How to Use the OpenSSH Implementation of Secure Shell

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Before You Begin

You must be assigned the Software Installation rights profile to add packages to the system. For more information, see Using Your Assigned Administrative Rights in Securing Users and Processes in Oracle Solaris 11.3.

Caution - Beginning with the Oracle Solaris 11.3 SRU 5 release, the OpenSSH implementation of Secure Shell has been upgraded to a version that requires active attention from system administrators. See OpenSSH Implementation of Secure Shell.

Find out whether the openssh package is installed.

# pkg list openssh
pkg list: no packages matching the following patterns are installed:
  openssh

If the openssh package is not listed, install the package.
```
# pkg install network/openssh
```

View all implementations of Secure Shell on the system.

# pkg mediator -a ssh
MEDIATOR     VER. SRC. VERSION IMPL. SRC. IMPLEMENTATION
ssh          vendor            vendor     sunssh
ssh          system            system     openssh

In the output, vendor indicates the default implementation, which is sunssh in this release.

Switch to the openssh implementation.

# pkg set-mediator -I openssh ssh
            Packages to change:   3
           Mediators to change:   1
            Services to change:   1
       Create boot environment:  No
Create backup boot environment: Yes
PHASE                                          ITEMS
Removing old actions                           34/34
Updating modified actions                      25/25
Updating package state database                 Done
Updating package cache                           0/0
Updating image state                            Done
Creating fast lookup database                   Done
Updating package cache                           1/1

Note - The changes will include all the appropriate man pages for the implementation that you select.

This command restarts the Secure Shell server. The existing Secure Shell connections continue to work. Users currently on the server can continue to use the prior implementation, or they can log out and log in to use the new implementation.

(Optional) Display the implementation of Secure Shell that is in effect.
```
$ pkg mediator ssh
MEDIATOR   VER. SRC.   VERSION   IMPL. SRC.   IMPLEMENTATION
ssh        system                local        openssh
```
In this example, the openssh implementation is enabled.

For further information about using the pkg mediator command, see Changing the Preferred Application in Adding and Updating Software in Oracle Solaris 11.3 and the pkg(1) man page.
(Optional) Revert to SunSSH.
```
# pkg set-mediator -I sunssh ssh
```
This command restarts the Secure Shell server. The existing Secure Shell connections continue to work. Users currently on the server can continue to use the prior implementation, or they can log out and log in to use the new implementation.