I am looking for a way to test if a SSH server is available from a Windows host. I found this one-liner, but it requires the a Unix/Linux host: ssh -q -o "BatchMode=yes" user@host "echo 2>&1" && echo "UP" || echo "DOWN" Telnet'ing to port 22 works, but that's not really scriptable. I have also played around with Plink, but I haven't found a way to get the functionality of the one-liner above. Does anyone know Plink enough to make this work? Are there any other windows based tools that would work? Please note that the SSH servers in question are behind a corporate firewall and are NOT internet accessible. Arrrg. Figured it out: C:\>plink -batch -v user@host Looking up host "host" Connecting to 10.10.10.10 port 22 We claim version: SSH-2.0-PuTTY_Release_0.62 Server version: SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_4.7p1-hpn12v17_q1.217 Using SSH protocol version 2 Server supports delayed compression; will try this later Doing Diffie-Hellman group exchange Doing Diffie-Hellman key exchange with hash SHA-256 Host key fingerprint is: ssh-rsa 1024 aa:aa:aa:aa:aa:aa:aa:aa:aa:aa:aa:aa:aa:aa:aa:aa Initialised AES-256 SDCTR client->server encryption Initialised HMAC-SHA1 client->server MAC algorithm Initialised AES-256 SDCTR server->client encryption Initialised HMAC-SHA1 server->client MAC algorithm Using username "user". Using SSPI from SECUR32.DLL Attempting GSSAPI authentication GSSAPI authentication initialised GSSAPI authentication initialised GSSAPI authentication loop finished OK Attempting keyboard-interactive authentication Disconnected: Unable to authenticate C:\>