Dropbear is a relatively small SSH server and client. It runs on a variety of UNIX platforms.
Dropbear is particularly useful for “embedded”-type Linux (or other Unix) systems, such as wireless routers.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- A small memory footprint suitable for memory-constrained environments – Dropbear can compile to a 110kB statically linked binary with uClibc on x86 (only minimal options selected).
- Dropbear server implements X11 forwarding, and authentication-agent forwarding for OpenSSH clients.
- Can run from inetd or standalone.
- Compatible with OpenSSH ~/.ssh/authorized_keys public key authentication.
- The server, client, keygen, and key converter can be compiled into a single binary (like busybox).
- Features can easily be disabled when compiling to save space.
- Multi-hop mode uses SSH TCP forwarding to tunnel through multiple SSH hosts in a single command. dbclient user1@hop1,user2@hop2,destination.
Website: github.com/mkj/dropbear
Support:
Developer: Matt Johnston
License: MIT License
Dropbear is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| SSH Servers | |
|---|---|
| OpenSSH | Remote login with the SSH protocol |
| Teleport | Provides connectivity, authentication, access controls and audit for infrastructure |
| ssh3 | Faster and rich secure shell using HTTP/3 |
| TinySSH | Minimalistic SSH server |
| Dropbear | Lightweight SSH server |
| quicssh-rs | Simple ssh server |
| ssh2incus | SSH server for Incus instances |
| Russh | Low-level Tokio SSH2 client and server implementation |
| wolfSSH | Small, fast, portable SSH implementation |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
 Explore our comprehensive directory of recommended free and open source software. Our carefully curated collection spans every major software category.This directory is part of our ongoing series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. It features hundreds of detailed reviews, along with open source alternatives to proprietary solutions from major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. You’ll also find interesting projects to try, hardware coverage, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Discovered a useful open source Linux program that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know by completing this form. |