My SSH service

A Windows SSH service to run an SSH connection in the background.

Requirements

Have everything you need to compile Rust.

How to build and use

To build and run the service, follow these steps (be sure to replace generic values with your own data in the commands):

cargo b -r
sc.exe create "mysshservice" binPath="""C:\path\to\your\generated\exe\my_ssh_service.exe"" -N -T -R 9999:localhost:9999 user@ip" obj="DOMAIN\Username" password="UserPassword" depend="Tcpip/nsi" DisplayName="My SSH service" start=delayed-auto # needs to be executed by an admin
sc.exe description "mysshservice" "A Windows SSH service to run an SSH connection in the background." # needs to be executed by an admin
sc.exe start mysshservice # needs to be executed by an admin

This example runs a reverse port forwarding on port 9999 in the background, but you can pass any arguments you like to SSH. Obviously, the ssh connection must be able to be established using a key, without the need to enter a passphrase. It's the reason why the service is started using a user account, to access to the user ssh keys. This service will start automatically when the computer boots up, after a lot of important services have started.

If you want to exceptionally run the service with other arguments (a different port for exemple), you proceed as follows:

sc.exe stop "mysshservice" # needs to be executed by an admin
sc.exe start mysshservice -N -T -R 9998:localhost:9998 user@ip # needs to be executed by an admin

When the computer boots up, the service will start with the default arguments.

How to stop the service and check its status

To stop the service, execute this command:

sc.exe stop "mysshservice" # needs to be executed by an admin

To check the status of the service, you need to run this command:

sc.exe query "mysshservice"

Check the logs of the service

The logs of the service are available in %ProgramData%\mysshservice\logs\.