5 Steps to Allow Username/Password Authentication on your SSH Server for Windows

Reliablecounter Team

SSH (Secure Shell) was designed in 1995  as a way to transfer data securely. It provides strong authentication and secures encrypted data communications between computers over an insecure network.

Today, SSH is used worldwide in almost every industry. Manufacturing, warehousing, airlines, beverage manufacturers, supply stores, government, automobile manufacturing, school systems, and more. Anything that involves transferring sensitive data from computer to computer benefits from SSH. There are other systems that advertise secure data transfer, but by far SSH t is the easiest to set up and administer, the most reliable, and maintains the best performance.

Depending on the environment, some users will want to enable user name and password logon on their SSH Servers.

It only takes about 30 seconds to enable or disable username and password logon on your SSH Server for Windows. This tutorial will take you through the steps using the Georgia SoftWorks SSH Server for Windows.

The enable/disable function on the GSW SSH Server for Windows is controlled by the registry key: bEnableLogonPassword.

 

The keys are:

For Win x64: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Georgia SoftWorks\GSW_SSHD\Parameters\bEnableLogonPassword

For Win x86: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Georgia SoftWorks\GSW_SSHD\Parameters\bEnableLogonPassword

To allow username/password authentication, you will want the registry value to be 0x01 (default value).

To disallow username/password authentication, you will want the registry value to be 0x00.

 

5 Steps to Allow Username/Password Authentication on your SSH Server for Windows

  1. Click the START button at the bottom left corner of your screen and Click RUN
  2. Type: REGEDIT and click OK
  3. Select the Registry Key depending on x64 or x86.
  4. Select the menu item EDIT and then click on MODIFY
  5. Enter the desired value for the bEnableLogonPassword (0x01 to allow or 0x00 to disallow). Click OK.

The new value will take effect when the GSW SSH service is restarted. Upon restart, username/password authentication will be required before accessing the SSH Server.