PuTTY is an open-source terminal emulator, serial console and network file transfer application supporting various network protocols like SCP, SSH, Telnet and Rlogin.
This panel allows you to quickly save sets of session details. Furthermore, you can use it to adjust settings such as terminal size, font and the actions of various keyboard shortcuts.
Terminal emulation
PuTTY is widely used by many to access remote systems, thanks to its robust set of features that run across a range of host systems and compatibility with Windows computers as well as Linux machines. IT professionals who work with multiple remote hosts may find this terminal emulator especially helpful; its developers have made numerous enhancements and bug fixes over time to make PuTTY even more reliable.
PuTTY’s configuration panel contains several features to allow you to tailor its behavior, such as using a block cursor, an underline, or vertical line; customizing its font size and color; closing down as soon as the session ends; or having the window close automatically after the terminal session has terminated – such features could prove invaluable if you want to copy-paste text from terminal after it has closed down.
PuTTY also gives you the power to control how frequently it writes logging data to disk. By default, PuTTY flushes this data whenever the title of any window changes; this could present security risks if this window is controlled by someone who could read what was typed into it by default. You can opt out by unchecking this box.
PuTTY can also be set to display a specific background color when receiving a “clear screen” sequence from a server. This can be beneficial when running applications that expect their screen to clear to a particular hue rather than its default background colour of terminals.
PuTTY also features several other settings you can adjust to alter its behavior, such as playing Windows’ default alert sound when sending control characters or to select another sound using system preferences audio settings. Furthermore, you may choose whether or not resizing will alter font size changes and even prevent further resizing altogether.
PuTTY as a terminal emulator offers many advantages, from its robust multi-protocol support and modern tabbed interface to its variety of customizable options and free download. Furthermore, there is an online developer website featuring documentation and help as well as an active community where users can submit ideas, bug reports or suggestions for improving its software.
Network file transfer
PuTTY is a free, open source terminal emulator, serial console, and network file transfer application available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux platforms. It supports numerous network protocols like SCP, SSH, Telnet, Rlogin and Raw Rocket Link as well as supporting X11-based display devices. Created in 1997 by Simon Tatham of Great Britain; PuTTY boasts several unique features which make its usage more user-friendly than similar programs such as VNC.
Public Key Authentication allows users to login without sharing passwords, providing higher cryptographic strength than standard passwords which are vulnerable to dictionary attacks and other weaknesses. Keyboard shortcuts also make commands simpler. Furthermore, Full Screen Mode enables remote connections from desktop PCs while saving/loading sessions is available too!
After installing PuTTY, you can verify its functioning by clicking on a session tab and viewing its details. If it doesn’t run as expected, (double)-clicking its icon may help – it is essential that you test your installation thoroughly prior to deploying it into production environments; once complete testing, deployment should commence.
PuTTY offers two file transfer applications to copy files across SCP or SFTP protocols, PSCP and psftp respectively. Both support various transfer protocols and features like file timestamping and permission settings; however, neither allows for setting local permissions while transfer is in process; to achieve this you must use chmod command separately.
PuTTY can be downloaded for installation from the NMSU Discovery website under “Terminal emulators.” Once you’ve downloaded and run the installer, follow its prompts to install it successfully – once this step is done you can begin using PuTTY from either its desktop icon or Start menu in Windows.
Keyboard shortcuts
Combining PuTTY with applications that use the mouse can be tricky, as copy/paste keyboard commands (Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V) may not have the expected effects due to servers not being able to distinguish between copy/paste commands and those initiated through pressing mouse buttons. To address this, enabling a mode in which mouse clicks are ignored by selecting an option in “Mouse button actions” configuration panel may help.
This panel offers several settings that apply to multiple connections: you can change the cursor colour, default foreground and background colours, precise shades of all ANSI configurable colours (black, red, green, yellow, blue magenta cyan and white), how bold text is displayed when some servers send control sequences that cause PuTTY’s terminal to temporarily change character sets to include line drawing characters – PuTTY can handle this in various ways but typically assumes that font has special encodings whereby 32 of its characters contain line drawing characters – giving greater control.
PuTTY provides another set of configuration options that specify its behavior when you resize a window. You have options to either prevent terminal size from changing when resizing, or only let font sizes adapt when resizing occurs; or simply allow PuTTY to resize both terminal size and font together – likely what most users will choose.
PuTTY can save up to 5,000 lines of text during each session and keep them on screen when exiting and restarting the connection, providing an efficient way of keeping notes but quickly filling up your hard disk with files you won’t use again.
The final set of configuration options govern what happens when pressing numeric keypad keys 1-9 while your screen is not full-screen. By default, these keys generate NetHack movement commands (hjklyubn). But other options exist that could result in different sets of commands or none at all being generated when these buttons are pressed.
Customization
Once PuTTY is installed and configured, it’s easy to customize its settings. The configuration menu contains options that alter terminal emulation and keyboard mappings; clicking any category brings up a pane containing configuration options related to that section – such as clicking Auth to access controls that control SSH authentication.
Change the default foreground color and other interface features such as number of scrollback lines or color settings in Window options, font that appears in terminal window and text size increase; also set mouse-button actions or any other features with these options.
The X11 settings are generally self-explanatory and rarely need to be modified by most users. Here you can select whether X Window System graphical applications should be forwarded over your encrypted SSH connection or run locally on Windows machines; additionally you can set an X display location here.
A session saver is an extremely time-saving feature when working with multiple remote systems. Simply save a session containing host name and nickname of each host you use, so when connecting, just click on your saved session instead of having to look up everything each time – saving yourself a significant amount of time in the long run.
Customize keyboard shortcuts for copy-pasting is another useful feature, enabling users to control exactly which key combination sends out “bell character.” Some users with unusual operating systems may also find this functionality beneficial.
PuTTY comes equipped with several useful utilities, such as PSCP, Puttygen and Plink. Although these programs can prove invaluable for managing remote connections to computer servers, additional software may provide more advanced functions; such as adding an SFTPC client.
Install a PuTTY customization file from ITS Sussex site to pre-configure the software to the host names and protocols used on PCs at ITS Sussex and significantly speed up establishing connections to remote servers.
