Admin Stuff

Software Needed

The following components are needed:

• Cygwin: http://www.cygwin.com
  • To install the cygwin X-Server, run the setup.exe and select the xinit package

• Putty, PuttyGen and Pageant: http://www.putty.org

• You will probably need WinSCP to transfer data between windows and the Unix host: http://winscp.net

Installation

Install xinit.

Install Putty, PuttyGen and Pageant just by copying them somewhere

Run PuttyGen to create a public/private key pair. Do set a good passphrase.

Open the public key generated by PuttyGen with a text editor. You need to edit the public key to convert it into the form used by all Unix Versions of SSH

---- BEGIN SSH2 PUBLIC KEY ----
Comment: "rsa-key-20111019"
AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABJQAAAIBtozMJYt4YZV5INUYuuYKRhFMd+F4n8wEJ4h3i
oRDnF6U08lvEWzPJYbKLVxGC5bmjNb6Xp60TXrsYSG/fYTNQMXUta5Af2jjDNrEM
gnhw6WM9fcsVgOagvcACHjbsQNBLsRj4YvU+PCYLhYIfdDxjZRGll9nvQA9aWMQw
i7VY6Q==
---- END SSH2 PUBLIC KEY ----

• Remove all Lines starting with '----'
• In the 'Comment:'-Line, remove everything after the first hyphen and remove the quotes
• Replace 'Comment: ' with 'ssh-
• Join the remaining lines into a single line. Put a space after the first line but join the base64 encoded material without space.
• Append a key-id (e.g. your email address) at the end of the line

The result should look something like

ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABJQAAAIBtozMJYt4YZV5INUYuuYKRhFMd+F4n8wEJ4h3ioRDnF6U08lvEWzPJYbKLVxGC5bmjNb6Xp60TXrsYSG/fYTNQMXUta5Af2jjDNrEMgnhw6WM9fcsVgOagvcACHjbsQNBLsRj4YvU+PCYLhYIfdDxjZRGll9nvQA9aWMQwi7VY6Q== info@j32.de

all on one line. You now have a putty private key, a putty public key and a corresponding unix public key.

Transfer the Unix public key to the unix host, probably using WinSCP and place it into your home directory into .ssh/authorized_keys. If the file and or directory do net exist, create them. If the file exists, append the Key at the end.

Open Putty and create a new Session with the following configuration

• Set the hostname/address of the unix host
• Under Conection/Data set the Auto-login username
• Unter Connection/SSH/Auth select
  • Attempt authentication using Pageant
  • Allow agent forwarding
• Under Connection/SSH/X11 select
  • Enable X11 forwarding
• Under Window/Translation
  • Set the character set to UTF-8 (for modern linux distros)

Save the new session type.

Connecting

Start the X-Server using the entry in the Start Menu

Run pageant. This will add a small icon to the Systray. Click there and select 'Add key'. Add the private key you generated above to the agent.

Open putty and launch the session created above. You should be logged in without password query. If putty asks for a password, recheck everything: Is the public key file correct, is it in the correct place on the server, is putty configured to access pageant ...

Now you can open any graphical application on the unix host with the output going to the windows host. To test the conneciton, install and run a simple X-Windows app like xterm, xclock or xeyes.

Further Integration

To integrate WinSCP with Pageant, enable pageant support in the WinSCP Session settings unter SSH/Authentication.

TortoiseGit seems to integrate with Pageant automatically. To integrate with msysgit directly, you need to install plink from http://www.putty.org. Then you need to set the GIT_SSH environment Variable to the full path to plink.exe globally by adding it to the global environment variables in the Windows Control Panel.