The (short) story of how the SSH port became 22.
ssh.com
cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/9907720
The SSH port is 22. This is the story of how it got that port number. And practical configuration instructions.
You are viewing a single comment
Me too. My biggest takeaway though was that 'SSH' is a company today, providing network and security services. Interesting!
It was a company almost from the start. In the mid 90s Tatu Ylonen created ssh v1 and released it as freeware, then shortly afterwards apparently he regretted it and created ssh v2, made it proprietary and commercialized it with his company.
In the late 90s some OpenBSD guys then forked the unencumbered ssh v1 source to create OpenSSH and implemented ssh v2 with it and their ssh version eventually gained traction and became dominant.
Even more interesting! Thanks!!
Tatu was also a bit of a d*ck about the thing. There were some GPL violations when he made the licensing more restrictive, and at one point he accused the OpenSSH project of violating his trademark, even though his original license permitted the use of the ssh name.
As freeware or free software? Because if it was freeware, I don't understand how OpenBSD could have forked it
It was a custom license more permissive than the BSD license.
It's still part of the official OpenSSH license, see the first section here: https://cvsweb.openbsd.org/src/usr.bin/ssh/LICENCE?rev=HEAD
They're in a lot of government networks world wide (I visited them a long time ago to discuss some potential cooperation) - they're technically quite sound, and as bonus them being privately owned and headquartered in small Finland is generally seen as reducing the likelihood of backdoors or similar issues due to conflicting state interests.