SSH.NET

SSH.NET is a Secure Shell (SSH-2) library for .NET, optimized for parallelism.

Introduction

This project was inspired by Sharp.SSH library which was ported from java and it seems like was not supported for quite some time. This library is a complete rewrite, without any third party dependencies, using parallelism to achieve the best performance possible.

Documentation

There is MSDN-style class documentation in a .chm file for each release, which you can find in the Assets section of the latest release page. Please note that you will need to right-click and "unblock" the CHM file after you download it.

Currently (4/18/2020), the documentation is very sparse. Fortunately, there are a large number of tests in Renci.SshNet.Tests that demonstrate usage with working code.

If the test for the functionality you would like to see documented is not complete, then you are cordially invited to read the source, Luke, and highly encouraged to generate a pull request for the implementation of the missing test once you figure things out. 🤓

Features

• Execution of SSH command using both synchronous and asynchronous methods
• Return command execution exit status and other information
• Provide SFTP functionality for both synchronous and asynchronous operations
• Provides SCP functionality
• Provide status report for upload and download sftp operations to allow accurate progress bar implementation
• Remote, dynamic and local port forwarding
• Shell/Terminal implementation
• Specify key file pass phrase
• Use multiple key files to authenticate
• Supports publickey, password and keyboard-interactive authentication methods
• Supports two-factor or higher authentication
• Supports SOCKS4, SOCKS5 and HTTP Proxy
• Supports both client and host-side OpenSSH certificates (ssh-rsa-cert-v01@openssh.com) [added by msvprogs]

Encryption Method

SSH.NET supports the following encryption methods:

• aes256-ctr
• 3des-cbc
• aes128-cbc
• aes192-cbc
• aes256-cbc
• blowfish-cbc
• twofish-cbc
• twofish192-cbc
• twofish128-cbc
• twofish256-cbc
• arcfour
• arcfour128
• arcfour256
• cast128-cbc
• aes128-ctr
• aes192-ctr

Key Exchange Method

SSH.NET supports the following key exchange methods:

• curve25519-sha256
• curve25519-sha256@libssh.org
• ecdh-sha2-nistp256
• ecdh-sha2-nistp384
• ecdh-sha2-nistp521
• diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256
• diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1
• diffie-hellman-group16-sha512
• diffie-hellman-group14-sha256
• diffie-hellman-group14-sha1
• diffie-hellman-group1-sha1

Public Key Authentication

SSH.NET supports the following private key formats:

• RSA in OpenSSL PEM and ssh.com format
• DSA in OpenSSL PEM and ssh.com format
• ECDSA 256/384/521 in OpenSSL PEM format
• ED25519 in OpenSSH key format

Private keys can be encrypted using one of the following cipher methods:

• DES-EDE3-CBC
• DES-EDE3-CFB
• DES-CBC
• AES-128-CBC
• AES-192-CBC
• AES-256-CBC

Host Key Algorithms

SSH.NET supports the following host key algorithms:

• ssh-ed25519
• ecdsa-sha2-nistp256
• ecdsa-sha2-nistp384
• ecdsa-sha2-nistp521
• ssh-rsa
• ssh-dss

Message Authentication Code

SSH.NET supports the following MAC algorithms:

• hmac-md5
• hmac-md5-96
• hmac-sha1
• hmac-sha1-96
• hmac-sha2-256
• hmac-sha2-256-96
• hmac-sha2-512
• hmac-sha2-512-96
• hmac-ripemd160
• hmac-ripemd160@openssh.com

Framework Support

SSH.NET supports the following target frameworks:

• .NET Framework 3.5
• .NET Framework 4.0 (and higher)
• .NET Standard 1.3
• .NET Standard 2.0
• Silverlight 4
• Silverlight 5
• Windows Phone 7.1
• Windows Phone 8.0
• Universal Windows Platform 10

Usage

Multi-factor authentication

Establish a SFTP connection using both password and public-key authentication:

var connectionInfo = new ConnectionInfo("sftp.foo.com",
                                        "guest",
                                        new PasswordAuthenticationMethod("guest", "pwd"),
                                        new PrivateKeyAuthenticationMethod("rsa.key"));
using (var client = new SftpClient(connectionInfo))
{
    client.Connect();
}

Verify host identify

Establish a SSH connection using user name and password, and reject the connection if the fingerprint of the server does not match the expected fingerprint:

byte[] expectedFingerPrint = new byte[] {
                                            0x66, 0x31, 0xaf, 0x00, 0x54, 0xb9, 0x87, 0x31,
                                            0xff, 0x58, 0x1c, 0x31, 0xb1, 0xa2, 0x4c, 0x6b
                                        };

using (var client = new SshClient("sftp.foo.com", "guest", "pwd"))
{
    client.HostKeyReceived += (sender, e) =>
        {
            if (expectedFingerPrint.Length == e.FingerPrint.Length)
            {
                for (var i = 0; i < expectedFingerPrint.Length; i++)
                {
                    if (expectedFingerPrint[i] != e.FingerPrint[i])
                    {
                        e.CanTrust = false;
                        break;
                    }
                }
            }
            else
            {
                e.CanTrust = false;
            }
        };
    client.Connect();
}

Building SSH.NET

Software	net35	net40	netstandard1.3	netstandard2.0	sl4	sl5	wp71	wp8	uap10.0
Windows Phone SDK 8.0					x	x	x	x
Visual Studio 2012 Update 5	x	x			x	x	x	x
Visual Studio 2015 Update 3	x	x				x		x	x
Visual Studio 2017	x	x	x	x
Visual Studio 2019	x	x	x	x