How to set up a Windows ssh Server With Cygwin

Connecting to your Windows computer is useful for transferring data over a network. I don’t have to always remember to keep a usb stick handy.

Bitvise: A personal use alternative to cygwin

For personal use I’ve found bitvise  to be really useful, but unfortunately the free license doesn’t extent to computers in an organisation, so it is good to know how to set up a windows server using the cygwin, which emulates a linux environment in windows.

Setting up Cygwin as an ssh server

How to Geek have a good guide to setting up an ssh server using openssh on cygwin.

You can then connect to your windows computer using your normal login with a program like putty, or for file transfer winscp.

Setting up symbolic links: Connecting to the cygwin server will drop you into the cygwin home directory. To make it quicker to navigate around I like to set up symbolic links (shortcuts) to my windows folders.

ln -s -v target link_name
e.g.
ln -s -v /cygdrive/c c

ln -s -v /cygdrive/c/<<user>>/Documents and Settings Documents

SSH keys are another way that we can make our life a little easier. I followed this guide to setting them up. This helps you to set up the ssh keys and transfer the public key to a remote computer (also with . This remote computer will now have permission to connect to your computer.