Speedup SFTP file transfers greatly - HPN-SSH installation

[GTZero]

HPN-SSH Installation guide

Supported Operating Systems:

Ubuntu/Ubuntu Server 15.10 x32/x64

Ubuntu/Ubuntu Server 15.04 x32/x64

Ubuntu/Ubuntu Server 14.04 x32/x64

Manual installation supported:

Debian systems

Possible other linux distros

Table of contents:

Profits of HPN-SSH Where to get it Before the installation Installation (FINALLY) Installation from repo Installation from source Things to know about hpn-ssh Test your transfer speed now!

Warnings:

Do not attempt SSH removal/reinstallation etc if you don't have other way to connect to the server! Don't try to use ubuntu packages on other distros if they aren't package-compatible

1. Profits of HPN SSH

HPN-SSH is a modification of original openssh-server. It's meant to allow very fast SFTP transfers. Right now if you have 100 Mb/s download and you try to download file from SFTP then about HALF of your download speed is wasted for the protocol. Using HPN-SSH you can reduce this penalty to less than 5% speed of your download.

By using this modification you can still have your maximum security profits from SFTP transfer WITH speed of FTPS connection. It's win-win for everyone!

2. Where to get it

There are two ways you can get HPN-SSH:

• Using precompiled packages (highly recommended) - https://launchpad.net/~yoda-jazz-kc/+archive/ubuntu/hpn-ssh
• Using source patches and patch openssh-server manually - GitHub - rapier1/hpn-ssh: HPN-SSH is a set of patches designed to enhance OpenSSH

I highly recommend that you use precompiled packages as you will avoid most problems at start.

3. Before the installation

Okay we want to install hpn-ssh to get fast SFTP transfers but... we're currently using SSH to connect to the server and if something breaks then we will be left without being able to connect our own server!

Solution is simple. Install another program to connect to the server in case if something will break our SSH connection

I've installed telnet in my case. It's simple, obsolete and insecure program but it should be enough for a moment of installation. Remember to remove it later

Use this command to install telnet server in Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install telnetd

Start the server now

/etc/init.d/inetd start

Try to connect to your server on port 23 (telnet) now. If you can login without problems we can go to the next part. Don't worry, you can still use SSH connection to make the installation, it won't automatically disconnect during the installation so we may not need telnet at all but better be safe than sorry.

4. Installation (FINALLY)

4.1. Installation from repo

First we need to add hpn-ssh repo to our database as it's not a official repository. Accept SSL key if asked.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yoda-jazz-kc/hpn-ssh
sudo apt-get update

Now we need to REMOVE SSH. We won't get disconnected, don't worry, we have telnet just in case.

sudo apt-get remove openssh-client openssh-server

Okay, we are still online (weird, isn't it?). SSH does not exist on disk but it's still loaded in memory

Now there are several ways to force ubuntu to install SSH from specified repo, they all have cons and pros so I will use SIMPLIEST one. What's the simpliest way? Comment out official repos and let ubuntu update, it will find only one ssh package, one from hpn-ssh. Why use hack like that? Because openssh has a lot of dependencies and they are colliding with each other repo, we would need to type tons of text to get it installed "correct" way. I also tried setting hpn-ssh repo "higher" than official one and it didn't worked so I used this method.

VNC users can use Synaptic or other GUI tools to turn off official repositories temporarily

Lets edit /etc/apt/sources.list

nano  /etc/apt/sources.list

You will see a lot of lines and every line starts with

deb http://mirrors.online.net/ubuntu/ xenial restricted main

You need to put hash (#) before the line so it will look like that

#deb http://mirrors.online.net/ubuntu/ xenial restricted main

That will turn off this repository, repeat for every line in this file and save it.

Okay, now we need to update repos

sudo apt-get update

Now to be sure that we're installing right one

apt-cache showpkg openssh-server

It should list only one version available with hpn suffix. Something like that is a good sign

1:7.1p2-hpn14v9-2~ubuntu16.04.1

And finally

sudo apt-get install openssh-server openssh-client

As we turned off official repositiories the only one openssh-server package that server has access to is located in 3rd party HPN-SSH repository. Accept the installation.

Now we need to restart SSH daemon. If everything was done correctly we should be able to connect to the server after sshd restart.

 sudo service sshd restart

Try to make new connection to server by SSH. Did it Worked? Great.

Now type

ssh -V

If it says something like

OpenSSH_7.1p2-hpn14v9 Ubuntu-hpn14v9-2~ubuntu16.04.1, OpenSSL 1.0.2g  1 Mar 2016

Then you did everything correctly. Your high performance SFTP is now ready to use!

Remember to uncomment official repos and disable openssh-server package from being updated!


4.2. Installation from source

Do not do this if you aren't experienced in linux! You've been warned

Notice that I didn't tested this way! It should work but I can not guarantee!

Use following git repo - GitHub - rapier1/hpn-ssh: HPN-SSH is a set of patches designed to enhance OpenSSH

Get original openssh source files from official repo

Remove SSH

sudo apt-get remove openssh-client openssh-server

Apply patches, configure, compile and install files from git repo (refer to README file)

Restart sshd

 sudo service sshd restart

Try to make new connection to server by SSH. Did it Worked? Great.

Now type

ssh -V

If it says something like

OpenSSH_7.1p2-hpn14v9 Ubuntu-hpn14v9-2~ubuntu16.04.1, OpenSSL 1.0.2g  1 Mar 2016

Then you did everything correctly. Your high performance SFTP is now ready to use!

5. Things you need to know about HPN-SSH

• HPN-SSH is exactly as secure as original openssh is, don't worry about security. It's just about speed.
• There are almost no cons using HPN-SSH so it should be used everywhere you need fast file transfers
• You can also set it to turn off encryption after connection was made to speed it up even more but I don't recommend it for torrents
• HPN-SSH author is currently asking for donations, please consider donating him as this project is very useful for all torrent users.

6. Test your transfer speed now!

Before (Openssh-server from official repo)

After (openssh-server HPN)

That's all! I hope by writing this guide I will help someone!

[GTZero]

Reserved

[GTZero]

Guide is ready. Feel free to comment and correct mistakes (if any). Thanks for support!

[teshxx]

Thanks for the guide GT.

Once we remove ssh and install HPN, where would I go to edit ssh port so I can connect to the box again? (yes, I am planning on install telnet as back up)

[GTZero]

Config files are the same as for original SSH as HPN-SSH is only a modification of source code. If you remove ssh and then install hpn version it will automatically use "old" config files so you don't need to change anything.

Config files for SSH are here

/etc/ssh/sshd_config

[teshxx]

Config files are the same as for original SSH as HPN-SSH is only a modification of source code. If you remove ssh and then install hpn version it will automatically use "old" config files so you don't need to change anything.

Config files for SSH are here

/etc/ssh/sshd_config

Thank you Sir.

[MBR]

The system STILL doesn't let me give you any more rep points, but... REP!

[GTZero]

I hope guide is useful, I would like to see if someone tested it.

EDIT:: Thanks, I appreciate it!

[dylan334ddx]

Thanks for the guide!