Windows XP Client - Configure ssh server

On each client running Windows XP, we press CTRL-ALT-DEL (twice if needed) and we login as a local user with administrative rights.

We do the following:

• Windows XP - Create a root account
• Windows XP - Install ssh server - copssh
• Windows XP - Setup Firewall

Windows XP - Create a root account

We create a local user account with administrative priviledges and username : root [c7]

• We right click on Computer icon and select Manage. (image 1a)
• On the left frame we go to Computer Management (Local) / Local Users and Groups and we click on Users folder. (image 1b)
• From menus we select Action / New User
• We type root as Username, and the Password we want. (image 1c)

Note

Password for the root user must be rather difficult for security reasons. If we have dual-boot clients with Windows and Linux OS, we select the same password for the root user to both Linux and Windows OS. We use the same root password on all client PCs.

• We unselect option User must change password in next logon and we select option Password never expires. (image 1c) We press Create button and then Close.
• We right click on user root and we select Properties
• In tab Member Of, we remove Users group. (image 1d)
• We add Administrators group as following: In root user Properties window, in Member Of tab, we press Add button, next Advanced button and finally Find now. We select Administrators group and press OK consecutively in the following dialogs. (image 1e)

image 1a	image 1b	image 1c

image 1d	image 1e

Windows XP - Install ssh server - copssh

Copssh is an ssh server, based on cygwin, that can be setup very easily.

To install Copssh we do the following:

• We click on Computer or Network icon. In Address field, we fill the hostname or ip address of the server followed by the public network folder - e.g. \\lserver\public or \\192.168.10.200\public. (We have already setup a hostname and a local network ip for the server in LServerAdmin Network Configuration menu). We login with username user [BE] [c8] or teacher [SE] [c9] selecting Remember my credentials box. (image 2a)
• From public network folder, we execute Copssh_3.1.4_Installer. We proceed with installation until it finishes. [c10] (image 2b)
• We go Startup / All Programs / copssh / Activate a User. In User field we select user : root. We unselect Create Keys for public key authentication and press next to activate user root for remote ssh access. (image 2c)

image 2a	image 2b	image 2c

Windows XP - Setup Firewall

To setup firewall to allow remote ssh connections we do the following :

• We go Startup / Control Panel / Security Center / Windows Firewall.(image 3a)
• In Exceptions tab, we press Add Port. We set Port Name : ssh and Port Number : 22, Protocol : TCP.(image 3b)
• In Exceptions tab, we select File and Printer Sharing. [c11] (image 3c)

image 3a	image 3b	image 3c