SSH Clients for PDAs: A Comparison

Written: 2nd February 2006
Last updated: 5th March 2006

Contents


Overview

A comparison between several SSH clients for PDAs.

Please note that this review is largely a feature comparison between the various packages and is intended to give an overview of the various systems. It is not a code review; many of the packages detailed here do not have their source available for inspection.

If you know of any other SSH clients that are not listed below, please email details to: sdean12@sdean12.org


Feature Summary

WinCE/PocketPC/Windows Mobile PDAs

Publisher Pragma Systems Choung Networks MochaSoft mov Software Rainer Keuchel DejaVu Software, Inc. Simon Tatham
Package PocketVT mToken TELNET sshCE SSH for WinCE PockeTTY PocketPuTTY
Version v3.0 v4.0.0 v2.1 v1.00.47 v2.9p2 v1.10 v0.1 pre alpha
WWW site Visit... Visit... Visit... Visit... Visit... Visit... Visit...
OSs officially supported
[*1]
WinCE
Pocket PC
Pocket PC 2002
Windows Mobile 2003
Windows Mobile 2003 SE
Windows Mobile 5
WinCE 3.x
Pocket PC 2002 Windows Mobile 2003
WinCE 2.0
WinCE 2.11
WinCE 3.0
Pocket PC 2002 Windows Mobile 2003
WinCE WinCE Pocket PC 2002
Windows Mobile 2003
Autoconnect on startup option
[*2]
Yes No No   Yes No No
Autologin option
[*3]
Yes Yes [*4] Yes   Yes No No
Supports SSH compression No Yes No No Yes No Yes
Supports SSH tunnelling No [*5] No No No Yes Yes No
Supports use of public/private keys Yes Yes No No Yes No No
Has scrollback buffer Yes Yes No Yes No Yes Yes
Can copy/paste from display No Yes Yes Yes No Yes No
User can change font Yes Yes Yes [*7] Yes No Yes No
User can change display colours No [*6] Yes Yes     Yes No
Supports SSH1 Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes
Supports SSH1.5 No No No Yes No No No
Supports SSH2 Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes
Supports telnet Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes
Supports serial (COM) port connections No Yes No No No Yes No
Supports modem (TAPI) connections No Yes No No No No No
Cost 99.00USD 49.95USD 25.00USD 17.95USD FREE 19.95USD FREE
Additional key points Very clear font. Appears to support port forwarding and includes options on it's GUI to specify tunnel details, but in practice this isn't documented, and doesn't seem to work. Confirmed by Pragma Systems via email, this package doesn't support port forwarding Also has ping and traceroute tools built in.
Note: Don't confuse with "mToken Lite", which only offers telnet - not SSH
Despite it's name ("TELNET"), this package does support SSH Supports SSH1.5 only This is a WinCE port of OpenSSH. Includes sftp and scp. Supports standard OpenSSH command line options. Needs to be setup before use (e.g. registry entries added, files put in correct places). Display truncated widthwise on small (e.g. 240x320) displays. Environment option for font size mentioned, but appears to be ignored. Appears to dump the session contents (i.e. what the user types in, and the server sends back to the display) out to a debug file in the root dir of the device?! ssh-keygen appeared to freeze when generating keys, but ssh worked OK with public/private keypair generated with standard OpenSSH under Linux Includes has Xmodem support for sending/receiving files. Very slow on connecting Based on PuTTY v0.53b. May be "pre alpha", but seems to work well
Personal comment Good system Good system Has display issues Doesn't work properly? Good system; includes SSH tunnelling Seemed fairly slow Pretty basic, but still in it's early stages

Notes:

PalmOS PDAs

Note: The following details have been taken from the respective publisher's documentation; I do not currently have a Palm device and have therefore not been able to verify any of the following information.

Publisher angusa@deltatee.com Greg Parker Ian Goldberg MochaSoft MochaSoft MochaSoft
Package TuSSH pssh Top Gun ssh TELNET TELNET TELNET
Version 0.81b 2005-06-23 v1.3 v2.2 v3.0 v4.2
WWW site Visit... Visit... Visit... Visit... Visit... Visit...
OSs officially supported
[*1]
PalmOS 3.5
PalmOS 4 or greater
PalmOS 5 Palm Pilot Pro
Palm III
Palm V
PalmOS 3 or greater PalmOS 3 or greater PalmOS 5
Autologin option
[*3]
      Yes Yes Yes
Supports SSH compression            
Supports SSH tunnelling     No      
Supports use of public/private keys Yes Yes        
Supports SSH1 Yes [*8]   Yes Yes No No
Supports SSH1.5            
Supports SSH2 Yes Yes No No Yes Yes
Supports telnet No     Yes Yes Yes
Cost Freeware (no source) Freeware (open source) Freeware (open source) 25.00USD 25.00USD 25.00USD
Additional key points            

Notes:


Email me at: sdean12@sdean12.org

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