Using WinSSHD in a cluster

While WinSSHD does not explicitly implement cluster support, it is designed to be cluster-friendly, and can be straightforwardly set up for use in a clustered environment. All you need to do is duplicate WinSSHD settings and keypair on all machines that are part of the cluster. In WinSSHD 5.xx, these data are stored in the Config subdirectory of the WinSSHD installation directory, and you can easily copy them between machines. Make sure only that you install WinSSHD before copying files in this directory: the WinSSHD installation directory should be created by the WinSSHD installer, which takes care to set filesystem permissions so as to protect its contents against unauthorized access.

Password Cache

If your WinSSHD setup uses either of the following:

• Virtual accounts that have an explicitly configured backing account in Windows (not the default account managed by WinSSHD); or
• Windows accounts that use public key authentication;

then WinSSHD will rely on a password cache to store the passwords for the Windows accounts in question. If such configurations are used in a cluster situation, then the WinSSHD password cache needs to be copied from the primary to the secondary installation as well.

The password cache consists of encoded values stored under the following registry keys:

• 32-bit Windows: HKLM\Software\Bitvise\WinSSHD
• 64-bit Windows: HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Bitvise\WinSSHD