson » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 1:19 AM UTC

zrm wrote: post #18

Feature request: Domain group policy setting for authorized keys. Make some ssh key(s) authorized to logon as some domain user(s) for every machine in the domain.

You could do this right now w/ w/ a "Startup Script" or using Group Policy Preferences. The authorization to logon is, presumably, tied to the "User Right" to logon interactively and shouldn't have anything to do w/ the SSH server (since it's just userland).

Re: Install Win32 OpenSSH test release

#20

Post by mikemaccana » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 1:23 AM UTC

YCOmega wrote: post #12

Microsoft is going about the whole SSH thing in a very backwards way. If all they did was make or back an official POSIX environment, all of this comes for free. Insisting that PowerShell be the focal point for all these changes is just bizarre. Just install msys2.

A half-bad Unix on top of Windows, with its own duplicate way of handling services, storage, users, permissions and everything else, is a pretty poor setup. Powershell (particularly the way it separates data from presentation) is one of the best shells on any OS. Being able to access it from Linux is a good thing.