SSH Client and Terminal Emulator for Windows and Mac
Its impressive list of emulations and powerful features make it a reliable and elegant tool for connecting to hosts and mainframes via Secure Shell, Telnet, serial cable and other communication methods.
With its modern user interface, this terminal has many features that will make your life easier. In its own way, ZOC is the Swiss army knife of terminal emulators: Versatile, robust, proven.
Key Benefits:
- Industrial-Strength Encryption, Security and Features
- Tabbed sessions with thumbnails
- Address book with folders and color coded hosts
- Highly customizable to meet your preferences and needs
- Scripting language with over 200 commands
- Compatible with Windows 10/11 and macOS Sequoia
- Administrator friendly (deployment, configuration)
Key Features:
- Extensive logging, full keyboard remapping, scrollback
- User defined buttons, automatic actions, macro recorder
- Emulations: xterm, VT220, VT420, TN3270, TN5250, Wyse, QNX, ...
- Communication: SSH v2, Telnet, Rlogin, Modem, Serial Cable, ...
- File Transfer: SCP, FTP, SFTP, FTPS, Zmodem, Xmodem, Ymodem, Kermit, ...
- See full feature list...
Screenshots:
[Windows]
[macOS]"Efficiently organized terminal emulator featuring a plethora of communication and automation tools that will improve your workflow." - (Julia Ivan, Softpedia Editor)
Start your free 30 days evaluation and download ZOC Terminal V8.09.0 for Windows or macOS, or check the version history.
ZOC as a SSH Client for Windows and macOS
SSH is a communication protocol that encrypts and transports data over an unsecured network. Its main purpose is to establish an encrypted way of communication with a remote shell account. ZOC Terminal is the software, which runs on your local computer to connect to the remote SSH v2 server. Once connected, it lets you enter commands and see the output of those commands running on the remote computer. (More about SSH...)
Overview of ZOC's SSH Features:
- Based on industry reference implementation OpenSSH 8.7
- Client supports latest encryptions like ED25519 SHA256, SHA2 or AES-256ctr
- SSH public key, keyboard interactive or password authentication
- Dynamic port forwarding (client as a SOCKS proxy)
- X11 forwarding (lets you run X-Windows applications from the remote session)
- Static port forwarding (tunneling of connections to remote destinations)
- Proxy support (client connects to server through http/socks4/socks5)
- SSH Agent forwarding between client and server
- Client side SSH key generator
- SCP file transfer
ZOC SSH Features in Detail
ZOC is based on OpenSSH and supports the latest key exchange and encryption methods that the SSH protocol (RFC 4253) has to offer.
Unlike OpenSSH, this ssh client is wrapped in a modern tabbed user interface with a powerful host directory, industrial strength emulations and scripting.
Below is an overview and explanation of some core SSH features of ZOC Terminal. We also have a whitepaper offering a more technical description of SSH.
Authentication
Authenticating describes the process, where the user presents proof of who he is and the server deciding, if the user should be allowed access. The SSH protocol describes various methods that can be used for authentication.
Of those, ZOC supports password authentication, public-key exchange and keyboard-interactive challenge. Public-key exchange comes in various flavors. ZOC understands RSA, DSA, ECDSA and ED25519 keys. Hardware (smart card) based key authentication is also possible.
Encryption
Over time, the SSH protocol has seen a plethora of methods to be used to encrypt the communication (using shared secret was negotiated during the KEX phase as a cryptographic key). Some ciphers were phased out over time, especially after Edward Snowden revealed how powerful possible listeners like the NSA are, and new ones were introduced. ZOC supports the whole list, starting with aes256-ctr and going down to older ciphers like aes256-cbc or arcfour (these older ones may still be necessary to connect to older servers which have not been updated in a while).
Dynamic Port-Forwarding
The standard port-forwarding feature requires the client to set up the tunnel source port and destination before making the connection. This means that there is limited flexibility and that for each possible destination, a separate ssh tunnel needs to be set up. With dynamic port forwarding however, the client sets up a listening port, but when a software connects to the port, it can select host and port it wants to connect to. The ssh client will then forward the connection request to the SSH server which initiates the connection to the final destination.
SSH Connection via Proxy
In some environments, end user computers are not allowed to access the outside internet directly. In those cases, connection and data exchange is made by way of a ssh proxy which handles the actual connection to the outside network (internet). There are various type of proxies, which mainly differ in how the ssh client requests a connection to the outside world. Most common types are SOCKS-4, SOCKS-5 and HTTP. ZOC supports connections through those types, as well as connections made through ssh-jumpservers.
SSH Agent Forwarding
When a user authenticates an SSH v2 session using a public/private key pair, ZOC supports the SSH agent forwarding technique to provide the key for authentication in secondary ssh sessions (ssh connections to a third server, made from typing a ssh command in the remote shell in the initial connection). If all the servers allow authetication through this specific ssh key pair, it is not necessary to provide the passphrase again for secondary ssh connections.
X11 Forwarding
X11 is a communication protocol which allows a remote computer to run programs with a graphical user interface on a remote computer (normally, the server can show text only through a terminal client). SSH supports a way to tunnel this type of communication between ssh client and server, thus enabling the user to run an X11 command like xeyes on the remote shell and get the window for that displayed on the local computer.