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1 | \define{versionidfaq} \versionid $Id$ |
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2 | |
421406a4 |
3 | \A{faq} PuTTY \i{FAQ} |
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4 | |
5 | This FAQ is published on the PuTTY web site, and also provided as an |
6 | appendix in the manual. |
7 | |
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8 | \H{faq-intro} Introduction |
9 | |
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10 | \S{faq-what}{Question} What is PuTTY? |
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11 | |
12 | PuTTY is a client program for the SSH, Telnet and Rlogin network |
13 | protocols. |
14 | |
15 | These protocols are all used to run a remote session on a computer, |
16 | over a network. PuTTY implements the client end of that session: the |
17 | end at which the session is displayed, rather than the end at which |
18 | it runs. |
19 | |
20 | In really simple terms: you run PuTTY on a Windows machine, and tell |
21 | it to connect to (for example) a Unix machine. PuTTY opens a window. |
22 | Then, anything you type into that window is sent straight to the |
23 | Unix machine, and everything the Unix machine sends back is |
24 | displayed in the window. So you can work on the Unix machine as if |
25 | you were sitting at its console, while actually sitting somewhere |
26 | else. |
27 | |
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28 | \H{faq-support} Features supported in PuTTY |
29 | |
421406a4 |
30 | \I{supported features}In general, if you want to know if PuTTY supports |
31 | a particular feature, you should look for it on the |
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32 | \W{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/}{PuTTY web site}. |
33 | In particular: |
34 | |
35 | \b try the |
36 | \W{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/changes.html}{changes |
37 | page}, and see if you can find the feature on there. If a feature is |
38 | listed there, it's been implemented. If it's listed as a change made |
39 | \e{since} the latest version, it should be available in the |
40 | development snapshots, in which case testing will be very welcome. |
41 | |
42 | \b try the |
ebe9a956 |
43 | \W{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/wishlist/}{Wishlist |
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44 | page}, and see if you can find the feature there. If it's on there, |
b21091fb |
45 | and not in the \q{Recently fixed} section, it probably \e{hasn't} been |
46 | implemented. |
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47 | |
2e85c969 |
48 | \S{faq-ssh2}{Question} Does PuTTY support SSH-2? |
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49 | |
2e85c969 |
50 | Yes. SSH-2 support has been available in PuTTY since version 0.50. |
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51 | |
2e85c969 |
52 | Public key authentication (both RSA and DSA) in SSH-2 is new in |
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53 | version 0.52. |
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54 | |
a1d2976b |
55 | \S{faq-ssh2-keyfmt}{Question} Does PuTTY support reading OpenSSH or |
2e85c969 |
56 | \cw{ssh.com} SSH-2 private key files? |
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57 | |
a58b605b |
58 | PuTTY doesn't support this natively, but as of 0.53 |
59 | PuTTYgen can convert both OpenSSH and \cw{ssh.com} private key |
60 | files into PuTTY's format. |
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61 | |
2e85c969 |
62 | \S{faq-ssh1}{Question} Does PuTTY support SSH-1? |
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63 | |
2e85c969 |
64 | Yes. SSH-1 support has always been available in PuTTY. |
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65 | |
421406a4 |
66 | \S{faq-localecho}{Question} Does PuTTY support \i{local echo}? |
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67 | |
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68 | Yes. Version 0.52 has proper support for local echo. |
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69 | |
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70 | In version 0.51 and before, local echo could not be separated from |
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71 | local line editing (where you type a line of text locally, and it is |
72 | not sent to the server until you press Return, so you have the |
73 | chance to edit it and correct mistakes \e{before} the server sees |
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74 | it). New in version 0.52, local echo and local line editing are |
75 | separate options, and by default PuTTY will try to determine |
76 | automatically whether to enable them or not, based on which protocol |
77 | you have selected and also based on hints from the server. If you |
78 | have a problem with PuTTY's default choice, you can force each |
79 | option to be enabled or disabled as you choose. The controls are in |
80 | the Terminal panel, in the section marked \q{Line discipline |
81 | options}. |
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82 | |
270bd741 |
83 | \S{faq-savedsettings}{Question} Does PuTTY support storing settings, |
84 | so I don't have to change them every time? |
85 | |
86 | Yes, all of PuTTY's settings can be saved in named session profiles. |
00c1d39a |
87 | You can also change the default settings that are used for new sessions. |
270bd741 |
88 | See \k{config-saving} in the documentation for how to do this. |
89 | |
a1d2976b |
90 | \S{faq-disksettings}{Question} Does PuTTY support storing its |
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91 | settings in a disk file? |
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92 | |
93 | Not at present, although \k{config-file} in the documentation gives |
94 | a method of achieving the same effect. |
95 | |
a1d2976b |
96 | \S{faq-fullscreen}{Question} Does PuTTY support full-screen mode, |
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97 | like a DOS box? |
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98 | |
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99 | Yes; this is a new feature in version 0.52. |
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100 | |
babac7bd |
101 | \S{faq-password-remember}{Question} Does PuTTY have the ability to |
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102 | \i{remember my password} so I don't have to type it every time? |
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103 | |
104 | No, it doesn't. |
105 | |
106 | Remembering your password is a bad plan for obvious security |
107 | reasons: anyone who gains access to your machine while you're away |
108 | from your desk can find out the remembered password, and use it, |
109 | abuse it or change it. |
110 | |
111 | In addition, it's not even \e{possible} for PuTTY to automatically |
112 | send your password in a Telnet session, because Telnet doesn't give |
113 | the client software any indication of which part of the login |
114 | process is the password prompt. PuTTY would have to guess, by |
115 | looking for words like \q{password} in the session data; and if your |
116 | login program is written in something other than English, this won't |
117 | work. |
118 | |
119 | In SSH, remembering your password would be possible in theory, but |
120 | there doesn't seem to be much point since SSH supports public key |
121 | authentication, which is more flexible and more secure. See |
122 | \k{pubkey} in the documentation for a full discussion of public key |
123 | authentication. |
124 | |
a1d2976b |
125 | \S{faq-hostkeys}{Question} Is there an option to turn off the |
421406a4 |
126 | \I{verifying the host key}annoying host key prompts? |
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127 | |
128 | No, there isn't. And there won't be. Even if you write it yourself |
129 | and send us the patch, we won't accept it. |
130 | |
131 | Those annoying host key prompts are the \e{whole point} of SSH. |
132 | Without them, all the cryptographic technology SSH uses to secure |
133 | your session is doing nothing more than making an attacker's job |
134 | slightly harder; instead of sitting between you and the server with |
135 | a packet sniffer, the attacker must actually subvert a router and |
136 | start modifying the packets going back and forth. But that's not all |
137 | that much harder than just sniffing; and without host key checking, |
138 | it will go completely undetected by client or server. |
139 | |
140 | Host key checking is your guarantee that the encryption you put on |
141 | your data at the client end is the \e{same} encryption taken off the |
142 | data at the server end; it's your guarantee that it hasn't been |
143 | removed and replaced somewhere on the way. Host key checking makes |
144 | the attacker's job \e{astronomically} hard, compared to packet |
145 | sniffing, and even compared to subverting a router. Instead of |
146 | applying a little intelligence and keeping an eye on Bugtraq, the |
147 | attacker must now perform a brute-force attack against at least one |
148 | military-strength cipher. That insignificant host key prompt really |
149 | does make \e{that} much difference. |
150 | |
151 | If you're having a specific problem with host key checking - perhaps |
152 | you want an automated batch job to make use of PSCP or Plink, and |
153 | the interactive host key prompt is hanging the batch process - then |
154 | the right way to fix it is to add the correct host key to the |
155 | Registry in advance. That way, you retain the \e{important} feature |
156 | of host key checking: the right key will be accepted and the wrong |
157 | ones will not. Adding an option to turn host key checking off |
158 | completely is the wrong solution and we will not do it. |
159 | |
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160 | If you have host keys available in the common \i\c{known_hosts} format, |
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161 | we have a script called |
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162 | \W{http://www.tartarus.org/~simon-anonsvn/viewcvs.cgi/putty/contrib/kh2reg.py?view=markup}\c{kh2reg.py} |
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163 | to convert them to a Windows .REG file, which can be installed ahead of |
164 | time by double-clicking or using \c{REGEDIT}. |
165 | |
a1d2976b |
166 | \S{faq-server}{Question} Will you write an SSH server for the PuTTY |
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167 | suite, to go with the client? |
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168 | |
169 | No. The only reason we might want to would be if we could easily |
170 | re-use existing code and significantly cut down the effort. We don't |
171 | believe this is the case; there just isn't enough common ground |
172 | between an SSH client and server to make it worthwhile. |
173 | |
174 | If someone else wants to use bits of PuTTY in the process of writing |
175 | a Windows SSH server, they'd be perfectly welcome to of course, but |
176 | I really can't see it being a lot less effort for us to do that than |
177 | it would be for us to write a server from the ground up. We don't |
178 | have time, and we don't have motivation. The code is available if |
179 | anyone else wants to try it. |
180 | |
67325335 |
181 | \S{faq-pscp-ascii}{Question} Can PSCP or PSFTP transfer files in |
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182 | \i{ASCII} mode? |
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183 | |
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184 | Unfortunately not. |
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185 | |
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186 | Until recently, this was a limitation of the file transfer protocols: |
187 | the SCP and SFTP protocols had no notion of transferring a file in |
188 | anything other than binary mode. (This is still true of SCP.) |
189 | |
190 | The current draft protocol spec of SFTP proposes a means of |
191 | implementing ASCII transfer. At some point PSCP/PSFTP may implement |
192 | this proposal. |
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193 | |
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194 | \H{faq-ports} Ports to other operating systems |
195 | |
196 | The eventual goal is for PuTTY to be a multi-platform program, able |
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197 | to run on at least Windows, Mac OS and Unix. |
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198 | |
199 | Porting will become easier once PuTTY has a generalised porting |
200 | layer, drawing a clear line between platform-dependent and |
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201 | platform-independent code. The general intention was for this |
202 | porting layer to evolve naturally as part of the process of doing |
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203 | the first port; a Unix port has now been released and the plan |
204 | seems to be working so far. |
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205 | |
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206 | \S{faq-ports-general}{Question} What ports of PuTTY exist? |
207 | |
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208 | Currently, release versions of PuTTY tools only run on full Win32 |
209 | systems and Unix. \q{Win32} includes Windows 95, 98, and ME, and it |
210 | includes Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. |
211 | |
212 | In the development code, a partial port to the Mac OS (see |
213 | \k{faq-mac-port}) is under way. |
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214 | |
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215 | Currently PuTTY does \e{not} run on Windows CE (see \k{faq-wince}), |
216 | and it does not quite run on the Win32s environment under Windows |
217 | 3.1 (see \k{faq-win31}). |
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218 | |
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219 | We do not have release-quality ports for any other systems at the |
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220 | present time. If anyone told you we had an EPOC port, or an iPaq port, |
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221 | or any other port of PuTTY, they were mistaken. We don't. |
222 | |
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223 | There are some third-party ports to various platforms, mentioned |
224 | on the Links page of our website. |
225 | |
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226 | \S{faq-unix}{Question} \I{Unix version}Is there a port to Unix? |
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227 | |
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228 | As of 0.54, there are Unix ports of most of the traditional PuTTY |
229 | tools, and also one entirely new application. |
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230 | |
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231 | If you look at the source release, you should find a \c{unix} |
232 | subdirectory containing \c{Makefile.gtk}, which should build you Unix |
233 | ports of Plink, PuTTY itself, PuTTYgen, PSCP, PSFTP, and also |
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234 | \i\c{pterm} - an \cw{xterm}-type program which supports the same |
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235 | terminal emulation as PuTTY. We do not yet have a Unix port of |
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236 | Pageant. |
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237 | |
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238 | If you don't have \i{Gtk}, you should still be able to build the |
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239 | command-line tools. |
240 | |
241 | Note that Unix PuTTY has mostly only been tested on Linux so far; |
242 | portability problems such as BSD-style ptys or different header file |
243 | requirements are expected. |
244 | |
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245 | \S{faq-unix-why}{Question} What's the point of the Unix port? Unix |
246 | has OpenSSH. |
247 | |
248 | All sorts of little things. \c{pterm} is directly useful to anyone |
249 | who prefers PuTTY's terminal emulation to \c{xterm}'s, which at |
250 | least some people do. Unix Plink has apparently found a niche among |
251 | people who find the complexity of OpenSSL makes OpenSSH hard to |
252 | install (and who don't mind Plink not having as many features). Some |
253 | users want to generate a large number of SSH keys on Unix and then |
254 | copy them all into PuTTY, and the Unix PuTTYgen should allow them to |
255 | automate that conversion process. |
256 | |
257 | There were development advantages as well; porting PuTTY to Unix was |
258 | a valuable path-finding effort for other future ports, and also |
259 | allowed us to use the excellent Linux tool |
260 | \W{http://valgrind.kde.org/}{Valgrind} to help with debugging, which |
261 | has already improved PuTTY's stability on \e{all} platforms. |
262 | |
263 | However, if you're a Unix user and you can see no reason to switch |
264 | from OpenSSH to PuTTY/Plink, then you're probably right. We don't |
265 | expect our Unix port to be the right thing for everybody. |
266 | |
70cd2027 |
267 | \S{faq-wince}{Question} Will there be a port to Windows CE or PocketPC? |
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268 | |
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269 | It's currently being worked on, but it's only in its early stages yet, |
270 | and certainly isn't yet useful. PuTTY on portable devices would |
271 | clearly be a useful thing, so in the long term I hope it can be |
272 | brought up to release quality. |
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273 | |
b273515b |
274 | There's also a third-party port at |
c2658847 |
275 | \W{http://pocketputty.duxy.net/}\c{http://pocketputty.duxy.net/}. |
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276 | |
421406a4 |
277 | \S{faq-win31}{Question} Is there a port to \i{Windows 3.1}? |
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278 | |
279 | PuTTY is a 32-bit application from the ground up, so it won't run on |
280 | Windows 3.1 as a native 16-bit program; and it would be \e{very} |
281 | hard to port it to do so, because of Windows 3.1's vile memory |
282 | allocation mechanisms. |
283 | |
284 | However, it is possible in theory to compile the existing PuTTY |
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285 | source in such a way that it will run under \i{Win32s} (an extension to |
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286 | Windows 3.1 to let you run 32-bit programs). In order to do this |
287 | you'll need the right kind of C compiler - modern versions of Visual |
288 | C at least have stopped being backwards compatible to Win32s. Also, |
289 | the last time we tried this it didn't work very well. |
290 | |
291 | If you're interested in running PuTTY under Windows 3.1, help and |
292 | testing in this area would be very welcome! |
293 | |
421406a4 |
294 | \S{faq-mac-port}{Question} Will there be a port to the \I{Mac OS}Mac? |
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295 | |
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296 | There are several answers to this question: |
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297 | |
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298 | \b The Unix/Gtk port is already fully working under Mac OS X as an X11 |
299 | application. |
300 | |
301 | \b A native (Cocoa) Mac OS X port is in progress. It's just about |
302 | usable, but is of nowhere near release quality yet, and is likely to |
303 | behave in unexpected ways. |
304 | |
305 | \b A separate port to the classic Mac OS (pre-OSX) is also in |
306 | progress; it too is not ready yet. |
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307 | |
a1d2976b |
308 | \S{faq-epoc}{Question} Will there be a port to EPOC? |
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309 | |
310 | I hope so, but given that ports aren't really progressing very fast |
311 | even on systems the developers \e{do} already know how to program |
312 | for, it might be a long time before any of us get round to learning |
313 | a new system and doing the port for that. |
314 | |
4f2fd423 |
315 | However, some of the work has been done by other people, and a beta |
316 | port of PuTTY for the Nokia 9200 Communicator series is available |
dc08d858 |
317 | from \W{http://s2putty.sourceforge.net/}\cw{http://s2putty.sourceforge.net/} |
4f2fd423 |
318 | |
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319 | \H{faq-embedding} Embedding PuTTY in other programs |
320 | |
a1d2976b |
321 | \S{faq-dll}{Question} Is the SSH or Telnet code available as a DLL? |
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322 | |
323 | No, it isn't. It would take a reasonable amount of rewriting for |
324 | this to be possible, and since the PuTTY project itself doesn't |
325 | believe in DLLs (they make installation more error-prone) none of us |
326 | has taken the time to do it. |
327 | |
328 | Most of the code cleanup work would be a good thing to happen in |
329 | general, so if anyone feels like helping, we wouldn't say no. |
330 | |
a1d2976b |
331 | \S{faq-vb}{Question} Is the SSH or Telnet code available as a Visual |
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332 | Basic component? |
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333 | |
334 | No, it isn't. None of the PuTTY team uses Visual Basic, and none of |
335 | us has any particular need to make SSH connections from a Visual |
336 | Basic application. In addition, all the preliminary work to turn it |
337 | into a DLL would be necessary first; and furthermore, we don't even |
338 | know how to write VB components. |
339 | |
340 | If someone offers to do some of this work for us, we might consider |
341 | it, but unless that happens I can't see VB integration being |
342 | anywhere other than the very bottom of our priority list. |
343 | |
a1d2976b |
344 | \S{faq-ipc}{Question} How can I use PuTTY to make an SSH connection |
70706890 |
345 | from within another program? |
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346 | |
347 | Probably your best bet is to use Plink, the command-line connection |
348 | tool. If you can start Plink as a second Windows process, and |
349 | arrange for your primary process to be able to send data to the |
350 | Plink process, and receive data from it, through pipes, then you |
351 | should be able to make SSH connections from your program. |
352 | |
353 | This is what CVS for Windows does, for example. |
354 | |
355 | \H{faq-details} Details of PuTTY's operation |
356 | |
421406a4 |
357 | \S{faq-term}{Question} What \i{terminal type} does PuTTY use? |
ee46ef84 |
358 | |
359 | For most purposes, PuTTY can be considered to be an \cw{xterm} |
32c37ecd |
360 | terminal. |
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361 | |
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362 | PuTTY also supports some terminal \i{control sequences} not supported by |
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363 | the real \cw{xterm}: notably the Linux console sequences that |
364 | reconfigure the colour palette, and the title bar control sequences |
421406a4 |
365 | used by \i\cw{DECterm} (which are different from the \cw{xterm} ones; |
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366 | PuTTY supports both). |
367 | |
368 | By default, PuTTY announces its terminal type to the server as |
369 | \c{xterm}. If you have a problem with this, you can reconfigure it |
370 | to say something else; \c{vt220} might help if you have trouble. |
371 | |
a1d2976b |
372 | \S{faq-settings}{Question} Where does PuTTY store its data? |
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373 | |
4c53784e |
374 | On Windows, PuTTY stores most of its data (saved sessions, SSH host |
421406a4 |
375 | keys) in the \i{Registry}. The precise location is |
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376 | |
377 | \c HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY |
378 | |
379 | and within that area, saved sessions are stored under \c{Sessions} |
380 | while host keys are stored under \c{SshHostKeys}. |
381 | |
382 | PuTTY also requires a random number seed file, to improve the |
383 | unpredictability of randomly chosen data needed as part of the SSH |
c8f5c5c8 |
384 | cryptography. This is stored by default in a file called \i\c{PUTTY.RND} |
385 | in your Windows home directory (\c{%HOMEDRIVE%\\%HOMEPATH%}), or in |
386 | the actual Windows directory (such as \c{C:\\WINDOWS}) if the home |
387 | directory doesn't exist, for example if you're using Win95. If you |
388 | want to change the location of the random number seed file, you can |
389 | put your chosen pathname in the Registry, at |
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390 | |
391 | \c HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY\RandSeedFile |
392 | |
4c53784e |
393 | On Unix, PuTTY stores all of this data in a directory \cw{~/.putty}. |
394 | |
ee46ef84 |
395 | \H{faq-howto} HOWTO questions |
396 | |
421406a4 |
397 | \S{faq-commands}{Question} \I{commands on the server}What commands |
398 | can I type into my PuTTY terminal window? |
fe3d1229 |
399 | |
400 | This is not a question you should be asking \e{us}. You need to read |
401 | the manuals, or ask the administrator, of \e{the computer you have |
402 | connected to}. |
403 | |
404 | PuTTY does not process the commands you type into it. It's only a |
405 | communications tool. It makes a connection to another computer; it |
406 | passes the commands you type to that other computer; and it passes |
407 | the other computer's responses back to you. Therefore, the precise |
408 | range of commands you can use will not depend on PuTTY, but on what |
409 | kind of computer you have connected to and what software is running |
410 | on it. The PuTTY team cannot help you with that. |
411 | |
412 | (Think of PuTTY as being a bit like a telephone. If you phone |
413 | somebody up and you don't know what language to speak to make them |
414 | understand you, it isn't \e{the telephone company}'s job to find |
415 | that out for you. We just provide the means for you to get in touch; |
416 | making yourself understood is somebody else's problem.) |
417 | |
418 | If you are unsure of where to start looking for the administrator of |
419 | your server, a good place to start might be to remember how you |
420 | found out the host name in the PuTTY configuration. If you were |
421 | given that host name by e-mail, for example, you could try asking |
422 | the person who sent you that e-mail. If your company's IT department |
423 | provided you with ready-made PuTTY saved sessions, then that IT |
424 | department can probably also tell you something about what commands |
425 | you can type during those sessions. But the PuTTY maintainer team |
426 | does not administer any server you are likely to be connecting to, |
427 | and cannot help you with questions of this type. |
428 | |
421406a4 |
429 | \S{faq-startmax}{Question} How can I make PuTTY start up \i{maximise}d? |
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430 | |
431 | Create a Windows shortcut to start PuTTY from, and set it as \q{Run |
432 | Maximized}. |
433 | |
421406a4 |
434 | \S{faq-startsess}{Question} How can I create a \i{Windows shortcut} to |
70706890 |
435 | start a particular saved session directly? |
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436 | |
437 | To run a PuTTY session saved under the name \q{\cw{mysession}}, |
438 | create a Windows shortcut that invokes PuTTY with a command line |
439 | like |
440 | |
80969352 |
441 | \c \path\name\to\putty.exe -load "mysession" |
a58b605b |
442 | |
443 | (Note: prior to 0.53, the syntax was \c{@session}. This is now |
444 | deprecated and may be removed at some point.) |
ee46ef84 |
445 | |
a1d2976b |
446 | \S{faq-startssh}{Question} How can I start an SSH session straight |
70706890 |
447 | from the command line? |
ee46ef84 |
448 | |
449 | Use the command line \c{putty -ssh host.name}. Alternatively, create |
450 | a saved session that specifies the SSH protocol, and start the saved |
451 | session as shown in \k{faq-startsess}. |
452 | |
421406a4 |
453 | \S{faq-cutpaste}{Question} How do I \i{copy and paste} between PuTTY and |
70706890 |
454 | other Windows applications? |
ee46ef84 |
455 | |
456 | Copy and paste works similarly to the X Window System. You use the |
457 | left mouse button to select text in the PuTTY window. The act of |
458 | selection \e{automatically} copies the text to the clipboard: there |
459 | is no need to press Ctrl-Ins or Ctrl-C or anything else. In fact, |
460 | pressing Ctrl-C will send a Ctrl-C character to the other end of |
461 | your connection (just like it does the rest of the time), which may |
462 | have unpleasant effects. The \e{only} thing you need to do, to copy |
463 | text to the clipboard, is to select it. |
464 | |
465 | To paste the clipboard contents into a PuTTY window, by default you |
466 | click the right mouse button. If you have a three-button mouse and |
467 | are used to X applications, you can configure pasting to be done by |
468 | the middle button instead, but this is not the default because most |
469 | Windows users don't have a middle button at all. |
470 | |
471 | You can also paste by pressing Shift-Ins. |
472 | |
a1d2976b |
473 | \S{faq-options}{Question} How do I use all PuTTY's features (public |
a58b605b |
474 | keys, proxying, cipher selection, etc.) in PSCP, PSFTP and Plink? |
475 | |
476 | Most major features (e.g., public keys, port forwarding) are available |
477 | through command line options. See the documentation. |
72be5b5e |
478 | |
a58b605b |
479 | Not all features are accessible from the command line yet, although |
480 | we'd like to fix this. In the meantime, you can use most of |
72be5b5e |
481 | PuTTY's features if you create a PuTTY saved session, and then use |
482 | the name of the saved session on the command line in place of a |
483 | hostname. This works for PSCP, PSFTP and Plink (but don't expect |
484 | port forwarding in the file transfer applications!). |
f2003e32 |
485 | |
a1d2976b |
486 | \S{faq-pscp}{Question} How do I use PSCP.EXE? When I double-click it |
70706890 |
487 | gives me a command prompt window which then closes instantly. |
ee46ef84 |
488 | |
489 | PSCP is a command-line application, not a GUI application. If you |
490 | run it without arguments, it will simply print a help message and |
491 | terminate. |
492 | |
493 | To use PSCP properly, run it from a Command Prompt window. See |
494 | \k{pscp} in the documentation for more details. |
495 | |
421406a4 |
496 | \S{faq-pscp-spaces}{Question} \I{spaces in filenames}How do I use |
497 | PSCP to copy a file whose name has spaces in? |
ee46ef84 |
498 | |
499 | If PSCP is using the traditional SCP protocol, this is confusing. If |
500 | you're specifying a file at the local end, you just use one set of |
501 | quotes as you would normally do: |
502 | |
503 | \c pscp "local filename with spaces" user@host: |
504 | \c pscp user@host:myfile "local filename with spaces" |
505 | |
506 | But if the filename you're specifying is on the \e{remote} side, you |
507 | have to use backslashes and two sets of quotes: |
508 | |
509 | \c pscp user@host:"\"remote filename with spaces\"" local_filename |
510 | \c pscp local_filename user@host:"\"remote filename with spaces\"" |
511 | |
512 | Worse still, in a remote-to-local copy you have to specify the local |
513 | file name explicitly, otherwise PSCP will complain that they don't |
514 | match (unless you specified the \c{-unsafe} option). The following |
515 | command will give an error message: |
516 | |
517 | \c c:\>pscp user@host:"\"oo er\"" . |
e9cee352 |
518 | \c warning: remote host tried to write to a file called 'oo er' |
519 | \c when we requested a file called '"oo er"'. |
ee46ef84 |
520 | |
e9cee352 |
521 | Instead, you need to specify the local file name in full: |
522 | |
523 | \c c:\>pscp user@host:"\"oo er\"" "oo er" |
524 | |
ee46ef84 |
525 | If PSCP is using the newer SFTP protocol, none of this is a problem, |
526 | and all filenames with spaces in are specified using a single pair |
527 | of quotes in the obvious way: |
528 | |
529 | \c pscp "local file" user@host: |
530 | \c pscp user@host:"remote file" . |
531 | |
532 | \H{faq-trouble} Troubleshooting |
533 | |
babac7bd |
534 | \S{faq-incorrect-mac}{Question} Why do I see \q{Incorrect MAC |
535 | received on packet}? |
ee46ef84 |
536 | |
f348999d |
537 | One possible cause of this that used to be common is a bug in old |
2e85c969 |
538 | SSH-2 servers distributed by \cw{ssh.com}. (This is not the only |
f348999d |
539 | possible cause; see \k{errors-crc} in the documentation.) |
2e85c969 |
540 | Version 2.3.0 and below of their SSH-2 server |
ee46ef84 |
541 | constructs Message Authentication Codes in the wrong way, and |
542 | expects the client to construct them in the same wrong way. PuTTY |
543 | constructs the MACs correctly by default, and hence these old |
544 | servers will fail to work with it. |
545 | |
32c37ecd |
546 | If you are using PuTTY version 0.52 or better, this should work |
547 | automatically: PuTTY should detect the buggy servers from their |
548 | version number announcement, and automatically start to construct |
549 | its MACs in the same incorrect manner as they do, so it will be able |
550 | to work with them. |
ee46ef84 |
551 | |
32c37ecd |
552 | If you are using PuTTY version 0.51 or below, you can enable the |
553 | workaround by going to the SSH panel and ticking the box labelled |
e4c398b4 |
554 | \q{Imitate SSH2 MAC bug}. It's possible that you might have to do |
32c37ecd |
555 | this with 0.52 as well, if a buggy server exists that PuTTY doesn't |
556 | know about. |
ee46ef84 |
557 | |
421406a4 |
558 | In this context MAC stands for \ii{Message Authentication Code}. It's a |
b7e2c163 |
559 | cryptographic term, and it has nothing at all to do with Ethernet |
560 | MAC (Media Access Control) addresses. |
561 | |
67325335 |
562 | \S{faq-pscp-protocol}{Question} Why do I see \q{Fatal: Protocol |
563 | error: Expected control record} in PSCP? |
564 | |
565 | This happens because PSCP was expecting to see data from the server |
566 | that was part of the PSCP protocol exchange, and instead it saw data |
567 | that it couldn't make any sense of at all. |
568 | |
421406a4 |
569 | This almost always happens because the \i{startup scripts} in your |
67325335 |
570 | account on the server machine are generating output. This is |
571 | impossible for PSCP, or any other SCP client, to work around. You |
572 | should never use startup files (\c{.bashrc}, \c{.cshrc} and so on) |
573 | which generate output in non-interactive sessions. |
574 | |
575 | This is not actually a PuTTY problem. If PSCP fails in this way, |
576 | then all other SCP clients are likely to fail in exactly the same |
577 | way. The problem is at the server end. |
578 | |
421406a4 |
579 | \S{faq-colours}{Question} I clicked on a colour in the \ii{Colours} |
70706890 |
580 | panel, and the colour didn't change in my terminal. |
ee46ef84 |
581 | |
582 | That isn't how you're supposed to use the Colours panel. |
583 | |
584 | During the course of a session, PuTTY potentially uses \e{all} the |
585 | colours listed in the Colours panel. It's not a question of using |
586 | only one of them and you choosing which one; PuTTY will use them |
587 | \e{all}. The purpose of the Colours panel is to let you adjust the |
588 | appearance of all the colours. So to change the colour of the |
589 | cursor, for example, you would select \q{Cursor Colour}, press the |
590 | \q{Modify} button, and select a new colour from the dialog box that |
591 | appeared. Similarly, if you want your session to appear in green, |
592 | you should select \q{Default Foreground} and press \q{Modify}. |
593 | Clicking on \q{ANSI Green} won't turn your session green; it will |
594 | only allow you to adjust the \e{shade} of green used when PuTTY is |
595 | instructed by the server to display green text. |
596 | |
421406a4 |
597 | \S{faq-winsock2}{Question} Plink on \i{Windows 95} says it can't find |
598 | \i\cw{WS2_32.DLL}. |
ee46ef84 |
599 | |
600 | Plink requires the extended Windows network library, WinSock version |
601 | 2. This is installed as standard on Windows 98 and above, and on |
602 | Windows NT, and even on later versions of Windows 95; but early |
603 | Win95 installations don't have it. |
604 | |
605 | In order to use Plink on these systems, you will need to download |
606 | the |
607 | \W{http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/downloads/contents/wuadmintools/s_wunetworkingtools/w95sockets2/}{WinSock 2 upgrade}: |
608 | |
35cffede |
609 | \c http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/downloads/contents/ |
610 | \c wuadmintools/s_wunetworkingtools/w95sockets2/ |
ee46ef84 |
611 | |
2e85c969 |
612 | \S{faq-outofmem}{Question} After trying to establish an SSH-2 |
421406a4 |
613 | connection, PuTTY says \q{\ii{Out of memory}} and dies. |
ee46ef84 |
614 | |
615 | If this happens just while the connection is starting up, this often |
616 | indicates that for some reason the client and server have failed to |
617 | establish a session encryption key. Somehow, they have performed |
618 | calculations that should have given each of them the same key, but |
619 | have ended up with different keys; so data encrypted by one and |
620 | decrypted by the other looks like random garbage. |
621 | |
622 | This causes an \q{out of memory} error because the first encrypted |
623 | data PuTTY expects to see is the length of an SSH message. Normally |
624 | this will be something well under 100 bytes. If the decryption has |
625 | failed, PuTTY will see a completely random length in the region of |
626 | two \e{gigabytes}, and will try to allocate enough memory to store |
627 | this non-existent message. This will immediately lead to it thinking |
628 | it doesn't have enough memory, and panicking. |
629 | |
630 | If this happens to you, it is quite likely to still be a PuTTY bug |
631 | and you should report it (although it might be a bug in your SSH |
632 | server instead); but it doesn't necessarily mean you've actually run |
633 | out of memory. |
634 | |
9accb45d |
635 | \S{faq-outofmem2}{Question} When attempting a file transfer, either |
421406a4 |
636 | PSCP or PSFTP says \q{\ii{Out of memory}} and dies. |
9accb45d |
637 | |
421406a4 |
638 | This is almost always caused by your \i{login scripts} on the server |
9accb45d |
639 | generating output. PSCP or PSFTP will receive that output when they |
640 | were expecting to see the start of a file transfer protocol, and |
641 | they will attempt to interpret the output as file-transfer protocol. |
642 | This will usually lead to an \q{out of memory} error for much the |
643 | same reasons as given in \k{faq-outofmem}. |
644 | |
645 | This is a setup problem in your account on your server, \e{not} a |
646 | PSCP/PSFTP bug. Your login scripts should \e{never} generate output |
647 | during non-interactive sessions; secure file transfer is not the |
648 | only form of remote access that will break if they do. |
649 | |
650 | On Unix, a simple fix is to ensure that all the parts of your login |
651 | script that might generate output are in \c{.profile} (if you use a |
652 | Bourne shell derivative) or \c{.login} (if you use a C shell). |
653 | Putting them in more general files such as \c{.bashrc} or \c{.cshrc} |
654 | is liable to lead to problems. |
655 | |
7b24f677 |
656 | \S{faq-psftp-slow}{Question} PSFTP transfers files much slower than PSCP. |
9accb45d |
657 | |
b7280cfe |
658 | The throughput of PSFTP 0.54 should be much better than 0.53b and |
659 | prior; we've added code to the SFTP backend to queue several blocks |
660 | of data rather than waiting for an acknowledgement for each. (The |
661 | SCP backend did not suffer from this performance issue because SCP |
662 | is a much simpler protocol.) |
9accb45d |
663 | |
a1d2976b |
664 | \S{faq-bce}{Question} When I run full-colour applications, I see |
948c614b |
665 | areas of black space where colour ought to be, or vice versa. |
f1453e5c |
666 | |
421406a4 |
667 | You almost certainly need to change the \q{Use \i{background colour} to |
948c614b |
668 | erase screen} setting in the Terminal panel. If there is too much |
669 | black space (the commoner situation), you should enable it, while if |
670 | there is too much colour, you should disable it. (See \k{config-erase}.) |
671 | |
672 | In old versions of PuTTY, this was disabled by default, and would not |
673 | take effect until you reset the terminal (see \k{faq-resetterm}). |
674 | Since 0.54, it is enabled by default, and changes take effect |
675 | immediately. |
f1453e5c |
676 | |
a1d2976b |
677 | \S{faq-resetterm}{Question} When I change some terminal settings, |
70706890 |
678 | nothing happens. |
f1453e5c |
679 | |
421406a4 |
680 | Some of the terminal options (notably \ii{Auto Wrap} and |
f1453e5c |
681 | background-colour screen erase) actually represent the \e{default} |
682 | setting, rather than the currently active setting. The server can |
683 | send sequences that modify these options in mid-session, but when |
684 | the terminal is reset (by server action, or by you choosing \q{Reset |
685 | Terminal} from the System menu) the defaults are restored. |
686 | |
5bcf5d50 |
687 | In versions 0.53b and prior, if you change one of these options in |
688 | the middle of a session, you will find that the change does not |
689 | immediately take effect. It will only take effect once you reset |
690 | the terminal. |
691 | |
e6c7a73a |
692 | In version 0.54, the behaviour has changed - changes to these |
693 | settings take effect immediately. |
f1453e5c |
694 | |
a1d2976b |
695 | \S{faq-idleout}{Question} My PuTTY sessions unexpectedly close after |
421406a4 |
696 | they are \I{idle connections}idle for a while. |
ee46ef84 |
697 | |
421406a4 |
698 | Some types of \i{firewall}, and almost any router doing Network Address |
699 | Translation (\i{NAT}, also known as IP masquerading), will forget about |
ee46ef84 |
700 | a connection through them if the connection does nothing for too |
701 | long. This will cause the connection to be rudely cut off when |
702 | contact is resumed. |
703 | |
704 | You can try to combat this by telling PuTTY to send \e{keepalives}: |
705 | packets of data which have no effect on the actual session, but |
706 | which reassure the router or firewall that the network connection is |
707 | still active and worth remembering about. |
708 | |
709 | Keepalives don't solve everything, unfortunately; although they |
710 | cause greater robustness against this sort of router, they can also |
711 | cause a \e{loss} of robustness against network dropouts. See |
712 | \k{config-keepalive} in the documentation for more discussion of |
713 | this. |
714 | |
a1d2976b |
715 | \S{faq-timeout}{Question} PuTTY's network connections time out too |
421406a4 |
716 | quickly when \I{breaks in connectivity}network connectivity is |
717 | temporarily lost. |
ee46ef84 |
718 | |
719 | This is a Windows problem, not a PuTTY problem. The timeout value |
720 | can't be set on per application or per session basis. To increase |
721 | the TCP timeout globally, you need to tinker with the Registry. |
722 | |
8ac4ce9f |
723 | On Windows 95, 98 or ME, the registry key you need to create or |
724 | change is |
ee46ef84 |
725 | |
726 | \c HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\ |
727 | \c MSTCP\MaxDataRetries |
728 | |
729 | (it must be of type DWORD in Win95, or String in Win98/ME). |
8ac4ce9f |
730 | (See MS Knowledge Base article |
731 | \W{http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;158474}{158474} |
732 | for more information.) |
ee46ef84 |
733 | |
8e5037f6 |
734 | On Windows NT, 2000, or XP, the registry key to create or change is |
ee46ef84 |
735 | |
736 | \c HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\ |
737 | \c Parameters\TcpMaxDataRetransmissions |
738 | |
739 | and it must be of type DWORD. |
8e5037f6 |
740 | (See MS Knowledge Base articles |
8ac4ce9f |
741 | \W{http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;120642}{120642} |
8e5037f6 |
742 | and |
743 | \W{http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314053}{314053} |
8ac4ce9f |
744 | for more information.) |
ee46ef84 |
745 | |
746 | Set the key's value to something like 10. This will cause Windows to |
747 | try harder to keep connections alive instead of abandoning them. |
748 | |
a1d2976b |
749 | \S{faq-puttyputty}{Question} When I \cw{cat} a binary file, I get |
b03dda39 |
750 | \q{PuTTYPuTTYPuTTY} on my command line. |
ee46ef84 |
751 | |
a5a6cb30 |
752 | Don't do that, then. |
ee46ef84 |
753 | |
754 | This is designed behaviour; when PuTTY receives the character |
755 | Control-E from the remote server, it interprets it as a request to |
756 | identify itself, and so it sends back the string \q{\cw{PuTTY}} as |
757 | if that string had been entered at the keyboard. Control-E should |
758 | only be sent by programs that are prepared to deal with the |
759 | response. Writing a binary file to your terminal is likely to output |
760 | many Control-E characters, and cause this behaviour. Don't do it. |
761 | It's a bad plan. |
762 | |
a5a6cb30 |
763 | To mitigate the effects, you could configure the answerback string |
764 | to be empty (see \k{config-answerback}); but writing binary files to |
765 | your terminal is likely to cause various other unpleasant behaviour, |
766 | so this is only a small remedy. |
767 | |
421406a4 |
768 | \S{faq-wintitle}{Question} When I \cw{cat} a binary file, my \i{window |
769 | title} changes to a nonsense string. |
ee46ef84 |
770 | |
a5a6cb30 |
771 | Don't do that, then. |
ee46ef84 |
772 | |
773 | It is designed behaviour that PuTTY should have the ability to |
774 | adjust the window title on instructions from the server. Normally |
775 | the control sequence that does this should only be sent |
776 | deliberately, by programs that know what they are doing and intend |
777 | to put meaningful text in the window title. Writing a binary file to |
778 | your terminal runs the risk of sending the same control sequence by |
779 | accident, and cause unexpected changes in the window title. Don't do |
780 | it. |
781 | |
babac7bd |
782 | \S{faq-password-fails}{Question} My keyboard stops working once |
783 | PuTTY displays the password prompt. |
59c1f1f6 |
784 | |
785 | No, it doesn't. PuTTY just doesn't display the password you type, so |
786 | that someone looking at your screen can't see what it is. |
787 | |
788 | Unlike the Windows login prompts, PuTTY doesn't display the password |
789 | as a row of asterisks either. This is so that someone looking at |
790 | your screen can't even tell how \e{long} your password is, which |
791 | might be valuable information. |
792 | |
b5bee048 |
793 | \S{faq-keyboard}{Question} One or more function keys don't do what I |
794 | expected in a server-side application. |
795 | |
796 | If you've already tried all the relevant options in the PuTTY |
797 | Keyboard panel, you may need to mail the PuTTY maintainers and ask. |
798 | |
799 | It is \e{not} usually helpful just to tell us which application, |
800 | which server operating system, and which key isn't working; in order |
801 | to replicate the problem we would need to have a copy of every |
802 | operating system, and every application, that anyone has ever |
803 | complained about. |
804 | |
805 | PuTTY responds to function key presses by sending a sequence of |
806 | control characters to the server. If a function key isn't doing what |
807 | you expect, it's likely that the character sequence your application |
808 | is expecting to receive is not the same as the one PuTTY is sending. |
809 | Therefore what we really need to know is \e{what} sequence the |
810 | application is expecting. |
811 | |
812 | The simplest way to investigate this is to find some other terminal |
813 | environment, in which that function key \e{does} work; and then |
814 | investigate what sequence the function key is sending in that |
815 | situation. One reasonably easy way to do this on a Unix system is to |
816 | type the command \c{cat}, and then press the function key. This is |
817 | likely to produce output of the form \c{^[[11~}. You can also do |
818 | this in PuTTY, to find out what sequence the function key is |
819 | producing in that. Then you can mail the PuTTY maintainers and tell |
820 | us \q{I wanted the F1 key to send \c{^[[11~}, but instead it's |
821 | sending \c{^[OP}, can this be done?}, or something similar. |
822 | |
823 | You should still read the |
824 | \W{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/feedback.html}{Feedback |
825 | page} on the PuTTY website (also provided as \k{feedback} in the |
826 | manual), and follow the guidelines contained in that. |
827 | |
941d39e2 |
828 | \S{faq-openssh-bad-openssl}{Question} Since my SSH server was upgraded |
421406a4 |
829 | to \i{OpenSSH} 3.1p1/3.4p1, I can no longer connect with PuTTY. |
1d2a9c9c |
830 | |
831 | There is a known problem when OpenSSH has been built against an |
832 | incorrect version of OpenSSL; the quick workaround is to configure |
833 | PuTTY to use SSH protocol 2 and the Blowfish cipher. |
834 | |
941d39e2 |
835 | For more details and OpenSSH patches, see |
836 | \W{http://bugzilla.mindrot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=138}{bug 138} in the |
837 | OpenSSH BTS. |
838 | |
1d2a9c9c |
839 | This is not a PuTTY-specific problem; if you try to connect with |
941d39e2 |
840 | another client you'll likely have similar problems. (Although PuTTY's |
841 | default cipher differs from many other clients.) |
1d2a9c9c |
842 | |
941d39e2 |
843 | \e{OpenSSH 3.1p1:} configurations known to be broken (and symptoms): |
1d2a9c9c |
844 | |
3a115fdd |
845 | \b SSH-2 with AES cipher (PuTTY says \q{Assertion failed! Expression: |
846 | (len & 15) == 0} in \cw{sshaes.c}, or \q{Out of memory}, or crashes) |
1d2a9c9c |
847 | |
3a115fdd |
848 | \b SSH-2 with 3DES (PuTTY says \q{Incorrect MAC received on packet}) |
9712b085 |
849 | |
3a115fdd |
850 | \b SSH-1 with Blowfish (PuTTY says \q{Incorrect CRC received on |
851 | packet}) |
1d2a9c9c |
852 | |
2e85c969 |
853 | \b SSH-1 with 3DES |
1d2a9c9c |
854 | |
2e85c969 |
855 | \e{OpenSSH 3.4p1:} as of 3.4p1, only the problem with SSH-1 and |
941d39e2 |
856 | Blowfish remains. Rebuild your server, apply the patch linked to from |
857 | bug 138 above, or use another cipher (e.g., 3DES) instead. |
59f76022 |
858 | |
46ccbe20 |
859 | \e{Other versions:} we occasionally get reports of the same symptom |
860 | and workarounds with older versions of OpenSSH, although it's not |
861 | clear the underlying cause is the same. |
862 | |
3a115fdd |
863 | \S{faq-ssh2key-ssh1conn}{Question} Why do I see \q{Couldn't load |
864 | private key from ...}? Why can PuTTYgen load my key but not PuTTY? |
1bb76745 |
865 | |
866 | It's likely that you've generated an SSH protocol 2 key with PuTTYgen, |
2e85c969 |
867 | but you're trying to use it in an SSH-1 connection. SSH-1 and SSH-2 keys |
1bb76745 |
868 | have different formats, and (at least in 0.52) PuTTY's reporting of a |
869 | key in the wrong format isn't optimal. |
870 | |
2e85c969 |
871 | To connect using SSH-2 to a server that supports both versions, you |
1bb76745 |
872 | need to change the configuration from the default (see \k{faq-ssh2}). |
873 | |
421406a4 |
874 | \S{faq-rh8-utf8}{Question} When I'm connected to a \i{Red Hat Linux} 8.0 |
2c4b913d |
875 | system, some characters don't display properly. |
876 | |
877 | A common complaint is that hyphens in man pages show up as a-acute. |
878 | |
421406a4 |
879 | With release 8.0, Red Hat appear to have made \i{UTF-8} the default |
2c4b913d |
880 | character set. There appears to be no way for terminal emulators such |
881 | as PuTTY to know this (as far as we know, the appropriate escape |
882 | sequence to switch into UTF-8 mode isn't sent). |
883 | |
884 | A fix is to configure sessions to RH8 systems to use UTF-8 |
885 | translation - see \k{config-charset} in the documentation. (Note that |
886 | if you use \q{Change Settings}, changes may not take place immediately |
887 | - see \k{faq-resetterm}.) |
888 | |
889 | If you really want to change the character set used by the server, the |
890 | right place is \c{/etc/sysconfig/i18n}, but this shouldn't be |
891 | necessary. |
892 | |
b86e68d8 |
893 | \S{faq-screen}{Question} Since I upgraded to PuTTY 0.54, the |
894 | scrollback has stopped working when I run \c{screen}. |
895 | |
896 | PuTTY's terminal emulator has always had the policy that when the |
421406a4 |
897 | \q{\i{alternate screen}} is in use, nothing is added to the scrollback. |
b86e68d8 |
898 | This is because the usual sorts of programs which use the alternate |
899 | screen are things like text editors, which tend to scroll back and |
900 | forth in the same document a lot; so (a) they would fill up the |
901 | scrollback with a large amount of unhelpfully disordered text, and |
902 | (b) they contain their \e{own} method for the user to scroll back to |
903 | the bit they were interested in. We have generally found this policy |
904 | to do the Right Thing in almost all situations. |
905 | |
906 | Unfortunately, \c{screen} is one exception: it uses the alternate |
907 | screen, but it's still usually helpful to have PuTTY's scrollback |
908 | continue working. The simplest solution is to go to the Features |
909 | control panel and tick \q{Disable switching to alternate terminal |
910 | screen}. (See \k{config-features-altscreen} for more details.) |
f08afc59 |
911 | Alternatively, you can tell \c{screen} itself not to use the |
912 | alternate screen: the |
913 | \W{http://www4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/~jnweiger/screen-faq.html}{\c{screen} |
914 | FAQ} suggests adding the line \cq{termcapinfo xterm ti@:te@} to your |
915 | \cw{.screenrc} file. |
b86e68d8 |
916 | |
917 | The reason why this only started to be a problem in 0.54 is because |
918 | \c{screen} typically uses an unusual control sequence to switch to |
919 | the alternate screen, and previous versions of PuTTY did not support |
920 | this sequence. |
921 | |
421406a4 |
922 | \S{faq-alternate-localhost}{Question} Since I upgraded \i{Windows XP} |
85c598bf |
923 | to Service Pack 2, I can't use addresses like \cw{127.0.0.2}. |
924 | |
421406a4 |
925 | Some people who ask PuTTY to listen on \i{localhost} addresses other |
926 | than \cw{127.0.0.1} to forward services such as \i{SMB} and \i{Windows |
927 | Terminal Services} have found that doing so no longer works since |
85c598bf |
928 | they upgraded to WinXP SP2. |
929 | |
0a05eecb |
930 | This is apparently an issue with SP2 that is acknowledged by Microsoft |
931 | in MS Knowledge Base article |
85c598bf |
932 | \W{http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;884020}{884020}. |
a510ac14 |
933 | The article links to a fix you can download. |
85c598bf |
934 | |
5ac88186 |
935 | (\e{However}, we've been told that SP2 \e{also} fixes the bug that |
936 | means you need to use non-\cw{127.0.0.1} addresses to forward |
000cae2e |
937 | Terminal Services in the first place.) |
5ac88186 |
938 | |
811527db |
939 | \S{faq-missing-slash}{Question} PSFTP commands seem to be missing a |
940 | directory separator (slash). |
941 | |
942 | Some people have reported the following incorrect behaviour with |
943 | PSFTP: |
944 | |
945 | \c psftp> pwd |
946 | \e iii |
947 | \c Remote directory is /dir1/dir2 |
948 | \c psftp> get filename.ext |
949 | \e iiiiiiiiiiiiiiii |
950 | \c /dir1/dir2filename.ext: no such file or directory |
951 | |
952 | This is not a bug in PSFTP. There is a known bug in some versions of |
421406a4 |
953 | portable \i{OpenSSH} |
811527db |
954 | (\W{http://bugzilla.mindrot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697}{bug 697}) that |
955 | causes these symptoms; it appears to have been introduced around |
956 | 3.7.x. It manifests only on certain platforms (AIX is what has been |
957 | reported to us). |
958 | |
959 | There is a patch for OpenSSH attached to that bug; it's also fixed in |
960 | recent versions of portable OpenSSH (from around 3.8). |
961 | |
b493cd11 |
962 | \S{faq-connaborted}{Question} Do you want to hear about \q{Software |
963 | caused connection abort}? |
6b39d356 |
964 | |
965 | In the documentation for PuTTY 0.53 and 0.53b, we mentioned that we'd |
966 | like to hear about any occurrences of this error. Since the release |
967 | of PuTTY 0.54, however, we've been convinced that this error doesn't |
968 | indicate that PuTTY's doing anything wrong, and we don't need to hear |
969 | about further occurrences. See \k{errors-connaborted} for our current |
970 | documentation of this error. |
971 | |
3ba2d921 |
972 | \S{faq-rekey}{Question} My SSH-2 session \I{locking up, SSH-2 |
973 | sessions}locks up for a few seconds every so often. |
974 | |
975 | Recent versions of PuTTY automatically initiate \i{repeat key |
976 | exchange} once per hour, to improve session security. If your client |
977 | or server machine is slow, you may experience this as a delay of |
978 | anything up to thirty seconds or so. |
979 | |
980 | These \I{delays, in SSH-2 sessions}delays are inconvenient, but they |
981 | are there for your protection. If they really cause you a problem, |
982 | you can choose to turn off periodic rekeying using the \q{Kex} |
983 | configuration panel (see \k{config-ssh-kex}), but be aware that you |
984 | will be sacrificing security for this. (Falling back to SSH-1 would |
985 | also remove the delays, but would lose a \e{lot} more security |
986 | still. We do not recommend it.) |
987 | |
ee46ef84 |
988 | \H{faq-secure} Security questions |
989 | |
a1d2976b |
990 | \S{faq-publicpc}{Question} Is it safe for me to download PuTTY and |
70706890 |
991 | use it on a public PC? |
ee46ef84 |
992 | |
993 | It depends on whether you trust that PC. If you don't trust the |
994 | public PC, don't use PuTTY on it, and don't use any other software |
995 | you plan to type passwords into either. It might be watching your |
996 | keystrokes, or it might tamper with the PuTTY binary you download. |
997 | There is \e{no} program safe enough that you can run it on an |
998 | actively malicious PC and get away with typing passwords into it. |
999 | |
1000 | If you do trust the PC, then it's probably OK to use PuTTY on it |
1001 | (but if you don't trust the network, then the PuTTY download might |
1002 | be tampered with, so it would be better to carry PuTTY with you on a |
1003 | floppy). |
1004 | |
a1d2976b |
1005 | \S{faq-cleanup}{Question} What does PuTTY leave on a system? How can |
421406a4 |
1006 | I \i{clean up} after it? |
ee46ef84 |
1007 | |
1008 | PuTTY will leave some Registry entries, and a random seed file, on |
1009 | the PC (see \k{faq-settings}). If you are using PuTTY on a public |
1010 | PC, or somebody else's PC, you might want to clean these up when you |
1011 | leave. You can do that automatically, by running the command |
9310cb7d |
1012 | \c{putty -cleanup}. (Note that this only removes settings for |
1013 | the currently logged-in user on \i{multi-user systems}.) |
1014 | |
1015 | If PuTTY was installed from the installer package, it will also |
c35ff6c8 |
1016 | appear in \q{Add/Remove Programs}. Older versions of the uninstaller |
1017 | do not remove the above-mentioned registry entries and file. |
ee46ef84 |
1018 | |
421406a4 |
1019 | \S{faq-dsa}{Question} How come PuTTY now supports \i{DSA}, when the |
70706890 |
1020 | website used to say how insecure it was? |
ee46ef84 |
1021 | |
1022 | DSA has a major weakness \e{if badly implemented}: it relies on a |
1023 | random number generator to far too great an extent. If the random |
1024 | number generator produces a number an attacker can predict, the DSA |
1025 | private key is exposed - meaning that the attacker can log in as you |
1026 | on all systems that accept that key. |
1027 | |
1028 | The PuTTY policy changed because the developers were informed of |
1029 | ways to implement DSA which do not suffer nearly as badly from this |
1030 | weakness, and indeed which don't need to rely on random numbers at |
1031 | all. For this reason we now believe PuTTY's DSA implementation is |
1032 | probably OK. However, if you have the choice, we still recommend you |
1033 | use RSA instead. |
1034 | |
ee4b471f |
1035 | \S{faq-virtuallock}{Question} Couldn't Pageant use |
1036 | \cw{VirtualLock()} to stop private keys being written to disk? |
f9908cf7 |
1037 | |
ee4b471f |
1038 | Unfortunately not. The \cw{VirtualLock()} function in the Windows |
1039 | API doesn't do a proper job: it may prevent small pieces of a |
1040 | process's memory from being paged to disk while the process is |
1041 | running, but it doesn't stop the process's memory as a whole from |
1042 | being swapped completely out to disk when the process is long-term |
1043 | inactive. And Pageant spends most of its time inactive. |
f9908cf7 |
1044 | |
ee46ef84 |
1045 | \H{faq-admin} Administrative questions |
1046 | |
a1d2976b |
1047 | \S{faq-domain}{Question} Would you like me to register you a nicer |
70706890 |
1048 | domain name? |
ee46ef84 |
1049 | |
1050 | No, thank you. Even if you can find one (most of them seem to have |
1051 | been registered already, by people who didn't ask whether we |
1052 | actually wanted it before they applied), we're happy with the PuTTY |
1053 | web site being exactly where it is. It's not hard to find (just type |
1054 | \q{putty} into \W{http://www.google.com/}{google.com} and we're the |
1055 | first link returned), and we don't believe the administrative hassle |
1056 | of moving the site would be worth the benefit. |
1057 | |
1058 | In addition, if we \e{did} want a custom domain name, we would want |
1059 | to run it ourselves, so we knew for certain that it would continue |
1060 | to point where we wanted it, and wouldn't suddenly change or do |
1061 | strange things. Having it registered for us by a third party who we |
1062 | don't even know is not the best way to achieve this. |
1063 | |
a1d2976b |
1064 | \S{faq-webhosting}{Question} Would you like free web hosting for the |
70706890 |
1065 | PuTTY web site? |
ee46ef84 |
1066 | |
1067 | We already have some, thanks. |
1068 | |
34185d04 |
1069 | \S{faq-link}{Question} Would you link to my web site from the PuTTY |
1070 | web site? |
1071 | |
1072 | Only if the content of your web page is of definite direct interest |
1073 | to PuTTY users. If your content is unrelated, or only tangentially |
1074 | related, to PuTTY, then the link would simply be advertising for |
1075 | you. |
1076 | |
1077 | One very nice effect of the Google ranking mechanism is that by and |
1078 | large, the most popular web sites get the highest rankings. This |
1079 | means that when an ordinary person does a search, the top item in |
1080 | the search is very likely to be a high-quality site or the site they |
1081 | actually wanted, rather than the site which paid the most money for |
1082 | its ranking. |
1083 | |
1084 | The PuTTY web site is held in high esteem by Google, for precisely |
1085 | this reason: lots of people have linked to it simply because they |
1086 | like PuTTY, without us ever having to ask anyone to link to us. We |
1087 | feel that it would be an abuse of this esteem to use it to boost the |
1088 | ranking of random advertisers' web sites. If you want your web site |
1089 | to have a high Google ranking, we'd prefer that you achieve this the |
1090 | way we did - by being good enough at what you do that people will |
1091 | link to you simply because they like you. |
1092 | |
b609f258 |
1093 | In particular, we aren't interested in trading links for money (see |
1094 | above), and we \e{certainly} aren't interested in trading links for |
1095 | other links (since we have no advertising on our web site, our |
1096 | Google ranking is not even directly worth anything to us). If we |
1097 | don't want to link to you for free, then we probably won't want to |
1098 | link to you at all. |
1099 | |
34185d04 |
1100 | If you have software based on PuTTY, or specifically designed to |
1101 | interoperate with PuTTY, or in some other way of genuine interest to |
1102 | PuTTY users, then we will probably be happy to add a link to you on |
1103 | our Links page. And if you're running a mirror of the PuTTY web |
1104 | site, we're \e{definitely} interested. |
1105 | |
a1d2976b |
1106 | \S{faq-sourceforge}{Question} Why don't you move PuTTY to |
70706890 |
1107 | SourceForge? |
ee46ef84 |
1108 | |
1109 | Partly, because we don't want to move the web site location (see |
1110 | \k{faq-domain}). |
1111 | |
1112 | Also, security reasons. PuTTY is a security product, and as such it |
1113 | is particularly important to guard the code and the web site against |
1114 | unauthorised modifications which might introduce subtle security |
51e759ee |
1115 | flaws. Therefore, we prefer that the Subversion repository, web site and |
ee46ef84 |
1116 | FTP site remain where they are, under the direct control of system |
1117 | administrators we know and trust personally, rather than being run |
1118 | by a large organisation full of people we've never met and which is |
1119 | known to have had breakins in the past. |
1120 | |
1121 | No offence to SourceForge; I think they do a wonderful job. But |
1122 | they're not ideal for everyone, and in particular they're not ideal |
1123 | for us. |
1124 | |
a1d2976b |
1125 | \S{faq-mailinglist1}{Question} Why can't I subscribe to the |
70706890 |
1126 | putty-bugs mailing list? |
ee46ef84 |
1127 | |
1128 | Because you're not a member of the PuTTY core development team. The |
1129 | putty-bugs mailing list is not a general newsgroup-like discussion |
1130 | forum; it's a contact address for the core developers, and an |
1131 | \e{internal} mailing list for us to discuss things among ourselves. |
1132 | If we opened it up for everybody to subscribe to, it would turn into |
1133 | something more like a newsgroup and we would be completely |
1134 | overwhelmed by the volume of traffic. It's hard enough to keep up |
1135 | with the list as it is. |
1136 | |
a1d2976b |
1137 | \S{faq-mailinglist2}{Question} If putty-bugs isn't a |
70706890 |
1138 | general-subscription mailing list, what is? |
ee46ef84 |
1139 | |
1140 | There isn't one, that we know of. |
1141 | |
be86e512 |
1142 | If someone else wants to set up a mailing list or other forum for |
1143 | PuTTY users to help each other with common problems, that would be |
1144 | fine with us, though the PuTTY team would almost certainly not have the |
87b461db |
1145 | time to read it. It's probably better to use one of the established |
1146 | newsgroups for this purpose (see \k{feedback-other-fora}). |
ee46ef84 |
1147 | |
a1d2976b |
1148 | \S{faq-donations}{Question} How can I donate to PuTTY development? |
ee46ef84 |
1149 | |
1150 | Please, \e{please} don't feel you have to. PuTTY is completely free |
1151 | software, and not shareware. We think it's very important that |
1152 | \e{everybody} who wants to use PuTTY should be able to, whether they |
1153 | have any money or not; so the last thing we would want is for a |
1154 | PuTTY user to feel guilty because they haven't paid us any money. If |
1155 | you want to keep your money, please do keep it. We wouldn't dream of |
1156 | asking for any. |
1157 | |
1158 | Having said all that, if you still really \e{want} to give us money, |
1159 | we won't argue :-) The easiest way for us to accept donations is if |
2244ea7b |
1160 | you send money to \cw{<anakin@pobox.com>} using PayPal |
1161 | (\W{http://www.paypal.com/}\cw{www.paypal.com}). Alternatively, if |
1162 | you don't trust PayPal, you could donate through e-gold |
1163 | (\W{http://www.e-gold.com}\cw{www.e-gold.com}): deposit your |
1164 | donation in account number 174769, then send us e-mail to let us |
1165 | know you've done so (otherwise we might not notice for months!). |
ee46ef84 |
1166 | |
1167 | Small donations (tens of dollars or tens of euros) will probably be |
1168 | spent on beer or curry, which helps motivate our volunteer team to |
1169 | continue doing this for the world. Larger donations will be spent on |
1170 | something that actually helps development, if we can find anything |
9cd3f7b0 |
1171 | (perhaps new hardware, or a copy of Windows XP), but if we can't |
ee46ef84 |
1172 | find anything then we'll just distribute the money among the |
1173 | developers. If you want to be sure your donation is going towards |
1174 | something worthwhile, ask us first. If you don't like these terms, |
1175 | feel perfectly free not to donate. We don't mind. |
1176 | |
150ef9c6 |
1177 | \S{faq-permission}{Question} Can I have permission to put PuTTY on a |
1178 | cover disk / distribute it with other software / etc? |
1179 | |
1180 | Yes. You need not bother asking us explicitly for permission. You |
1181 | already have permission. Redistribution of the unmodified PuTTY |
91ebba83 |
1182 | binary in this way is entirely permitted by our licence (see |
1183 | \k{licence}), and you are welcome to do it as much as you like. |
150ef9c6 |
1184 | |
1185 | If you are distributing PuTTY within your own organisation, or for |
1186 | use with your own product, then we recommend (but do not insist) |
1187 | that you offer your own first-line technical support, to answer |
1188 | questions directly relating to the interaction of PuTTY with your |
1189 | particular environment. If your users mail us directly, we won't be |
1190 | able to give them very much help about things specific to your own |
1191 | setup. |
1192 | |
f9908cf7 |
1193 | \H{faq-misc} Miscellaneous questions |
1194 | |
421406a4 |
1195 | \S{faq-openssh}{Question} Is PuTTY a port of \i{OpenSSH}, or based on |
f9908cf7 |
1196 | OpenSSH? |
1197 | |
1198 | No, it isn't. PuTTY is almost completely composed of code written |
1199 | from scratch for PuTTY. The only code we share with OpenSSH is the |
2e85c969 |
1200 | detector for SSH-1 CRC compensation attacks, written by CORE SDI S.A. |
f9908cf7 |
1201 | |
606398fb |
1202 | \S{faq-sillyputty}{Question} Where can I buy silly putty? |
1203 | |
1204 | You're looking at the wrong web site; the only PuTTY we know about |
1205 | here is the name of a computer program. |
1206 | |
1207 | If you want the kind of putty you can buy as an executive toy, the |
1208 | PuTTY team can personally recommend Thinking Putty, which you can |
1209 | buy from Crazy Aaron's Putty World, at |
1210 | \W{http://www.puttyworld.com}\cw{www.puttyworld.com}. |
1211 | |
fa58cf81 |
1212 | \S{faq-meaning}{Question} What does \q{PuTTY} mean? |
ee46ef84 |
1213 | |
fa58cf81 |
1214 | It's the name of a popular SSH and Telnet client. Any other meaning |
1215 | is in the eye of the beholder. It's been rumoured that \q{PuTTY} |
1216 | is the antonym of \q{\cw{getty}}, or that it's the stuff that makes your |
1217 | Windows useful, or that it's a kind of plutonium Teletype. We |
1218 | couldn't possibly comment on such allegations. |
1219 | |
1220 | \S{faq-pronounce}{Question} How do I pronounce \q{PuTTY}? |
1221 | |
1222 | Exactly like the English word \q{putty}, which we pronounce |
65b15d17 |
1223 | /\u02C8{'}p\u028C{V}ti/. |