Windows Acting Like Linux

February 6th, 2008 by Chris

Windows as Linux I’ve done it the other way around many times. Get a Linux box to act like a Windows box using software like Samba, Wine, etc. But now I’ve been tasked at work with a project which puts me in the position of having to get LPR/LPD printing and SSH/SFTP working on a Windows box. Unix printing is at least somewhat built-in to Windows 2003 Server. You need to install it though, it’s an add-on. Once installed Windows should start listening on TCP 515 and you should be able to share out printers as LPD printers. But getting a SSH server which can also do SFTP or SCP installed isn’t quite as easy (well, provided you don’t invest in a commercial package and want to do this free with open-source software). My first attempt with to install a copy of Cygwin and get OpenSSH running. Had some issues with that and it was a little more trouble than I wanted…so I found a slimmed down version of OpenSSH for Windows that contained just enough of Cygwin to make it work. I’ve managed to get it working fully and I can use it just like any Linux box with SSHD on it, but for some reason the vendor I’m working with can’t connect…although they’re using a mainframe based SSH/SFTP application. I have no troubles with any command-line or GUI apps I use to connect but this mainframe app is just not cooperating at all. I knew I should’ve thrown this at our Unix team to work on. Ahh, well. It’s all good clean fun. Blurring the lines between the OSes. Woohoo!