Documentation

SSH into Windows from anywhere

SSH (Secure Shell) is a protocol that allows you to securely access and manage your computer remotely. While traditionally associated with Linux, Windows now has built-in support for both SSH client and server.

If your Windows machine is behind NAT, a firewall, or CGNAT, you won’t be able to access it remotely without port forwarding. Pinggy solves this problem by providing remote access to your devices without requiring any router configuration.

Step 1: Enable OpenSSH Server on Windows

Before you can SSH into your Windows machine, you need to enable the OpenSSH Server:

  1. Open Settings from the Start menu.
  2. Navigate to System > Optional features (or Apps > Optional features depending on your Windows version).
  3. Click Add a feature (or View features) and search for OpenSSH Server.
  4. Click Install.
  5. Once installed, open Services (search for it in the Start menu).
  6. Find OpenSSH SSH Server, right-click it, and select Start.
  7. To make it start automatically, right-click, select Properties, and set Startup type to Automatic.

Alternatively, you can use PowerShell (as Administrator):

Add-WindowsCapability -Online -Name OpenSSH.Server~~~~0.0.1.0
Start-Service sshd
Set-Service -Name sshd -StartupType 'Automatic'

Step 2: Start a Pinggy Tunnel

Open your terminal (Command Prompt or PowerShell) and run the following command to create a TCP tunnel to your SSH port (default 22):

ssh -p 443 -R0:localhost:22 tcp@a.pinggy.io

Customize your command:

SSH CLI
Mac / Linux Windows Powershell Windows CMD
Invalid CIDR Format
Invalid CIDR Format
Alphanumeric characters only

After running the command, Pinggy will provide a public URL and port, such as: tcp://example.pinggy.link:12345

Using Your Pinggy Account

If you have a Pinggy account, you can use your token to get a persistent address. Find your token in the Pinggy Dashboard.

ssh -p 443 -R0:localhost:22 <token>+tcp@a.pinggy.io

Step 3: Access your Windows machine remotely

From another computer, use any SSH client to connect to the public URL provided by Pinggy:

ssh -p 12345 username@example.pinggy.link

Replace 12345 with the port and example.pinggy.link with the URL from Pinggy. username should be your Windows username.

If you are using a Microsoft account, your username might be the first 5 characters of your email address or your full name. You can check it by running whoami in the terminal on your Windows machine.