WinSSH-Pageant

Proxy Pageant requests to the Windows OpenSSH agent (from Microsoft), enabling applications that only support Pageant to use openssh.

Contents

• Installation
  • Winget
  • MSI Installer
  • Standalone Binary
• Usage
  • Autostart
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Building
  • Easy Build Instructions
  • Advanced Build Instructions
  • Antivirus Flagging
• Bug Reporting, Help & Feature Requests
• Credits

Background

I use the Windows OpenSSH agent as my single ssh key backing. Many solutions exist that do the opposite of this, but I prefer the convenience of Windows OpenSSH agent.

This has been tested on Windows 10 2004 using WSL2. Earlier versions of windows up to 1803 should work too.

Installation

WinSSH-Pageant now features an MSI installer for easy upgrading and install/uninstall actions. The installer will:

1. Create an appropriate, user-specific autostart entry which you can manager from Task Manager -> Startup tab
2. Autostart the application after the installer is finished

Prerequisites

Install the Microsoft OpenSSH package, found on their Github. Do not install this using Windows update, that one is quite outdated, and will not work with this software. Follow the instructions for adding OpenSSH to your System PATH.

Winget

This application is now available in the offcial Microsoft Package Manager: winget and is the preferred way to install and upgrade this software.

MSI Installer

Download the latest version from the releases page and install it.

Standalone Binary

For those who do not want an installer, there is also an option to download the compiled, standalone executable. Download the latest .zip and follow the instructions for configuring autostart

Usage

Run the executable winssh-pageant.exe. There are two (optional) flags:

• --sshpipe - name of the windows openssh agent pipe, default is: \\.\pipe\openssh-ssh-agent
• --no-pageant-pipe - disable pageant named pipe proxying

Autostart

Start Menu Autostart:

1. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to:

   %appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
   

2. Inside this folder, Create a shortcut pointing at wherever you put winssh-pageant.exe

3. If the shortcut is valid, there should be a new WinSSH-Pageant Bridge entry found in Task Manager -> Startup

Note: Task Scheduler autostart method is now deprecated and unsupported. It causes possible issues with executable ownership.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I add my private keys to pageant?

You don't. Add your private keys to the standard ssh-agent with the following command:

ssh-add <your key>

Detailed explanation.

Building

clone the repo:

git clone https://github.com/ndbeals/winssh-pageant.git
cd winssh-pageant

Easy Build Instructions

go build -ldflags="-w -s -H=windowsgui" -trimpath

Advanced Build Instructions

The build script build.ps1 accepts numerous, optional flags and two dev dependencies. Install the dev dependencies:

go install github.com/josephspurrier/goversioninfo@latest
go install github.com/mh-cbon/go-msi@latest

Run the build script:

.\build.ps1 -Release

The release flag is optional, though highly recommended, if it is omitted you do not need the two aforementioned dev dependencies.

Antivirus Flagging

Your antivirus software may flag this as malware, It's a false positive and a known quirk with go binaries (https://golang.org/doc/faq#virus). The official releases use reproducible builds via -trimpath. The expected checksums are posted with the release they're meant for, some users may choose to build this project themself and confirm the checksums, sha256sum.

More information can be found here: https://github.com/ndbeals/winssh-pageant/issues/7#issuecomment-787520972

Bug Reporting, Help & Feature Requests

Please put report all

• Feature Requests
• Bugs
• Help Requests
• General Questsions

as an issue.

Credits

Big thanks to https://github.com/benpye/wsl-ssh-pageant, Ben Pye and the other contributors for the examples of interacting with the win32 api, the build script, and help they have given me directly.

• https://github.com/buptczq/WinCryptSSHAgent for a working example of how to open a file mapping another process created.
• @meilon for reporting an internationalization bug and testing the fix for me.