SSH Frequently Asked Questions

What's the difference between versions 1 and 2 of the SSH protocol?

SSH protocol, version 2	SSH protocol, version 1
Separate transport, authentication, and connection protocols	One monolithic protocol
Strong cryptographic integrity check	Weak CRC-32 integrity check; admits an insertion attack in conjunction with some bulk ciphers.
Supports password changing	N/A
Any number of session channels per connection (including none)	Exactly one session channel per connection (requires issuing a remote command even when you don't want one)
Full negotiation of modular cryptographic and compression algorithms, including bulk encryption, MAC, and public-key	Negotiates only the bulk cipher; all others are fixed
Encryption, MAC, and compression are negotiated separately for each direction, with independent keys	The same algorithms and keys are used in both directions (although RC4 uses separate keys, since the algorithm's design demands that keys not be reused)
Extensible algorithm/protocol naming scheme allows local extensions while preserving interoperability	Fixed encoding precludes interoperable additions
User authentication methods: publickey (DSA, RSA*, OpenPGP) hostbased password (Rhosts dropped due to insecurity)	Supports a wider variety: public-key (RSA only) RhostsRSA password Rhosts (rsh-style) TIS Kerberos
Use of Diffie-Hellman key agreement removes the need for a server key	Server key used for forward secrecy on the session key
Supports public-key certificates	N/A
User authentication exchange is more flexible, and allows requiring multiple forms of authentication for access.	Allows for exactly one form of authentication per session.
hostbased authentication is in principle independent of client network address, and so can work with proxying, mobile clients, etc. (though this is not currently implemented).	RhostsRSA authentication is effectively tied to the client host address, limiting its usefulness.
periodic replacement of session keys	N/A

* Not all SSH-2 implementations support RSA yet for user authentication or host keys, since it's a relatively recent addition. The RSA algorithm was originally omitted from the protocol due to its patent status, but that patent has since expired.