As a rule, I have a preference for open source software. Being a developer, I approach most software the same way that a mechanic or engineer approaches a car: not just an easy way of getting from point A to point B, but also something to study, tinker with, and learn from.
So, when I first realized that SSH was the most secure and flexible way of getting at files on my home PC from the Internet, I went with OpenSSH. It’s a wonderful piece of open source software: well written, well documented (including the kind of in-depth documentation to feed your inner geek), preinstalled on most Linux distributions and readily available for Windows. After investing considerable time learning about public key encryption, port forwarding and the myriad configuration options for an SSH server, I was finally up and running. And it was very reliable: 99% of the time I’d fire up open an SSH shell or fire up VNC and my home PC answered.
But 99% isn’t quite good enough, because there are times when I really, really need to get at a file on my home PC. Trying to figure out what the problem was the other 1% of the time was pretty frustrating and generally futile, since I usually needed to get at my home PC to see what was wrong. If I couldn’t absolutely, positively depend on being able to access my home PC when I needed to, then I had to make sure that I copied the important stuff to my notebook or work PC, or carried it around with me in my briefcase, which pretty much defeated the purpose.
About a year ago I took the plunge and switched my Internet-facing home PC to Windows Vista. The big downside to Vista, especially back then, was software compatibility, and one of the things that hadn’t been fully ported to Vista yet was Cygwin and its version of OpenSSH. (It has now). So, I decided to try out one of the commercial implementations of SSH, WinSSHD by Bitvise. Though not open source, Bitvise’s product was reasonably priced for personal use ($40), well documented, and well supported. They also offered a free SSH client, Tunnelier, which I didn’t think I needed until I tried it.
A year later, I’m still running WinSSHD on my Vista box and I’m not even going to consider switching away from it. It’s easy to install and configure. Tunnelier makes things like public key authentication and port tunneling — somewhat of a geeky adventure with OpenSSH — so straightforward that non-geeks could easily get it working. (And they should — the fact that even Internet-savvy people generally allow their home PCs to be accessed over the Internet with just password protection is troubling.) Most importantly, WinSSHD has been 100% reliable. In fact, when playing around with one of my other home PCs and Vista is being a pri*ck about what network connections to allow, the one thing that always works is my SSH connection.
I still love playing around with open source software, but OpenSSH is no longer one of my toys. When I simply have to get from point A to point B, it’s nice to have something dead simple that just works.