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1 | \versionid $Id: faq.but,v 1.74 2004/08/10 16:50:30 jacob Exp $ |
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2 | |
ee46ef84 |
3 | \A{faq} PuTTY FAQ |
4 | |
5 | This FAQ is published on the PuTTY web site, and also provided as an |
6 | appendix in the manual. |
7 | |
64fb6efd |
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 | |
30 | In general, if you want to know if PuTTY supports a particular |
31 | feature, you should look for it on the |
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 |
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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, |
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45 | and not in the \q{Recently fixed} section, it probably \e{hasn't} been |
46 | implemented. |
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47 | |
a1d2976b |
48 | \S{faq-ssh2}{Question} Does PuTTY support SSH v2? |
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49 | |
50 | Yes. SSH v2 support has been available in PuTTY since version 0.50. |
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51 | |
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52 | Public key authentication (both RSA and DSA) in SSH v2 is new in |
53 | version 0.52. |
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54 | |
a1d2976b |
55 | \S{faq-ssh2-keyfmt}{Question} Does PuTTY support reading OpenSSH or |
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56 | \cw{ssh.com} SSHv2 private key files? |
57 | |
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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 | |
a1d2976b |
62 | \S{faq-ssh1}{Question} Does PuTTY support SSH v1? |
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63 | |
64 | Yes. SSH 1 support has always been available in PuTTY. |
65 | |
a1d2976b |
66 | \S{faq-localecho}{Question} Does PuTTY support 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. |
87 | See \k{config-saving} in the documentation for how to do this. |
88 | |
a1d2976b |
89 | \S{faq-disksettings}{Question} Does PuTTY support storing its |
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90 | settings in a disk file? |
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91 | |
92 | Not at present, although \k{config-file} in the documentation gives |
93 | a method of achieving the same effect. |
94 | |
a1d2976b |
95 | \S{faq-fullscreen}{Question} Does PuTTY support full-screen mode, |
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96 | like a DOS box? |
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97 | |
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98 | Yes; this is a new feature in version 0.52. |
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99 | |
babac7bd |
100 | \S{faq-password-remember}{Question} Does PuTTY have the ability to |
101 | remember my password so I don't have to type it every time? |
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102 | |
103 | No, it doesn't. |
104 | |
105 | Remembering your password is a bad plan for obvious security |
106 | reasons: anyone who gains access to your machine while you're away |
107 | from your desk can find out the remembered password, and use it, |
108 | abuse it or change it. |
109 | |
110 | In addition, it's not even \e{possible} for PuTTY to automatically |
111 | send your password in a Telnet session, because Telnet doesn't give |
112 | the client software any indication of which part of the login |
113 | process is the password prompt. PuTTY would have to guess, by |
114 | looking for words like \q{password} in the session data; and if your |
115 | login program is written in something other than English, this won't |
116 | work. |
117 | |
118 | In SSH, remembering your password would be possible in theory, but |
119 | there doesn't seem to be much point since SSH supports public key |
120 | authentication, which is more flexible and more secure. See |
121 | \k{pubkey} in the documentation for a full discussion of public key |
122 | authentication. |
123 | |
a1d2976b |
124 | \S{faq-hostkeys}{Question} Is there an option to turn off the |
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125 | annoying host key prompts? |
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126 | |
127 | No, there isn't. And there won't be. Even if you write it yourself |
128 | and send us the patch, we won't accept it. |
129 | |
130 | Those annoying host key prompts are the \e{whole point} of SSH. |
131 | Without them, all the cryptographic technology SSH uses to secure |
132 | your session is doing nothing more than making an attacker's job |
133 | slightly harder; instead of sitting between you and the server with |
134 | a packet sniffer, the attacker must actually subvert a router and |
135 | start modifying the packets going back and forth. But that's not all |
136 | that much harder than just sniffing; and without host key checking, |
137 | it will go completely undetected by client or server. |
138 | |
139 | Host key checking is your guarantee that the encryption you put on |
140 | your data at the client end is the \e{same} encryption taken off the |
141 | data at the server end; it's your guarantee that it hasn't been |
142 | removed and replaced somewhere on the way. Host key checking makes |
143 | the attacker's job \e{astronomically} hard, compared to packet |
144 | sniffing, and even compared to subverting a router. Instead of |
145 | applying a little intelligence and keeping an eye on Bugtraq, the |
146 | attacker must now perform a brute-force attack against at least one |
147 | military-strength cipher. That insignificant host key prompt really |
148 | does make \e{that} much difference. |
149 | |
150 | If you're having a specific problem with host key checking - perhaps |
151 | you want an automated batch job to make use of PSCP or Plink, and |
152 | the interactive host key prompt is hanging the batch process - then |
153 | the right way to fix it is to add the correct host key to the |
154 | Registry in advance. That way, you retain the \e{important} feature |
155 | of host key checking: the right key will be accepted and the wrong |
156 | ones will not. Adding an option to turn host key checking off |
157 | completely is the wrong solution and we will not do it. |
158 | |
2981454b |
159 | If you have host keys available in the common \c{known_hosts} format, |
160 | we have a script called |
161 | \W{http://cvs.tartarus.org/putty/contrib/kh2reg.py}\c{kh2reg.py} |
162 | to convert them to a Windows .REG file, which can be installed ahead of |
163 | time by double-clicking or using \c{REGEDIT}. |
164 | |
a1d2976b |
165 | \S{faq-server}{Question} Will you write an SSH server for the PuTTY |
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166 | suite, to go with the client? |
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167 | |
168 | No. The only reason we might want to would be if we could easily |
169 | re-use existing code and significantly cut down the effort. We don't |
170 | believe this is the case; there just isn't enough common ground |
171 | between an SSH client and server to make it worthwhile. |
172 | |
173 | If someone else wants to use bits of PuTTY in the process of writing |
174 | a Windows SSH server, they'd be perfectly welcome to of course, but |
175 | I really can't see it being a lot less effort for us to do that than |
176 | it would be for us to write a server from the ground up. We don't |
177 | have time, and we don't have motivation. The code is available if |
178 | anyone else wants to try it. |
179 | |
67325335 |
180 | \S{faq-pscp-ascii}{Question} Can PSCP or PSFTP transfer files in |
181 | ASCII mode? |
182 | |
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183 | Unfortunately not. |
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184 | |
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185 | Until recently, this was a limitation of the file transfer protocols: |
186 | the SCP and SFTP protocols had no notion of transferring a file in |
187 | anything other than binary mode. (This is still true of SCP.) |
188 | |
189 | The current draft protocol spec of SFTP proposes a means of |
190 | implementing ASCII transfer. At some point PSCP/PSFTP may implement |
191 | this proposal. |
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192 | |
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193 | \H{faq-ports} Ports to other operating systems |
194 | |
195 | The eventual goal is for PuTTY to be a multi-platform program, able |
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196 | to run on at least Windows, Mac OS and Unix. |
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197 | |
198 | Porting will become easier once PuTTY has a generalised porting |
199 | layer, drawing a clear line between platform-dependent and |
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200 | platform-independent code. The general intention was for this |
201 | porting layer to evolve naturally as part of the process of doing |
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202 | the first port; a Unix port has now been released and the plan |
203 | seems to be working so far. |
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204 | |
aff5267a |
205 | \S{faq-ports-general}{Question} What ports of PuTTY exist? |
206 | |
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207 | Currently, release versions of PuTTY tools only run on full Win32 |
208 | systems and Unix. \q{Win32} includes Windows 95, 98, and ME, and it |
209 | includes Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. |
210 | |
211 | In the development code, a partial port to the Mac OS (see |
212 | \k{faq-mac-port}) is under way. |
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213 | |
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214 | Currently PuTTY does \e{not} run on Windows CE (see \k{faq-wince}), |
215 | and it does not quite run on the Win32s environment under Windows |
216 | 3.1 (see \k{faq-win31}). |
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217 | |
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218 | We do not have release-quality ports for any other systems at the |
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219 | present time. If anyone told you we had an EPOC port, or an iPaq port, |
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220 | or any other port of PuTTY, they were mistaken. We don't. |
221 | |
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222 | There are some third-party ports to various platforms, mentioned |
223 | on the Links page of our website. |
224 | |
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225 | \S{faq-unix}{Question} Is there a port to Unix? |
226 | |
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227 | As of 0.54, there are Unix ports of most of the traditional PuTTY |
228 | tools, and also one entirely new application. |
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229 | |
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230 | If you look at the source release, you should find a \c{unix} |
231 | subdirectory containing \c{Makefile.gtk}, which should build you Unix |
232 | ports of Plink, PuTTY itself, PuTTYgen, PSCP, PSFTP, and also |
233 | \c{pterm} - an \cw{xterm}-type program which supports the same |
234 | terminal emulation as PuTTY. We do not yet have a Unix port of |
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235 | Pageant. |
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236 | |
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237 | If you don't have Gtk, you should still be able to build the |
238 | command-line tools. |
239 | |
240 | Note that Unix PuTTY has mostly only been tested on Linux so far; |
241 | portability problems such as BSD-style ptys or different header file |
242 | requirements are expected. |
243 | |
b86e68d8 |
244 | \S{faq-unix-why}{Question} What's the point of the Unix port? Unix |
245 | has OpenSSH. |
246 | |
247 | All sorts of little things. \c{pterm} is directly useful to anyone |
248 | who prefers PuTTY's terminal emulation to \c{xterm}'s, which at |
249 | least some people do. Unix Plink has apparently found a niche among |
250 | people who find the complexity of OpenSSL makes OpenSSH hard to |
251 | install (and who don't mind Plink not having as many features). Some |
252 | users want to generate a large number of SSH keys on Unix and then |
253 | copy them all into PuTTY, and the Unix PuTTYgen should allow them to |
254 | automate that conversion process. |
255 | |
256 | There were development advantages as well; porting PuTTY to Unix was |
257 | a valuable path-finding effort for other future ports, and also |
258 | allowed us to use the excellent Linux tool |
259 | \W{http://valgrind.kde.org/}{Valgrind} to help with debugging, which |
260 | has already improved PuTTY's stability on \e{all} platforms. |
261 | |
262 | However, if you're a Unix user and you can see no reason to switch |
263 | from OpenSSH to PuTTY/Plink, then you're probably right. We don't |
264 | expect our Unix port to be the right thing for everybody. |
265 | |
70cd2027 |
266 | \S{faq-wince}{Question} Will there be a port to Windows CE or PocketPC? |
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267 | |
4f2fd423 |
268 | It's currently being worked on, but it's only in its early stages yet, |
269 | and certainly isn't yet useful. PuTTY on portable devices would |
270 | clearly be a useful thing, so in the long term I hope it can be |
271 | brought up to release quality. |
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272 | |
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273 | There's also a third-party port at |
c2658847 |
274 | \W{http://pocketputty.duxy.net/}\c{http://pocketputty.duxy.net/}. |
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275 | |
f82f00d0 |
276 | \S{faq-win31}{Question} Is there a port to Windows 3.1? |
277 | |
278 | PuTTY is a 32-bit application from the ground up, so it won't run on |
279 | Windows 3.1 as a native 16-bit program; and it would be \e{very} |
280 | hard to port it to do so, because of Windows 3.1's vile memory |
281 | allocation mechanisms. |
282 | |
283 | However, it is possible in theory to compile the existing PuTTY |
284 | source in such a way that it will run under Win32s (an extension to |
285 | Windows 3.1 to let you run 32-bit programs). In order to do this |
286 | you'll need the right kind of C compiler - modern versions of Visual |
287 | C at least have stopped being backwards compatible to Win32s. Also, |
288 | the last time we tried this it didn't work very well. |
289 | |
290 | If you're interested in running PuTTY under Windows 3.1, help and |
291 | testing in this area would be very welcome! |
292 | |
babac7bd |
293 | \S{faq-mac-port}{Question} Will there be a port to the Mac? |
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294 | |
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295 | There is a port to the Mac OS in progress. It's just about usable, but |
296 | has an awful lot of gaps and rough edges that will need cleaning up |
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297 | before release (such as useful random numbers). |
298 | |
299 | A separate port to Mac OS X is also underway. |
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300 | |
a1d2976b |
301 | \S{faq-epoc}{Question} Will there be a port to EPOC? |
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302 | |
303 | I hope so, but given that ports aren't really progressing very fast |
304 | even on systems the developers \e{do} already know how to program |
305 | for, it might be a long time before any of us get round to learning |
306 | a new system and doing the port for that. |
307 | |
4f2fd423 |
308 | However, some of the work has been done by other people, and a beta |
309 | port of PuTTY for the Nokia 9200 Communicator series is available |
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310 | from \W{http://s2putty.sourceforge.net/}\cw{http://s2putty.sourceforge.net/} |
4f2fd423 |
311 | |
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312 | \H{faq-embedding} Embedding PuTTY in other programs |
313 | |
a1d2976b |
314 | \S{faq-dll}{Question} Is the SSH or Telnet code available as a DLL? |
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315 | |
316 | No, it isn't. It would take a reasonable amount of rewriting for |
317 | this to be possible, and since the PuTTY project itself doesn't |
318 | believe in DLLs (they make installation more error-prone) none of us |
319 | has taken the time to do it. |
320 | |
321 | Most of the code cleanup work would be a good thing to happen in |
322 | general, so if anyone feels like helping, we wouldn't say no. |
323 | |
a1d2976b |
324 | \S{faq-vb}{Question} Is the SSH or Telnet code available as a Visual |
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325 | Basic component? |
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326 | |
327 | No, it isn't. None of the PuTTY team uses Visual Basic, and none of |
328 | us has any particular need to make SSH connections from a Visual |
329 | Basic application. In addition, all the preliminary work to turn it |
330 | into a DLL would be necessary first; and furthermore, we don't even |
331 | know how to write VB components. |
332 | |
333 | If someone offers to do some of this work for us, we might consider |
334 | it, but unless that happens I can't see VB integration being |
335 | anywhere other than the very bottom of our priority list. |
336 | |
a1d2976b |
337 | \S{faq-ipc}{Question} How can I use PuTTY to make an SSH connection |
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338 | from within another program? |
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339 | |
340 | Probably your best bet is to use Plink, the command-line connection |
341 | tool. If you can start Plink as a second Windows process, and |
342 | arrange for your primary process to be able to send data to the |
343 | Plink process, and receive data from it, through pipes, then you |
344 | should be able to make SSH connections from your program. |
345 | |
346 | This is what CVS for Windows does, for example. |
347 | |
348 | \H{faq-details} Details of PuTTY's operation |
349 | |
a1d2976b |
350 | \S{faq-term}{Question} What terminal type does PuTTY use? |
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351 | |
352 | For most purposes, PuTTY can be considered to be an \cw{xterm} |
32c37ecd |
353 | terminal. |
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354 | |
355 | PuTTY also supports some terminal control sequences not supported by |
356 | the real \cw{xterm}: notably the Linux console sequences that |
357 | reconfigure the colour palette, and the title bar control sequences |
358 | used by \cw{DECterm} (which are different from the \cw{xterm} ones; |
359 | PuTTY supports both). |
360 | |
361 | By default, PuTTY announces its terminal type to the server as |
362 | \c{xterm}. If you have a problem with this, you can reconfigure it |
363 | to say something else; \c{vt220} might help if you have trouble. |
364 | |
a1d2976b |
365 | \S{faq-settings}{Question} Where does PuTTY store its data? |
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366 | |
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367 | On Windows, PuTTY stores most of its data (saved sessions, SSH host |
368 | keys) in the Registry. The precise location is |
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369 | |
370 | \c HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY |
371 | |
372 | and within that area, saved sessions are stored under \c{Sessions} |
373 | while host keys are stored under \c{SshHostKeys}. |
374 | |
375 | PuTTY also requires a random number seed file, to improve the |
376 | unpredictability of randomly chosen data needed as part of the SSH |
377 | cryptography. This is stored by default in your Windows home |
378 | directory (\c{%HOMEDRIVE%\\%HOMEPATH%}), or in the actual Windows |
379 | directory (such as \c{C:\\WINDOWS}) if the home directory doesn't |
380 | exist, for example if you're using Win95. If you want to change the |
381 | location of the random number seed file, you can put your chosen |
382 | pathname in the Registry, at |
383 | |
384 | \c HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY\RandSeedFile |
385 | |
4c53784e |
386 | On Unix, PuTTY stores all of this data in a directory \cw{~/.putty}. |
387 | |
ee46ef84 |
388 | \H{faq-howto} HOWTO questions |
389 | |
a1d2976b |
390 | \S{faq-startmax}{Question} How can I make PuTTY start up maximised? |
ee46ef84 |
391 | |
392 | Create a Windows shortcut to start PuTTY from, and set it as \q{Run |
393 | Maximized}. |
394 | |
a1d2976b |
395 | \S{faq-startsess}{Question} How can I create a Windows shortcut to |
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396 | start a particular saved session directly? |
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397 | |
398 | To run a PuTTY session saved under the name \q{\cw{mysession}}, |
399 | create a Windows shortcut that invokes PuTTY with a command line |
400 | like |
401 | |
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402 | \c \path\name\to\putty.exe -load mysession |
403 | |
404 | (Note: prior to 0.53, the syntax was \c{@session}. This is now |
405 | deprecated and may be removed at some point.) |
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406 | |
a1d2976b |
407 | \S{faq-startssh}{Question} How can I start an SSH session straight |
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408 | from the command line? |
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409 | |
410 | Use the command line \c{putty -ssh host.name}. Alternatively, create |
411 | a saved session that specifies the SSH protocol, and start the saved |
412 | session as shown in \k{faq-startsess}. |
413 | |
a1d2976b |
414 | \S{faq-cutpaste}{Question} How do I copy and paste between PuTTY and |
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415 | other Windows applications? |
ee46ef84 |
416 | |
417 | Copy and paste works similarly to the X Window System. You use the |
418 | left mouse button to select text in the PuTTY window. The act of |
419 | selection \e{automatically} copies the text to the clipboard: there |
420 | is no need to press Ctrl-Ins or Ctrl-C or anything else. In fact, |
421 | pressing Ctrl-C will send a Ctrl-C character to the other end of |
422 | your connection (just like it does the rest of the time), which may |
423 | have unpleasant effects. The \e{only} thing you need to do, to copy |
424 | text to the clipboard, is to select it. |
425 | |
426 | To paste the clipboard contents into a PuTTY window, by default you |
427 | click the right mouse button. If you have a three-button mouse and |
428 | are used to X applications, you can configure pasting to be done by |
429 | the middle button instead, but this is not the default because most |
430 | Windows users don't have a middle button at all. |
431 | |
432 | You can also paste by pressing Shift-Ins. |
433 | |
a1d2976b |
434 | \S{faq-options}{Question} How do I use all PuTTY's features (public |
a58b605b |
435 | keys, proxying, cipher selection, etc.) in PSCP, PSFTP and Plink? |
436 | |
437 | Most major features (e.g., public keys, port forwarding) are available |
438 | through command line options. See the documentation. |
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439 | |
a58b605b |
440 | Not all features are accessible from the command line yet, although |
441 | we'd like to fix this. In the meantime, you can use most of |
72be5b5e |
442 | PuTTY's features if you create a PuTTY saved session, and then use |
443 | the name of the saved session on the command line in place of a |
444 | hostname. This works for PSCP, PSFTP and Plink (but don't expect |
445 | port forwarding in the file transfer applications!). |
f2003e32 |
446 | |
a1d2976b |
447 | \S{faq-pscp}{Question} How do I use PSCP.EXE? When I double-click it |
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448 | gives me a command prompt window which then closes instantly. |
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449 | |
450 | PSCP is a command-line application, not a GUI application. If you |
451 | run it without arguments, it will simply print a help message and |
452 | terminate. |
453 | |
454 | To use PSCP properly, run it from a Command Prompt window. See |
455 | \k{pscp} in the documentation for more details. |
456 | |
a1d2976b |
457 | \S{faq-pscp-spaces}{Question} How do I use PSCP to copy a file whose |
70706890 |
458 | name has spaces in? |
ee46ef84 |
459 | |
460 | If PSCP is using the traditional SCP protocol, this is confusing. If |
461 | you're specifying a file at the local end, you just use one set of |
462 | quotes as you would normally do: |
463 | |
464 | \c pscp "local filename with spaces" user@host: |
465 | \c pscp user@host:myfile "local filename with spaces" |
466 | |
467 | But if the filename you're specifying is on the \e{remote} side, you |
468 | have to use backslashes and two sets of quotes: |
469 | |
470 | \c pscp user@host:"\"remote filename with spaces\"" local_filename |
471 | \c pscp local_filename user@host:"\"remote filename with spaces\"" |
472 | |
473 | Worse still, in a remote-to-local copy you have to specify the local |
474 | file name explicitly, otherwise PSCP will complain that they don't |
475 | match (unless you specified the \c{-unsafe} option). The following |
476 | command will give an error message: |
477 | |
478 | \c c:\>pscp user@host:"\"oo er\"" . |
e9cee352 |
479 | \c warning: remote host tried to write to a file called 'oo er' |
480 | \c when we requested a file called '"oo er"'. |
ee46ef84 |
481 | |
e9cee352 |
482 | Instead, you need to specify the local file name in full: |
483 | |
484 | \c c:\>pscp user@host:"\"oo er\"" "oo er" |
485 | |
ee46ef84 |
486 | If PSCP is using the newer SFTP protocol, none of this is a problem, |
487 | and all filenames with spaces in are specified using a single pair |
488 | of quotes in the obvious way: |
489 | |
490 | \c pscp "local file" user@host: |
491 | \c pscp user@host:"remote file" . |
492 | |
493 | \H{faq-trouble} Troubleshooting |
494 | |
babac7bd |
495 | \S{faq-incorrect-mac}{Question} Why do I see \q{Incorrect MAC |
496 | received on packet}? |
ee46ef84 |
497 | |
f348999d |
498 | One possible cause of this that used to be common is a bug in old |
499 | SSH 2 servers distributed by \cw{ssh.com}. (This is not the only |
500 | possible cause; see \k{errors-crc} in the documentation.) |
501 | Version 2.3.0 and below of their SSH 2 server |
ee46ef84 |
502 | constructs Message Authentication Codes in the wrong way, and |
503 | expects the client to construct them in the same wrong way. PuTTY |
504 | constructs the MACs correctly by default, and hence these old |
505 | servers will fail to work with it. |
506 | |
32c37ecd |
507 | If you are using PuTTY version 0.52 or better, this should work |
508 | automatically: PuTTY should detect the buggy servers from their |
509 | version number announcement, and automatically start to construct |
510 | its MACs in the same incorrect manner as they do, so it will be able |
511 | to work with them. |
ee46ef84 |
512 | |
32c37ecd |
513 | If you are using PuTTY version 0.51 or below, you can enable the |
514 | workaround by going to the SSH panel and ticking the box labelled |
515 | \q{Imitate SSH 2 MAC bug}. It's possible that you might have to do |
516 | this with 0.52 as well, if a buggy server exists that PuTTY doesn't |
517 | know about. |
ee46ef84 |
518 | |
b7e2c163 |
519 | In this context MAC stands for Message Authentication Code. It's a |
520 | cryptographic term, and it has nothing at all to do with Ethernet |
521 | MAC (Media Access Control) addresses. |
522 | |
67325335 |
523 | \S{faq-pscp-protocol}{Question} Why do I see \q{Fatal: Protocol |
524 | error: Expected control record} in PSCP? |
525 | |
526 | This happens because PSCP was expecting to see data from the server |
527 | that was part of the PSCP protocol exchange, and instead it saw data |
528 | that it couldn't make any sense of at all. |
529 | |
530 | This almost always happens because the startup scripts in your |
531 | account on the server machine are generating output. This is |
532 | impossible for PSCP, or any other SCP client, to work around. You |
533 | should never use startup files (\c{.bashrc}, \c{.cshrc} and so on) |
534 | which generate output in non-interactive sessions. |
535 | |
536 | This is not actually a PuTTY problem. If PSCP fails in this way, |
537 | then all other SCP clients are likely to fail in exactly the same |
538 | way. The problem is at the server end. |
539 | |
a1d2976b |
540 | \S{faq-colours}{Question} I clicked on a colour in the Colours |
70706890 |
541 | panel, and the colour didn't change in my terminal. |
ee46ef84 |
542 | |
543 | That isn't how you're supposed to use the Colours panel. |
544 | |
545 | During the course of a session, PuTTY potentially uses \e{all} the |
546 | colours listed in the Colours panel. It's not a question of using |
547 | only one of them and you choosing which one; PuTTY will use them |
548 | \e{all}. The purpose of the Colours panel is to let you adjust the |
549 | appearance of all the colours. So to change the colour of the |
550 | cursor, for example, you would select \q{Cursor Colour}, press the |
551 | \q{Modify} button, and select a new colour from the dialog box that |
552 | appeared. Similarly, if you want your session to appear in green, |
553 | you should select \q{Default Foreground} and press \q{Modify}. |
554 | Clicking on \q{ANSI Green} won't turn your session green; it will |
555 | only allow you to adjust the \e{shade} of green used when PuTTY is |
556 | instructed by the server to display green text. |
557 | |
a1d2976b |
558 | \S{faq-winsock2}{Question} Plink on Windows 95 says it can't find |
70706890 |
559 | \cw{WS2_32.DLL}. |
ee46ef84 |
560 | |
561 | Plink requires the extended Windows network library, WinSock version |
562 | 2. This is installed as standard on Windows 98 and above, and on |
563 | Windows NT, and even on later versions of Windows 95; but early |
564 | Win95 installations don't have it. |
565 | |
566 | In order to use Plink on these systems, you will need to download |
567 | the |
568 | \W{http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/downloads/contents/wuadmintools/s_wunetworkingtools/w95sockets2/}{WinSock 2 upgrade}: |
569 | |
35cffede |
570 | \c http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/downloads/contents/ |
571 | \c wuadmintools/s_wunetworkingtools/w95sockets2/ |
ee46ef84 |
572 | |
a1d2976b |
573 | \S{faq-outofmem}{Question} After trying to establish an SSH 2 |
70706890 |
574 | connection, PuTTY says \q{Out of memory} and dies. |
ee46ef84 |
575 | |
576 | If this happens just while the connection is starting up, this often |
577 | indicates that for some reason the client and server have failed to |
578 | establish a session encryption key. Somehow, they have performed |
579 | calculations that should have given each of them the same key, but |
580 | have ended up with different keys; so data encrypted by one and |
581 | decrypted by the other looks like random garbage. |
582 | |
583 | This causes an \q{out of memory} error because the first encrypted |
584 | data PuTTY expects to see is the length of an SSH message. Normally |
585 | this will be something well under 100 bytes. If the decryption has |
586 | failed, PuTTY will see a completely random length in the region of |
587 | two \e{gigabytes}, and will try to allocate enough memory to store |
588 | this non-existent message. This will immediately lead to it thinking |
589 | it doesn't have enough memory, and panicking. |
590 | |
591 | If this happens to you, it is quite likely to still be a PuTTY bug |
592 | and you should report it (although it might be a bug in your SSH |
593 | server instead); but it doesn't necessarily mean you've actually run |
594 | out of memory. |
595 | |
9accb45d |
596 | \S{faq-outofmem2}{Question} When attempting a file transfer, either |
597 | PSCP or PSFTP says \q{Out of memory} and dies. |
598 | |
599 | This is almost always caused by your login scripts on the server |
600 | generating output. PSCP or PSFTP will receive that output when they |
601 | were expecting to see the start of a file transfer protocol, and |
602 | they will attempt to interpret the output as file-transfer protocol. |
603 | This will usually lead to an \q{out of memory} error for much the |
604 | same reasons as given in \k{faq-outofmem}. |
605 | |
606 | This is a setup problem in your account on your server, \e{not} a |
607 | PSCP/PSFTP bug. Your login scripts should \e{never} generate output |
608 | during non-interactive sessions; secure file transfer is not the |
609 | only form of remote access that will break if they do. |
610 | |
611 | On Unix, a simple fix is to ensure that all the parts of your login |
612 | script that might generate output are in \c{.profile} (if you use a |
613 | Bourne shell derivative) or \c{.login} (if you use a C shell). |
614 | Putting them in more general files such as \c{.bashrc} or \c{.cshrc} |
615 | is liable to lead to problems. |
616 | |
7b24f677 |
617 | \S{faq-psftp-slow}{Question} PSFTP transfers files much slower than PSCP. |
9accb45d |
618 | |
b7280cfe |
619 | The throughput of PSFTP 0.54 should be much better than 0.53b and |
620 | prior; we've added code to the SFTP backend to queue several blocks |
621 | of data rather than waiting for an acknowledgement for each. (The |
622 | SCP backend did not suffer from this performance issue because SCP |
623 | is a much simpler protocol.) |
9accb45d |
624 | |
a1d2976b |
625 | \S{faq-bce}{Question} When I run full-colour applications, I see |
70706890 |
626 | areas of black space where colour ought to be. |
f1453e5c |
627 | |
628 | You almost certainly need to enable the \q{Use background colour to |
629 | erase screen} setting in the Terminal panel. Note that if you do |
719793f0 |
630 | this in mid-session, in versions before 0.54, it may not take effect |
631 | until you reset the terminal (see \k{faq-resetterm}). |
f1453e5c |
632 | |
a1d2976b |
633 | \S{faq-resetterm}{Question} When I change some terminal settings, |
70706890 |
634 | nothing happens. |
f1453e5c |
635 | |
636 | Some of the terminal options (notably Auto Wrap and |
637 | background-colour screen erase) actually represent the \e{default} |
638 | setting, rather than the currently active setting. The server can |
639 | send sequences that modify these options in mid-session, but when |
640 | the terminal is reset (by server action, or by you choosing \q{Reset |
641 | Terminal} from the System menu) the defaults are restored. |
642 | |
5bcf5d50 |
643 | In versions 0.53b and prior, if you change one of these options in |
644 | the middle of a session, you will find that the change does not |
645 | immediately take effect. It will only take effect once you reset |
646 | the terminal. |
647 | |
e6c7a73a |
648 | In version 0.54, the behaviour has changed - changes to these |
649 | settings take effect immediately. |
f1453e5c |
650 | |
a1d2976b |
651 | \S{faq-idleout}{Question} My PuTTY sessions unexpectedly close after |
70706890 |
652 | they are idle for a while. |
ee46ef84 |
653 | |
654 | Some types of firewall, and almost any router doing Network Address |
655 | Translation (NAT, also known as IP masquerading), will forget about |
656 | a connection through them if the connection does nothing for too |
657 | long. This will cause the connection to be rudely cut off when |
658 | contact is resumed. |
659 | |
660 | You can try to combat this by telling PuTTY to send \e{keepalives}: |
661 | packets of data which have no effect on the actual session, but |
662 | which reassure the router or firewall that the network connection is |
663 | still active and worth remembering about. |
664 | |
665 | Keepalives don't solve everything, unfortunately; although they |
666 | cause greater robustness against this sort of router, they can also |
667 | cause a \e{loss} of robustness against network dropouts. See |
668 | \k{config-keepalive} in the documentation for more discussion of |
669 | this. |
670 | |
a1d2976b |
671 | \S{faq-timeout}{Question} PuTTY's network connections time out too |
70706890 |
672 | quickly when network connectivity is temporarily lost. |
ee46ef84 |
673 | |
674 | This is a Windows problem, not a PuTTY problem. The timeout value |
675 | can't be set on per application or per session basis. To increase |
676 | the TCP timeout globally, you need to tinker with the Registry. |
677 | |
8ac4ce9f |
678 | On Windows 95, 98 or ME, the registry key you need to create or |
679 | change is |
ee46ef84 |
680 | |
681 | \c HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\ |
682 | \c MSTCP\MaxDataRetries |
683 | |
684 | (it must be of type DWORD in Win95, or String in Win98/ME). |
8ac4ce9f |
685 | (See MS Knowledge Base article |
686 | \W{http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;158474}{158474} |
687 | for more information.) |
ee46ef84 |
688 | |
689 | On Windows NT or 2000, the registry key is |
690 | |
691 | \c HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\ |
692 | \c Parameters\TcpMaxDataRetransmissions |
693 | |
694 | and it must be of type DWORD. |
8ac4ce9f |
695 | (See MS Knowledge Base article |
696 | \W{http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;120642}{120642} |
697 | for more information.) |
ee46ef84 |
698 | |
699 | Set the key's value to something like 10. This will cause Windows to |
700 | try harder to keep connections alive instead of abandoning them. |
701 | |
a1d2976b |
702 | \S{faq-puttyputty}{Question} When I \cw{cat} a binary file, I get |
ee46ef84 |
703 | `PuTTYPuTTYPuTTY' on my command line. |
704 | |
a5a6cb30 |
705 | Don't do that, then. |
ee46ef84 |
706 | |
707 | This is designed behaviour; when PuTTY receives the character |
708 | Control-E from the remote server, it interprets it as a request to |
709 | identify itself, and so it sends back the string \q{\cw{PuTTY}} as |
710 | if that string had been entered at the keyboard. Control-E should |
711 | only be sent by programs that are prepared to deal with the |
712 | response. Writing a binary file to your terminal is likely to output |
713 | many Control-E characters, and cause this behaviour. Don't do it. |
714 | It's a bad plan. |
715 | |
a5a6cb30 |
716 | To mitigate the effects, you could configure the answerback string |
717 | to be empty (see \k{config-answerback}); but writing binary files to |
718 | your terminal is likely to cause various other unpleasant behaviour, |
719 | so this is only a small remedy. |
720 | |
babac7bd |
721 | \S{faq-wintitle}{Question} When I \cw{cat} a binary file, my window |
722 | title changes to a nonsense string. |
ee46ef84 |
723 | |
a5a6cb30 |
724 | Don't do that, then. |
ee46ef84 |
725 | |
726 | It is designed behaviour that PuTTY should have the ability to |
727 | adjust the window title on instructions from the server. Normally |
728 | the control sequence that does this should only be sent |
729 | deliberately, by programs that know what they are doing and intend |
730 | to put meaningful text in the window title. Writing a binary file to |
731 | your terminal runs the risk of sending the same control sequence by |
732 | accident, and cause unexpected changes in the window title. Don't do |
733 | it. |
734 | |
babac7bd |
735 | \S{faq-password-fails}{Question} My keyboard stops working once |
736 | PuTTY displays the password prompt. |
59c1f1f6 |
737 | |
738 | No, it doesn't. PuTTY just doesn't display the password you type, so |
739 | that someone looking at your screen can't see what it is. |
740 | |
741 | Unlike the Windows login prompts, PuTTY doesn't display the password |
742 | as a row of asterisks either. This is so that someone looking at |
743 | your screen can't even tell how \e{long} your password is, which |
744 | might be valuable information. |
745 | |
b5bee048 |
746 | \S{faq-keyboard}{Question} One or more function keys don't do what I |
747 | expected in a server-side application. |
748 | |
749 | If you've already tried all the relevant options in the PuTTY |
750 | Keyboard panel, you may need to mail the PuTTY maintainers and ask. |
751 | |
752 | It is \e{not} usually helpful just to tell us which application, |
753 | which server operating system, and which key isn't working; in order |
754 | to replicate the problem we would need to have a copy of every |
755 | operating system, and every application, that anyone has ever |
756 | complained about. |
757 | |
758 | PuTTY responds to function key presses by sending a sequence of |
759 | control characters to the server. If a function key isn't doing what |
760 | you expect, it's likely that the character sequence your application |
761 | is expecting to receive is not the same as the one PuTTY is sending. |
762 | Therefore what we really need to know is \e{what} sequence the |
763 | application is expecting. |
764 | |
765 | The simplest way to investigate this is to find some other terminal |
766 | environment, in which that function key \e{does} work; and then |
767 | investigate what sequence the function key is sending in that |
768 | situation. One reasonably easy way to do this on a Unix system is to |
769 | type the command \c{cat}, and then press the function key. This is |
770 | likely to produce output of the form \c{^[[11~}. You can also do |
771 | this in PuTTY, to find out what sequence the function key is |
772 | producing in that. Then you can mail the PuTTY maintainers and tell |
773 | us \q{I wanted the F1 key to send \c{^[[11~}, but instead it's |
774 | sending \c{^[OP}, can this be done?}, or something similar. |
775 | |
776 | You should still read the |
777 | \W{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/feedback.html}{Feedback |
778 | page} on the PuTTY website (also provided as \k{feedback} in the |
779 | manual), and follow the guidelines contained in that. |
780 | |
941d39e2 |
781 | \S{faq-openssh-bad-openssl}{Question} Since my SSH server was upgraded |
782 | to OpenSSH 3.1p1/3.4p1, I can no longer connect with PuTTY. |
1d2a9c9c |
783 | |
784 | There is a known problem when OpenSSH has been built against an |
785 | incorrect version of OpenSSL; the quick workaround is to configure |
786 | PuTTY to use SSH protocol 2 and the Blowfish cipher. |
787 | |
941d39e2 |
788 | For more details and OpenSSH patches, see |
789 | \W{http://bugzilla.mindrot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=138}{bug 138} in the |
790 | OpenSSH BTS. |
791 | |
1d2a9c9c |
792 | This is not a PuTTY-specific problem; if you try to connect with |
941d39e2 |
793 | another client you'll likely have similar problems. (Although PuTTY's |
794 | default cipher differs from many other clients.) |
1d2a9c9c |
795 | |
941d39e2 |
796 | \e{OpenSSH 3.1p1:} configurations known to be broken (and symptoms): |
1d2a9c9c |
797 | |
798 | \b SSH 2 with AES cipher (PuTTY says "Assertion failed! Expression: |
799 | (len & 15) == 0" in sshaes.c, or "Out of memory", or crashes) |
800 | |
9712b085 |
801 | \b SSH 2 with 3DES (PuTTY says "Incorrect MAC received on packet") |
802 | |
1d2a9c9c |
803 | \b SSH 1 with Blowfish (PuTTY says "Incorrect CRC received on |
804 | packet") |
805 | |
806 | \b SSH 1 with 3DES |
807 | |
941d39e2 |
808 | \e{OpenSSH 3.4p1:} as of 3.4p1, only the problem with SSH 1 and |
809 | Blowfish remains. Rebuild your server, apply the patch linked to from |
810 | bug 138 above, or use another cipher (e.g., 3DES) instead. |
59f76022 |
811 | |
46ccbe20 |
812 | \e{Other versions:} we occasionally get reports of the same symptom |
813 | and workarounds with older versions of OpenSSH, although it's not |
814 | clear the underlying cause is the same. |
815 | |
1bb76745 |
816 | \S{faq-ssh2key-ssh1conn}{Question} Why do I see "Couldn't load private |
817 | key from ..."? Why can PuTTYgen load my key but not PuTTY? |
818 | |
819 | It's likely that you've generated an SSH protocol 2 key with PuTTYgen, |
820 | but you're trying to use it in an SSH 1 connection. SSH1 and SSH2 keys |
821 | have different formats, and (at least in 0.52) PuTTY's reporting of a |
822 | key in the wrong format isn't optimal. |
823 | |
824 | To connect using SSH 2 to a server that supports both versions, you |
825 | need to change the configuration from the default (see \k{faq-ssh2}). |
826 | |
2c4b913d |
827 | \S{faq-rh8-utf8}{Question} When I'm connected to a Red Hat Linux 8.0 |
828 | system, some characters don't display properly. |
829 | |
830 | A common complaint is that hyphens in man pages show up as a-acute. |
831 | |
832 | With release 8.0, Red Hat appear to have made UTF-8 the default |
833 | character set. There appears to be no way for terminal emulators such |
834 | as PuTTY to know this (as far as we know, the appropriate escape |
835 | sequence to switch into UTF-8 mode isn't sent). |
836 | |
837 | A fix is to configure sessions to RH8 systems to use UTF-8 |
838 | translation - see \k{config-charset} in the documentation. (Note that |
839 | if you use \q{Change Settings}, changes may not take place immediately |
840 | - see \k{faq-resetterm}.) |
841 | |
842 | If you really want to change the character set used by the server, the |
843 | right place is \c{/etc/sysconfig/i18n}, but this shouldn't be |
844 | necessary. |
845 | |
b86e68d8 |
846 | \S{faq-screen}{Question} Since I upgraded to PuTTY 0.54, the |
847 | scrollback has stopped working when I run \c{screen}. |
848 | |
849 | PuTTY's terminal emulator has always had the policy that when the |
850 | \q{alternate screen} is in use, nothing is added to the scrollback. |
851 | This is because the usual sorts of programs which use the alternate |
852 | screen are things like text editors, which tend to scroll back and |
853 | forth in the same document a lot; so (a) they would fill up the |
854 | scrollback with a large amount of unhelpfully disordered text, and |
855 | (b) they contain their \e{own} method for the user to scroll back to |
856 | the bit they were interested in. We have generally found this policy |
857 | to do the Right Thing in almost all situations. |
858 | |
859 | Unfortunately, \c{screen} is one exception: it uses the alternate |
860 | screen, but it's still usually helpful to have PuTTY's scrollback |
861 | continue working. The simplest solution is to go to the Features |
862 | control panel and tick \q{Disable switching to alternate terminal |
863 | screen}. (See \k{config-features-altscreen} for more details.) |
864 | |
865 | The reason why this only started to be a problem in 0.54 is because |
866 | \c{screen} typically uses an unusual control sequence to switch to |
867 | the alternate screen, and previous versions of PuTTY did not support |
868 | this sequence. |
869 | |
ee46ef84 |
870 | \H{faq-secure} Security questions |
871 | |
a1d2976b |
872 | \S{faq-publicpc}{Question} Is it safe for me to download PuTTY and |
70706890 |
873 | use it on a public PC? |
ee46ef84 |
874 | |
875 | It depends on whether you trust that PC. If you don't trust the |
876 | public PC, don't use PuTTY on it, and don't use any other software |
877 | you plan to type passwords into either. It might be watching your |
878 | keystrokes, or it might tamper with the PuTTY binary you download. |
879 | There is \e{no} program safe enough that you can run it on an |
880 | actively malicious PC and get away with typing passwords into it. |
881 | |
882 | If you do trust the PC, then it's probably OK to use PuTTY on it |
883 | (but if you don't trust the network, then the PuTTY download might |
884 | be tampered with, so it would be better to carry PuTTY with you on a |
885 | floppy). |
886 | |
a1d2976b |
887 | \S{faq-cleanup}{Question} What does PuTTY leave on a system? How can |
70706890 |
888 | I clean up after it? |
ee46ef84 |
889 | |
890 | PuTTY will leave some Registry entries, and a random seed file, on |
891 | the PC (see \k{faq-settings}). If you are using PuTTY on a public |
892 | PC, or somebody else's PC, you might want to clean these up when you |
893 | leave. You can do that automatically, by running the command |
894 | \c{putty -cleanup}. |
895 | |
a1d2976b |
896 | \S{faq-dsa}{Question} How come PuTTY now supports DSA, when the |
70706890 |
897 | website used to say how insecure it was? |
ee46ef84 |
898 | |
899 | DSA has a major weakness \e{if badly implemented}: it relies on a |
900 | random number generator to far too great an extent. If the random |
901 | number generator produces a number an attacker can predict, the DSA |
902 | private key is exposed - meaning that the attacker can log in as you |
903 | on all systems that accept that key. |
904 | |
905 | The PuTTY policy changed because the developers were informed of |
906 | ways to implement DSA which do not suffer nearly as badly from this |
907 | weakness, and indeed which don't need to rely on random numbers at |
908 | all. For this reason we now believe PuTTY's DSA implementation is |
909 | probably OK. However, if you have the choice, we still recommend you |
910 | use RSA instead. |
911 | |
ee4b471f |
912 | \S{faq-virtuallock}{Question} Couldn't Pageant use |
913 | \cw{VirtualLock()} to stop private keys being written to disk? |
f9908cf7 |
914 | |
ee4b471f |
915 | Unfortunately not. The \cw{VirtualLock()} function in the Windows |
916 | API doesn't do a proper job: it may prevent small pieces of a |
917 | process's memory from being paged to disk while the process is |
918 | running, but it doesn't stop the process's memory as a whole from |
919 | being swapped completely out to disk when the process is long-term |
920 | inactive. And Pageant spends most of its time inactive. |
f9908cf7 |
921 | |
ee46ef84 |
922 | \H{faq-admin} Administrative questions |
923 | |
a1d2976b |
924 | \S{faq-domain}{Question} Would you like me to register you a nicer |
70706890 |
925 | domain name? |
ee46ef84 |
926 | |
927 | No, thank you. Even if you can find one (most of them seem to have |
928 | been registered already, by people who didn't ask whether we |
929 | actually wanted it before they applied), we're happy with the PuTTY |
930 | web site being exactly where it is. It's not hard to find (just type |
931 | \q{putty} into \W{http://www.google.com/}{google.com} and we're the |
932 | first link returned), and we don't believe the administrative hassle |
933 | of moving the site would be worth the benefit. |
934 | |
935 | In addition, if we \e{did} want a custom domain name, we would want |
936 | to run it ourselves, so we knew for certain that it would continue |
937 | to point where we wanted it, and wouldn't suddenly change or do |
938 | strange things. Having it registered for us by a third party who we |
939 | don't even know is not the best way to achieve this. |
940 | |
a1d2976b |
941 | \S{faq-webhosting}{Question} Would you like free web hosting for the |
70706890 |
942 | PuTTY web site? |
ee46ef84 |
943 | |
944 | We already have some, thanks. |
945 | |
34185d04 |
946 | \S{faq-link}{Question} Would you link to my web site from the PuTTY |
947 | web site? |
948 | |
949 | Only if the content of your web page is of definite direct interest |
950 | to PuTTY users. If your content is unrelated, or only tangentially |
951 | related, to PuTTY, then the link would simply be advertising for |
952 | you. |
953 | |
954 | One very nice effect of the Google ranking mechanism is that by and |
955 | large, the most popular web sites get the highest rankings. This |
956 | means that when an ordinary person does a search, the top item in |
957 | the search is very likely to be a high-quality site or the site they |
958 | actually wanted, rather than the site which paid the most money for |
959 | its ranking. |
960 | |
961 | The PuTTY web site is held in high esteem by Google, for precisely |
962 | this reason: lots of people have linked to it simply because they |
963 | like PuTTY, without us ever having to ask anyone to link to us. We |
964 | feel that it would be an abuse of this esteem to use it to boost the |
965 | ranking of random advertisers' web sites. If you want your web site |
966 | to have a high Google ranking, we'd prefer that you achieve this the |
967 | way we did - by being good enough at what you do that people will |
968 | link to you simply because they like you. |
969 | |
b609f258 |
970 | In particular, we aren't interested in trading links for money (see |
971 | above), and we \e{certainly} aren't interested in trading links for |
972 | other links (since we have no advertising on our web site, our |
973 | Google ranking is not even directly worth anything to us). If we |
974 | don't want to link to you for free, then we probably won't want to |
975 | link to you at all. |
976 | |
34185d04 |
977 | If you have software based on PuTTY, or specifically designed to |
978 | interoperate with PuTTY, or in some other way of genuine interest to |
979 | PuTTY users, then we will probably be happy to add a link to you on |
980 | our Links page. And if you're running a mirror of the PuTTY web |
981 | site, we're \e{definitely} interested. |
982 | |
a1d2976b |
983 | \S{faq-sourceforge}{Question} Why don't you move PuTTY to |
70706890 |
984 | SourceForge? |
ee46ef84 |
985 | |
986 | Partly, because we don't want to move the web site location (see |
987 | \k{faq-domain}). |
988 | |
989 | Also, security reasons. PuTTY is a security product, and as such it |
990 | is particularly important to guard the code and the web site against |
991 | unauthorised modifications which might introduce subtle security |
992 | flaws. Therefore, we prefer that the CVS repository, web site and |
993 | FTP site remain where they are, under the direct control of system |
994 | administrators we know and trust personally, rather than being run |
995 | by a large organisation full of people we've never met and which is |
996 | known to have had breakins in the past. |
997 | |
998 | No offence to SourceForge; I think they do a wonderful job. But |
999 | they're not ideal for everyone, and in particular they're not ideal |
1000 | for us. |
1001 | |
a1d2976b |
1002 | \S{faq-mailinglist1}{Question} Why can't I subscribe to the |
70706890 |
1003 | putty-bugs mailing list? |
ee46ef84 |
1004 | |
1005 | Because you're not a member of the PuTTY core development team. The |
1006 | putty-bugs mailing list is not a general newsgroup-like discussion |
1007 | forum; it's a contact address for the core developers, and an |
1008 | \e{internal} mailing list for us to discuss things among ourselves. |
1009 | If we opened it up for everybody to subscribe to, it would turn into |
1010 | something more like a newsgroup and we would be completely |
1011 | overwhelmed by the volume of traffic. It's hard enough to keep up |
1012 | with the list as it is. |
1013 | |
a1d2976b |
1014 | \S{faq-mailinglist2}{Question} If putty-bugs isn't a |
70706890 |
1015 | general-subscription mailing list, what is? |
ee46ef84 |
1016 | |
1017 | There isn't one, that we know of. |
1018 | |
be86e512 |
1019 | If someone else wants to set up a mailing list or other forum for |
1020 | PuTTY users to help each other with common problems, that would be |
1021 | fine with us, though the PuTTY team would almost certainly not have the |
1022 | time to read it. It's probably better to use the established |
1023 | newsgroup \cw{comp.security.ssh} for this purpose. |
ee46ef84 |
1024 | |
a1d2976b |
1025 | \S{faq-donations}{Question} How can I donate to PuTTY development? |
ee46ef84 |
1026 | |
1027 | Please, \e{please} don't feel you have to. PuTTY is completely free |
1028 | software, and not shareware. We think it's very important that |
1029 | \e{everybody} who wants to use PuTTY should be able to, whether they |
1030 | have any money or not; so the last thing we would want is for a |
1031 | PuTTY user to feel guilty because they haven't paid us any money. If |
1032 | you want to keep your money, please do keep it. We wouldn't dream of |
1033 | asking for any. |
1034 | |
1035 | Having said all that, if you still really \e{want} to give us money, |
1036 | we won't argue :-) The easiest way for us to accept donations is if |
2244ea7b |
1037 | you send money to \cw{<anakin@pobox.com>} using PayPal |
1038 | (\W{http://www.paypal.com/}\cw{www.paypal.com}). Alternatively, if |
1039 | you don't trust PayPal, you could donate through e-gold |
1040 | (\W{http://www.e-gold.com}\cw{www.e-gold.com}): deposit your |
1041 | donation in account number 174769, then send us e-mail to let us |
1042 | know you've done so (otherwise we might not notice for months!). |
ee46ef84 |
1043 | |
1044 | Small donations (tens of dollars or tens of euros) will probably be |
1045 | spent on beer or curry, which helps motivate our volunteer team to |
1046 | continue doing this for the world. Larger donations will be spent on |
1047 | something that actually helps development, if we can find anything |
9cd3f7b0 |
1048 | (perhaps new hardware, or a copy of Windows XP), but if we can't |
ee46ef84 |
1049 | find anything then we'll just distribute the money among the |
1050 | developers. If you want to be sure your donation is going towards |
1051 | something worthwhile, ask us first. If you don't like these terms, |
1052 | feel perfectly free not to donate. We don't mind. |
1053 | |
150ef9c6 |
1054 | \S{faq-permission}{Question} Can I have permission to put PuTTY on a |
1055 | cover disk / distribute it with other software / etc? |
1056 | |
1057 | Yes. You need not bother asking us explicitly for permission. You |
1058 | already have permission. Redistribution of the unmodified PuTTY |
1059 | binary in this way is entirely permitted by our licence, and you are |
1060 | welcome to do it as much as you like. |
1061 | |
1062 | If you are distributing PuTTY within your own organisation, or for |
1063 | use with your own product, then we recommend (but do not insist) |
1064 | that you offer your own first-line technical support, to answer |
1065 | questions directly relating to the interaction of PuTTY with your |
1066 | particular environment. If your users mail us directly, we won't be |
1067 | able to give them very much help about things specific to your own |
1068 | setup. |
1069 | |
f9908cf7 |
1070 | \H{faq-misc} Miscellaneous questions |
1071 | |
1072 | \S{faq-openssh}{Question} Is PuTTY a port of OpenSSH, or based on |
1073 | OpenSSH? |
1074 | |
1075 | No, it isn't. PuTTY is almost completely composed of code written |
1076 | from scratch for PuTTY. The only code we share with OpenSSH is the |
1077 | detector for SSH1 CRC compensation attacks, written by CORE SDI S.A. |
1078 | |
606398fb |
1079 | \S{faq-sillyputty}{Question} Where can I buy silly putty? |
1080 | |
1081 | You're looking at the wrong web site; the only PuTTY we know about |
1082 | here is the name of a computer program. |
1083 | |
1084 | If you want the kind of putty you can buy as an executive toy, the |
1085 | PuTTY team can personally recommend Thinking Putty, which you can |
1086 | buy from Crazy Aaron's Putty World, at |
1087 | \W{http://www.puttyworld.com}\cw{www.puttyworld.com}. |
1088 | |
fa58cf81 |
1089 | \S{faq-meaning}{Question} What does \q{PuTTY} mean? |
ee46ef84 |
1090 | |
fa58cf81 |
1091 | It's the name of a popular SSH and Telnet client. Any other meaning |
1092 | is in the eye of the beholder. It's been rumoured that \q{PuTTY} |
1093 | is the antonym of \q{\cw{getty}}, or that it's the stuff that makes your |
1094 | Windows useful, or that it's a kind of plutonium Teletype. We |
1095 | couldn't possibly comment on such allegations. |
1096 | |
1097 | \S{faq-pronounce}{Question} How do I pronounce \q{PuTTY}? |
1098 | |
1099 | Exactly like the English word \q{putty}, which we pronounce |
1100 | /\u02C8{'}p\u028C{V}t\u026A{I}/. |