Windows Services for UNIX (SFU) is a discontinued software package produced by Microsoft which provided a Unix environment on Windows NT and some of its immediate successor operating-systems. SFU 1.0 and 2.0 used the

MKS Toolkit MKS Toolkit is a software package produced and maintained by PTC that provides a Unix-like environment for scripting, connectivity and porting Unix and Linux software to Microsoft Windows. It was originally created for MS-DOS, and OS/2 versi ...

; starting with SFU 3.0, SFU included the Interix subsystem, which was acquired by Microsoft in 1999 from US-based Softway Systems as part of an asset acquisition. SFU 3.5 was the last release and was available as a free download from Microsoft. Windows Server 2003 R2 included most of the former SFU components (on Disk 2), naming the Interix subsystem component Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications (SUA). In Windows Server 2008 and high-end versions of both Windows Vista and

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...

(Enterprise and Ultimate), a minimal Interix SUA was included, but most of the other SFU utilities had to be downloaded separately from Microsoft's web site. The Interix subsystem included in SFU 3.0 and 3.5 and later released as SUA Windows components provided header files and libraries that made it easier to recompile or port Unix applications for use on Windows; they did not make Linux or other Unix binaries (

BSD The Berkeley Software Distribution or Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD) is a discontinued operating system based on Research Unix, developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berke ...

, Solaris,

Xenix Xenix is a discontinued version of the Unix operating system for various microcomputer platforms, licensed by Microsoft from AT&T Corporation in the late 1970s. The Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) later acquired exclusive rights to the software, and e ...

etc) compatible with Windows binaries. Like the Microsoft POSIX subsystem that Interix replaced, it is best thought of as a distinct Unix-like platform. It is replaced by

Windows Subsystem for Linux Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for se ...

in Windows 10 and

Windows Server 2019 Windows Server 2019 is the ninth version of the Windows Server operating system by Microsoft, as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It is the second version of the server operating system based on the Windows 10 platform, ...

Components

As of SFU 3.5, it contained: * Over 350 Unix utilities such as vi, ksh, csh, ls,

cat The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of ...

awk AWK (''awk'') is a domain-specific language designed for text processing and typically used as a data extraction and reporting tool. Like sed and grep, it is a filter, and is a standard feature of most Unix-like operating systems. The AWK lan ...

, grep, kill, etc. * GCC 3.3 compiler, includes and libraries (through an MS libc) * A cc-like wrapper for

Microsoft Visual Studio Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft. It is used to develop computer programs including web site, websites, web apps, web services and mobile apps. Visual Studio uses Microsoft software development platfor ...

command-line C/C++ compiler *

GDB The GNU Debugger (GDB) is a portable debugger that runs on many Unix-like systems and works for many programming languages, including Ada, C, C++, Objective-C, Free Pascal, Fortran, Go, and partially others. History GDB was first written ...

debugger * Perl * NFS server and client * A pcnfsd daemon * X11 tools and libraries * Tools for making NFS mount-points appear as Windows shares, and vice versa (''gateway'' services) * A

NIS Nis, Niš, NiS or NIS may refer to: Places * Niš, a city in Serbia * Nis, Iran, a village * Ness, Lewis ( gd, Nis, links=no), a village in the Outer Hebrides islands Businesses and organizations * Naftna Industrija Srbije, Petroleum Industry of ...

server capability linked with Active Directory (AD) * Some Windows/Unix authentication information-synchronization tools SFU did not contain the following: *

bash Bash or BASH may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Bash!'' (Rockapella album), 1992 * ''Bash!'' (Dave Bailey album), 1961 * '' Bash: Latter-Day Plays'', a dramatic triptych * ''BASH!'' (role-playing game), a 2005 superhero game * "Bash" ('' ...

, OpenSSH,

sudo sudo ( or ) is a program for Unix-like computer operating systems that enables users to run programs with the security privileges of another user, by default the superuser. It originally stood for "superuser do", as that was all it did, and it ...

, CVS, ClamAV, bzip2, gmake,

curl cURL (pronounced like "curl", UK: , US: ) is a computer software project providing a library (libcurl) and command-line tool (curl) for transferring data using various network protocols. The name stands for "Client URL". History cURL was fir ...

, emacs,

Apache The Apache () are a group of culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreño, Ndendahe (Bedonkohe or Mogollon and Nednhi or Carrizaleño and ...

XView XView is a widget toolkit from Sun Microsystems introduced in 1988. It provides an OPEN LOOK user interface for X Window System applications, with an object-oriented application programming interface (API) for the C programming language. Its in ...

, Ruby,

Tcl TCL or Tcl or TCLs may refer to: Business * TCL Technology, a Chinese consumer electronics and appliance company ** TCL Electronics, a subsidiary of TCL Technology * Texas Collegiate League, a collegiate baseball league * Trade Centre Limited, ...

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pr ...

Although SFU includes

X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wi ...

client libraries and applications, it does not contain a native X server. Administrators may configure any of the numerous third-party Windows X servers. Fully featured free options include Cygwin/X,

Xming Xming is an X11 display server for Microsoft Windows operating systems, including Windows XP and later. Features Xming provides the X Window System display server, a set of traditional sample X applications and tools, as well as a set of fonts. It ...

and WeirdX.

Releases

1.0

Microsoft produced at least one beta release of the initial version of SFU before its final release in February 1999. This release, in English only, was supported on the

Windows NT 4.0 Windows NT 4.0 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 3.51, which was released to manufacturing on July 31, 1996, and then to retail ...

SP3+ for x86 and

Alpha Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἄλφα, ''álpha'', or ell, άλφα, álfa) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter aleph , whic ...

platforms. This is the only known release to support Alpha. It included a demonstration version of the

along with the following components: *

Telnet Telnet is an application protocol used on the Internet or local area network to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communication facility using a virtual terminal connection. User data is interspersed in-band with Telnet control ...

server * Telnet client * UNIX Utilities (from MKS) * Client for NFS * Server for NFS * Server for NFS Authentication * Windows NT to UNIX password-synchronization * Help files and documentation

2.0

This second installment of SFU was released April 2000 and was also for English; however, a Japanese-language release appeared just two months later in June 2000. Both ran on Windows NT 4.0 SP4+ and

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999, and was officially ...

on x86 platforms with Internet Explorer 4.01+. SFU 2.0 supported the following UNIX versions: Solaris 2.6+, HP-UX 10.2+, AIX 4.2+, Tru64 UNIX 5.0+, and

Red Hat Linux Red Hat Linux was a widely used commercial open-source Linux distribution created by Red Hat until its discontinuation in 2004. Early releases of Red Hat Linux were called Red Hat Commercial Linux. Red Hat published the first non-beta release ...

5.1+. It included the following components: * Server for NFS (NFSServer) * Client for NFS (NFSClient) * Gateway for NFS (NFSGateway) * Server for PCNFS (Pcnfsd) * User Name Mapping (Mapsvc) * Server for NFS Authentication (NFSServerAuth) * Server for

(NIS) *

Client (TelnetClient) * Telnet server (TelnetServer) * Password synchronization (PasswdSync) *

ActiveState ActiveState Software Inc is a Canadian software company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. It develops, sells, and supports cross-platform development tools for dynamic languages such as Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Tcl, as well a ...

ActivePerl (Perl) * UNIX utilities (UnixUtilities) *

Cron The cron command-line utility is a job scheduler on Unix-like operating systems. Users who set up and maintain software environments use cron to schedule jobs (commands or shell scripts), also known as cron jobs, to run periodically at fixed t ...

service (CronSvc) * Rsh service (RshSvc) There were subsequent updated OEM releases SFU 2.1, SFU 2.2, and SFU 2.3.

3.0

This version, released in May 2002, was the first release to include the Interix subsystem. Previously Microsoft had released Interix 2.2 (actually version 2.2.5) as a separate product around the same time frame as SFU 2.0. This SFU release included Interix release 3.0 (commonly called the "version" as reported by uname -r) with an internal Microsoft version of 7.0 that relates to internal build sequences. This Interix release contained significant technical extensions from the Interix 2.2 release such as a rooted file system and setuid functionality that were entirely based on the Softway Systems' Interix development codenamed "Firebrand". This was also released in English and followed by a later release in Japanese in October 2002, adding

internationalization In economics, internationalization or internationalisation is the process of increasing involvement of enterprises in international markets, although there is no agreed definition of internationalization. Internationalization is a crucial strateg ...

support. Both supported Windows NT 4.0 SP6a+, Windows 2000, and

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

Professional on x86 platforms with Internet Explorer 5.0+. The MKS Toolkit was no longer included. It included the following components: * Base Utilities for Interix (BaseUtils; including

X11R5 The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wi ...

utilities) * UNIX Perl for Interix (UNIXPerl) * Interix SDK (InterixSDK; including headers and libraries for development and a wrapper for Visual Studio compiler) * GNU Utilities for Interix (GNUUtils, about 9 utilities in total) * GNU SDK for Interix (GNUSDK; including gcc and g++) * NFS Client for Windows (NFSClient) * NFS Gateway for Windows (NFSGateway) * NFS Server for Windows (NFSServer) * NIS Server for Windows (NIS) * Password Synchronization (PasswdSync) * Windows Remote Shell Service (RshSvc) * Telnet Server for Windows (TelnetServer) * NFS User Name Mapping (Mapsvc) * NFS Authentication Server (NFSServerAuth) * PCNFS Server (Pcnfsd) * ActiveState Perl (Perl)

3.5

This was the final release of SFU and the only release to be distributed free of charge. It was released January 2004 and included both English and Japanese versions for Windows 2000, Windows XP Professional, and

Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003 is the sixth version of Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows NT family of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on March 28, 2003 and generally available on April 24, ...

(original release only) on x86 platforms with Internet Explorer 5.0+. It included Interix subsystem release 3.5 (build version 8.0) adding internationalization support (at least for the English version which did not have such until now) and POSIX threading. This release could only be installed to an NTFS file system (earlier versions supported

FAT In nutrition, biology, and chemistry, fat usually means any ester of fatty acids, or a mixture of such compounds, most commonly those that occur in living beings or in food. The term often refers specifically to triglycerides (triple est ...

; this was for improved file-security requirements in Interix 3.5). The following UNIX versions were supported for NFS components: Solaris 7 and 8, Red Hat Linux 8.0, AIX 5L 5.2, and HP-UX 11i. It included the following components: * Base Utilities for Interix (BaseUtils; including X11R6 and X11R5 utilities) * UNIX Perl for Interix (UNIXPerl) * Interix SDK (InterixSDK; including headers and libraries for development and a wrapper for Visual Studio compiler) * GNU Utilities for Interix (GNUUtils, again about 9 utilities) * GNU SDK for Interix (GNUSDK; including gcc and g++) * NFS Client for Windows (NFSClient) * NFS Gateway for Windows (NFSGateway) * NFS Server for Windows (NFSServer) * NIS Server for Windows (NIS) * Password synchronization (PasswdSync) * Windows Remote Shell Service (RshSvc) * Telnet Server for Windows (TelnetServer) * NFS User Name Mapping (Mapsvc) * NFS Authentication Server (NFSServerAuth) * PCNFS server (Pcnfsd) * ActiveState Perl (Perl) Microsoft does not intend to produce any further standalone versions of SFU, opting instead for the integrated SUA. As of August 18, 2016, v3.5 is unavailable from the provided Microsoft Link. General support continued until 2011; extended support until 2014.

Known problems

Character translation must be used to accommodate filenames which include a colon (:) or other characters that do not comply with the naming conventions of Windows file-systems. Files with the same name but different cases are also not allowed by default, but can be enabled on installation with the side-effect of making the underlying partition's filesystem case-sensitive, even for the Win32 subsystem. Network authentication for UNIX systems relies on the insecure NIS protocol (LDAP- and Kerberos-based authentication require a third-party solution). Microsoft has released several

hotfix A hotfix or quick-fix engineering update (QFE update) is a single, cumulative package that includes information (often in the form of one or more files) that is used to address a problem in a software product (i.e., a software bug). Typically, hotf ...

es for Windows Services for UNIX, and at least one Security Update (KB939778). The GNU Project utilities are several versions older than the latest ones. A separate port of the up-to-date Debian utilities was started in 2007, but apparently abandoned in 2009. Several of the text processing utilities in SUA (e.g.

) are not compatible with Unicode or

wide character A wide character is a computer character datatype that generally has a size greater than the traditional 8-bit character. The increased datatype size allows for the use of larger coded character sets. History During the 1960s, mainframe and m ...

text files. No version of Windows Services for UNIX is available for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition.

Legacy

Windows Server 2003 R2 contains most SFU components, namely Microsoft Services for Network File System (NFS), Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications (SUA, a.k.a. Interix), and Identity Management for UNIX. The July 2007 SFU 3.5 Security Update updated posix.exe and related files to match the SUA version. Unlike the SFU, the SUA version included in Windows Server 2003 R2 (and subsequent versions) has 64-bit support and allows linking of Win32 libraries to SUA applications. Windows Vista and

Enterprise and Ultimate Editions also contain the Services for Unix components, now called the Subsystem for UNIX-based applications (SUA), and Client for NFS v3. Users must download the utilities and SDK separately. However, the server components from the SFU product line (namely Server for NFS, User Name Mapping, Server for NIS, Password Synchronization etc.) are not included – these are included in Server editions of Windows (i.e. Windows Server 2008). SUA was deprecated in Windows 8 Enterprise and Windows Server 2012, and completely removed in Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2. The NFS server is still supported in Windows Server 2012 R2. The NFS client feature and server features are separate from the SUA in Windows 7 and 2008, and remained supported until

replaced it. On desktop (Windows 7), NFS is only available in the Enterprise and Ultimate editions. The free reference implementation of NFS 4.1 for Windows (by UMICH CITI), the development of which was sponsored by Microsoft, does work on lower-end versions of Windows 7, but requires more involved installation. In Windows 8, the NFS client gained krb5p ( Kerberos 5 with full data encryption) support. In Windows 7, Kerberos 5 was supported for authentication, but only packet integrity checking was available for data. The maximum block/buffer size was also increased from 32 KB to 1 MB in Windows 8. Windows Server 2012 added support for NFS 4.1 server. The new implementation is kernel-based (RPC/XDR-wise) but many optional features from NFS4 are not implemented, including ACLs, pNFS etc. There is however support in

PowerShell PowerShell is a task automation and configuration management program from Microsoft, consisting of a command-line shell and the associated scripting language. Initially a Windows component only, known as Windows PowerShell, it was made open-sou ...

for mapping user identities.

Notes

References

External links

Microsoft TechNet: Windows Services for UNIX

Services for UNIX: Blog
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Windows Services For Unix Windows components Unix emulators