SSH on Windows: OpenSSH, PuTTY

• https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH
• https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH/wiki
• https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH/wiki/ssh.exe-examples
• %USERPROFILE%\.ssh\config – ~/.ssh/config – it allows this notation even on Windows OpenSSH (and be aware of this: %USERPROFILE = “~”!):
  • IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ssh-agent – SSH authentication agent

On Windows OpenSSH’s “SSH authentication agent” is meant to run as Windows “service“. Starting a couple of years back, Microsoft decided, to deactivate that service by default. Now there are corporations, that do not want to have the “ssh-agent” service running at all. No SSH authentication agent, no caching of ssh ID-s (after enquiring the respective passphrase) – i.e. you have to enter your passphrases again and again. Right: if you are a bad boy, you use private keys with empty passphrases – but you are not a bad boy, are you?

The alternative to OpenSSH on Windows:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PuTTY – the PuTTY package has its own SSH authentication agent: pageant – and pageant does not run as (Windows) “service“, you can start it yourself, so PuTTY may be your choice.