Mavericks OpenSSH

A community build of OpenSSH 9.9p2 for Mavericks (Mac OS X 10.9), with Apple's Keychain, launchd, and sandbox integrations restored and modern crypto via statically-linked LibreSSL. The family-maintained successor to Wowfunhappy's Mavericks Forever OpenSSH.

Unofficial community build. Not affiliated with the OpenSSH or OpenBSD project.

Download

Two .pkg installers are published on the latest release:

Installer	What it is
OpenSSH-<version>.pkg	The product — installs OpenSSH under /usr/local/mavergreen/openssh, overwrites nothing.
OpenSSH-System-Replace-<version>.pkg	Optional add-on — makes that build your system ssh/sshd.

(e.g. OpenSSH-9.9p2-mavericks.1.pkg and OpenSSH-System-Replace-9.9p2-mavericks.1.pkg.)

1. Install OpenSSH — OpenSSH-<version>.pkg

Double-click it. OpenSSH installs under /usr/local/mavergreen/openssh and overwrites nothing. The commands are on your PATH as /usr/local/mavergreen/bin/ssh, /usr/local/mavergreen/bin/scp, /usr/local/mavergreen/bin/sftp, and /usr/local/mavergreen/sbin/sshd — but come after /usr/bin unless System Replace (step 2) is installed. Configs and host keys live in /usr/local/mavergreen/var/openssh and survive upgrades. A Sparkle updater keeps the tree current in the background.

On its own, this does not change your Mac's default ssh or the built-in sshd — it lives alongside them under /usr/local/mavergreen/openssh.

2. (Optional) Make it the system OpenSSH — OpenSSH-System-Replace-<version>.pkg

Want the modern build to be the default ssh and the server the built-in launchd job runs? Install the product (step 1) first, then double-click this second installer. It:

• saves your existing OpenSSH binaries aside (the 12 /usr/bin, /usr/sbin and /usr/libexec paths OpenSSH ships) and symlinks each of them to the matching copy under /usr/local/mavergreen/openssh;
• leaves /etc untouched — the modern build reads its config and host keys from /usr/local/mavergreen/var/openssh, not /etc;
• so the untouched /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist job now runs the modern sshd, and the default ssh in your PATH is the modern one.

Order matters: the product must be installed first — this installer only creates symlinks that point into /usr/local/mavergreen/openssh.

Reverting: run sudo mavergreen system-restore openssh, which removes the symlinks and restores the saved originals. To remove OpenSSH for Mavericks entirely, run sudo mavergreen uninstall openssh (this restores the system paths first).

Credit

The Apple-integration patches originate from Wowfunhappy/OpenSSH-Mavericks-Update.