| 1 | \versionid $Id: using.but,v 1.19 2004/02/08 00:14:57 jacob Exp $ |
| 2 | |
| 3 | \C{using} Using PuTTY |
| 4 | |
| 5 | This chapter provides a general introduction to some more advanced |
| 6 | features of PuTTY. For extreme detail and reference purposes, |
| 7 | \k{config} is likely to contain more information. |
| 8 | |
| 9 | \H{using-session} During your session |
| 10 | |
| 11 | A lot of PuTTY's complexity and features are in the configuration |
| 12 | panel. Once you have worked your way through that and started |
| 13 | a session, things should be reasonably simple after that. |
| 14 | Nevertheless, there are a few more useful features available. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | \S{using-selection} Copying and pasting text |
| 17 | |
| 18 | Often in a PuTTY session you will find text on your terminal screen |
| 19 | which you want to type in again. Like most other terminal emulators, |
| 20 | PuTTY allows you to copy and paste the text rather than having to |
| 21 | type it again. Also, copy and paste uses the Windows clipboard, so |
| 22 | that you can paste (for example) URLs into a web browser, or paste |
| 23 | from a word processor or spreadsheet into your terminal session. |
| 24 | |
| 25 | PuTTY's copy and paste works entirely with the mouse. In order to |
| 26 | copy text to the clipboard, you just click the left mouse button in |
| 27 | the terminal window, and drag to select text. When you let go of the |
| 28 | button, the text is \e{automatically} copied to the clipboard. You |
| 29 | do not need to press Ctrl-C or Ctrl-Ins; in fact, if you do press |
| 30 | Ctrl-C, PuTTY will send a Ctrl-C character down your session to the |
| 31 | server where it will probably cause a process to be interrupted. |
| 32 | |
| 33 | Pasting is done using the right button (or the middle mouse button, |
| 34 | if you have a three-button mouse and have set it up; see |
| 35 | \k{config-mouse}). (Pressing Shift-Ins, or selecting \q{Paste} from |
| 36 | the Ctrl+right-click context menu, have the same effect.) |
| 37 | When you click the right mouse button, PuTTY will |
| 38 | read whatever is in the Windows Clipboard and paste it into your |
| 39 | session, \e{exactly} as if it had been typed at the keyboard. |
| 40 | (Therefore, be careful of pasting formatted text into an editor that |
| 41 | does automatic indenting; you may find that the spaces pasted from |
| 42 | the clipboard plus the spaces added by the editor add up to too many |
| 43 | spaces and ruin the formatting. There is nothing PuTTY can do about |
| 44 | this.) |
| 45 | |
| 46 | If you double-click the left mouse button, PuTTY will select a whole |
| 47 | word. If you double-click, hold down the second click, and drag the |
| 48 | mouse, PuTTY will select a sequence of whole words. (You can adjust |
| 49 | precisely what PuTTY considers to be part of a word; see |
| 50 | \k{config-charclasses}.) If you \e{triple}-click, or triple-click |
| 51 | and drag, then PuTTY will select a whole line or sequence of lines. |
| 52 | |
| 53 | If you want to select a rectangular region instead of selecting to |
| 54 | the end of each line, you can do this by holding down Alt when you |
| 55 | make your selection. (You can also configure rectangular selection |
| 56 | to be the default, and then holding down Alt gives the normal |
| 57 | behaviour instead. See \k{config-rectselect} for details.) |
| 58 | |
| 59 | If you have a middle mouse button, then you can use it to adjust an |
| 60 | existing selection if you selected something slightly wrong. (If you |
| 61 | have configured the middle mouse button to paste, then the right |
| 62 | mouse button does this instead.) Click the button on the screen, and |
| 63 | you can pick up the nearest end of the selection and drag it to |
| 64 | somewhere else. |
| 65 | |
| 66 | It's possible for the server to ask to handle mouse clicks in the |
| 67 | PuTTY window itself. If this happens, the mouse cursor will turn |
| 68 | into an arrow, and copy and paste will only work if you hold down |
| 69 | Shift. See \k{config-features-mouse} and \k{config-mouseshift} for |
| 70 | details of this feature and how to configure it. |
| 71 | |
| 72 | \S{using-scrollback} Scrolling the screen back |
| 73 | |
| 74 | PuTTY keeps track of text that has scrolled up off the top of the |
| 75 | terminal. So if something appears on the screen that you want to |
| 76 | read, but it scrolls too fast and it's gone by the time you try to |
| 77 | look for it, you can use the scrollbar on the right side of the |
| 78 | window to look back up the session history and find it again. |
| 79 | |
| 80 | As well as using the scrollbar, you can also page the scrollback up |
| 81 | and down by pressing Shift-PgUp and Shift-PgDn. You can scroll a |
| 82 | line at a time using Ctrl-PgUp and Ctrl-PgDn. These are still |
| 83 | available if you configure the scrollbar to be invisible. |
| 84 | |
| 85 | By default the last 200 lines scrolled off the top are |
| 86 | preserved for you to look at. You can increase (or decrease) this |
| 87 | value using the configuration box; see \k{config-scrollback}. |
| 88 | |
| 89 | \S{using-sysmenu} The System menu |
| 90 | |
| 91 | If you click the left mouse button on the icon in the top left |
| 92 | corner of PuTTY's window, or click the right mouse button on the |
| 93 | title bar, you will see the standard Windows system menu containing |
| 94 | items like Minimise, Move, Size and Close. |
| 95 | |
| 96 | PuTTY's system menu contains extra program features in addition to |
| 97 | the Windows standard options. These extra menu commands are |
| 98 | described below. |
| 99 | |
| 100 | (These options are also available in a context menu brought up |
| 101 | by holding Ctrl and clicking with the right mouse button anywhere |
| 102 | in the PuTTY window.) |
| 103 | |
| 104 | \S2{using-eventlog} The PuTTY Event Log |
| 105 | |
| 106 | If you choose \q{Event Log} from the system menu, a small window |
| 107 | will pop up in which PuTTY logs significant events during the |
| 108 | connection. Most of the events in the log will probably take place |
| 109 | during session startup, but a few can occur at any point in the |
| 110 | session, and one or two occur right at the end. |
| 111 | |
| 112 | You can use the mouse to select one or more lines of the Event Log, |
| 113 | and hit the Copy button to copy them to the clipboard. If you are |
| 114 | reporting a bug, it's often useful to paste the contents of the |
| 115 | Event Log into your bug report. |
| 116 | |
| 117 | \S2{using-specials} Special commands |
| 118 | |
| 119 | Depending on the protocol used for the current session, there may be a |
| 120 | submenu of \q{special commands}. These are protocol-specific tokens, |
| 121 | such as a \q{break} signal, that can be sent down a connection in |
| 122 | addition to normal data. Currently only Telnet and SSH have special |
| 123 | commands. |
| 124 | |
| 125 | \S2{using-newsession} Starting new sessions |
| 126 | |
| 127 | PuTTY's system menu provides some shortcut ways to start new |
| 128 | sessions: |
| 129 | |
| 130 | \b Selecting \q{New Session} will start a completely new instance of |
| 131 | PuTTY, and bring up the configuration box as normal. |
| 132 | |
| 133 | \b Selecting \q{Duplicate Session} will start a session with |
| 134 | precisely the same options as your current one - connecting to the |
| 135 | same host using the same protocol, with all the same terminal |
| 136 | settings and everything. |
| 137 | |
| 138 | \b The \q{Saved Sessions} submenu gives you quick access to any |
| 139 | sets of stored session details you have previously saved. See |
| 140 | \k{config-saving} for details of how to create saved sessions. |
| 141 | |
| 142 | \S2{using-changesettings} Changing your session settings |
| 143 | |
| 144 | If you select \q{Change Settings} from the system menu, PuTTY will |
| 145 | display a cut-down version of its initial configuration box. This |
| 146 | allows you to adjust most properties of your current session. You |
| 147 | can change the terminal size, the font, the actions of various |
| 148 | keypresses, the colours, and so on. |
| 149 | |
| 150 | Some of the options that are available in the main configuration box |
| 151 | are not shown in the cut-down Change Settings box. These are usually |
| 152 | options which don't make sense to change in the middle of a session |
| 153 | (for example, you can't switch from SSH to Telnet in mid-session). |
| 154 | |
| 155 | \S2{using-copyall} Copy All to Clipboard |
| 156 | |
| 157 | This system menu option provides a convenient way to copy the whole |
| 158 | contents of the terminal screen and scrollback to the clipboard in |
| 159 | one go. |
| 160 | |
| 161 | \S2{reset-terminal} Clearing and resetting the terminal |
| 162 | |
| 163 | The \q{Clear Scrollback} option on the system menu tells PuTTY to |
| 164 | discard all the lines of text that have been kept after they |
| 165 | scrolled off the top of the screen. This might be useful, for |
| 166 | example, if you displayed sensitive information and wanted to make |
| 167 | sure nobody could look over your shoulder and see it. (Note that |
| 168 | this only prevents a casual user from using the scrollbar to view |
| 169 | the information; the text is not guaranteed not to still be in |
| 170 | PuTTY's memory.) |
| 171 | |
| 172 | The \q{Reset Terminal} option causes a full reset of the terminal |
| 173 | emulation. A VT-series terminal is a complex piece of software and |
| 174 | can easily get into a state where all the text printed becomes |
| 175 | unreadable. (This can happen, for example, if you accidentally |
| 176 | output a binary file to your terminal.) If this happens, selecting |
| 177 | Reset Terminal should sort it out. |
| 178 | |
| 179 | \S2{using-fullscreen} Full screen mode |
| 180 | |
| 181 | If you find the title bar on a maximised window to be ugly or |
| 182 | distracting, you can select Full Screen mode to maximise PuTTY |
| 183 | \q{even more}. When you select this, PuTTY will expand to fill the |
| 184 | whole screen and its borders, title bar and scrollbar will |
| 185 | disappear. (You can configure the scrollbar not to disappear in |
| 186 | full-screen mode if you want to keep it; see \k{config-scrollback}.) |
| 187 | |
| 188 | When you are in full-screen mode, you can still access the system |
| 189 | menu if you click the left mouse button in the \e{extreme} top left |
| 190 | corner of the screen. |
| 191 | |
| 192 | \H{using-logging} Creating a log file of your session |
| 193 | |
| 194 | For some purposes you may find you want to log everything that |
| 195 | appears on your screen. You can do this using the \q{Logging} panel |
| 196 | in the configuration box. |
| 197 | |
| 198 | To begin a session log, select \q{Change Settings} from the system |
| 199 | menu and go to the Logging panel. Enter a log file name, and select |
| 200 | a logging mode. (You can log all session output including the |
| 201 | terminal control sequences, or you can just log the printable text. |
| 202 | It depends what you want the log for.) Click \q{Apply} and your log |
| 203 | will be started. Later on, you can go back to the Logging panel and |
| 204 | select \q{Logging turned off completely} to stop logging; then PuTTY |
| 205 | will close the log file and you can safely read it. |
| 206 | |
| 207 | See \k{config-logging} for more details and options. |
| 208 | |
| 209 | \H{using-translation} Altering your character set configuration |
| 210 | |
| 211 | If you find that special characters (accented characters, for |
| 212 | example) are not being displayed correctly in your PuTTY session, it |
| 213 | may be that PuTTY is interpreting the characters sent by the server |
| 214 | according to the wrong \e{character set}. There are a lot of |
| 215 | different character sets available, so it's entirely possible for |
| 216 | this to happen. |
| 217 | |
| 218 | If you click \q{Change Settings} and look at the \q{Translation} |
| 219 | panel, you should see a large number of character sets which you can |
| 220 | select. Now all you need is to find out which of them you want! |
| 221 | |
| 222 | \H{using-x-forwarding} Using X11 forwarding in SSH |
| 223 | |
| 224 | The SSH protocol has the ability to securely forward X Window System |
| 225 | applications over your encrypted SSH connection, so that you can run |
| 226 | an application on the SSH server machine and have it put its windows |
| 227 | up on your local machine without sending any X network traffic in |
| 228 | the clear. |
| 229 | |
| 230 | In order to use this feature, you will need an X display server for |
| 231 | your Windows machine, such as X-Win32 or Exceed. This will probably |
| 232 | install itself as display number 0 on your local machine; if it |
| 233 | doesn't, the manual for the X server should tell you what it does |
| 234 | do. |
| 235 | |
| 236 | You should then tick the \q{Enable X11 forwarding} box in the |
| 237 | Tunnels panel (see \k{config-ssh-x11}) before starting your SSH |
| 238 | session. The \q{X display location} box reads \c{localhost:0} by |
| 239 | default, which is the usual display location where your X server |
| 240 | will be installed. If that needs changing, then change it. |
| 241 | |
| 242 | Now you should be able to log in to the SSH server as normal. To |
| 243 | check that X forwarding has been successfully negotiated during |
| 244 | connection startup, you can check the PuTTY Event Log (see |
| 245 | \k{using-eventlog}). It should say something like this: |
| 246 | |
| 247 | \c 2001-12-05 17:22:01 Requesting X11 forwarding |
| 248 | \c 2001-12-05 17:22:02 X11 forwarding enabled |
| 249 | |
| 250 | If the remote system is Unix or Unix-like, you should also be able |
| 251 | to see that the \c{DISPLAY} environment variable has been set to |
| 252 | point at display 10 or above on the SSH server machine itself: |
| 253 | |
| 254 | \c fred@unixbox:~$ echo $DISPLAY |
| 255 | \c unixbox:10.0 |
| 256 | |
| 257 | If this works, you should then be able to run X applications in the |
| 258 | remote session and have them display their windows on your PC. |
| 259 | |
| 260 | Note that if your PC X server requires authentication to connect, |
| 261 | then PuTTY cannot currently support it. If this is a problem for |
| 262 | you, you should mail the PuTTY authors \#{FIXME} and give details |
| 263 | (see \k{feedback}). |
| 264 | |
| 265 | \H{using-port-forwarding} Using port forwarding in SSH |
| 266 | |
| 267 | The SSH protocol has the ability to forward arbitrary network |
| 268 | connections over your encrypted SSH connection, to avoid the network |
| 269 | traffic being sent in clear. For example, you could use this to |
| 270 | connect from your home computer to a POP-3 server on a remote |
| 271 | machine without your POP-3 password being visible to network |
| 272 | sniffers. |
| 273 | |
| 274 | In order to use port forwarding to connect from your local machine |
| 275 | to a port on a remote server, you need to: |
| 276 | |
| 277 | \b Choose a port number on your local machine where PuTTY should |
| 278 | listen for incoming connections. There are likely to be plenty of |
| 279 | unused port numbers above 3000. (You can also use a local loopback |
| 280 | address here; see below for more details.) |
| 281 | |
| 282 | \b Now, before you start your SSH connection, go to the Tunnels |
| 283 | panel (see \k{config-ssh-portfwd}). Make sure the \q{Local} radio |
| 284 | button is set. Enter the local port number into the \q{Source port} |
| 285 | box. Enter the destination host name and port number into the |
| 286 | \q{Destination} box, separated by a colon (for example, |
| 287 | \c{popserver.example.com:110} to connect to a POP-3 server). |
| 288 | |
| 289 | \b Now click the \q{Add} button. The details of your port forwarding |
| 290 | should appear in the list box. |
| 291 | |
| 292 | Now start your session and log in. (Port forwarding will not be |
| 293 | enabled until after you have logged in; otherwise it would be easy |
| 294 | to perform completely anonymous network attacks, and gain access to |
| 295 | anyone's virtual private network). To check that PuTTY has set up |
| 296 | the port forwarding correctly, you can look at the PuTTY Event Log |
| 297 | (see \k{using-eventlog}). It should say something like this: |
| 298 | |
| 299 | \c 2001-12-05 17:22:10 Local port 3110 forwarding to |
| 300 | \c popserver.example.com:110 |
| 301 | |
| 302 | Now if you connect to the source port number on your local PC, you |
| 303 | should find that it answers you exactly as if it were the service |
| 304 | running on the destination machine. So in this example, you could |
| 305 | then configure an e-mail client to use \c{localhost:3110} as a POP-3 |
| 306 | server instead of \c{popserver.example.com:110}. (Of course, the |
| 307 | forwarding will stop happening when your PuTTY session closes down.) |
| 308 | |
| 309 | You can also forward ports in the other direction: arrange for a |
| 310 | particular port number on the \e{server} machine to be forwarded |
| 311 | back to your PC as a connection to a service on your PC or near it. |
| 312 | To do this, just select the \q{Remote} radio button instead of the |
| 313 | \q{Local} one. The \q{Source port} box will now specify a port |
| 314 | number on the \e{server} (note that most servers will not allow you |
| 315 | to use port numbers under 1024 for this purpose). |
| 316 | |
| 317 | An alternative way to forward local connections to remote hosts is |
| 318 | to use dynamic SOCKS proxying. For this, you will need to select the |
| 319 | \q{Dynamic} radio button instead of \q{Local}, and then you should |
| 320 | not enter anything into the \q{Destination} box (it will be |
| 321 | ignored). This will cause PuTTY to listen on the port you have |
| 322 | specified, and provide a SOCKS proxy service to any programs which |
| 323 | connect to that port. So, in particular, you can forward other PuTTY |
| 324 | connections through it by setting up the Proxy control panel (see |
| 325 | \k{config-proxy} for details). |
| 326 | |
| 327 | The source port for a forwarded connection usually does not accept |
| 328 | connections from any machine except the SSH client or server machine |
| 329 | itself (for local and remote forwardings respectively). There are |
| 330 | controls in the Tunnels panel to change this: |
| 331 | |
| 332 | \b The \q{Local ports accept connections from other hosts} option |
| 333 | allows you to set up local-to-remote port forwardings (including |
| 334 | dynamic port forwardings) in such a way that machines other than |
| 335 | your client PC can connect to the forwarded port. |
| 336 | |
| 337 | \b The \q{Remote ports do the same} option does the same thing for |
| 338 | remote-to-local port forwardings (so that machines other than the |
| 339 | SSH server machine can connect to the forwarded port.) Note that |
| 340 | this feature is only available in the SSH 2 protocol, and not all |
| 341 | SSH 2 servers support it (OpenSSH 3.0 does not, for example). |
| 342 | |
| 343 | You can also specify an IP address to listen on. Typically a |
| 344 | Windows machine can be asked to listen on any single IP address in |
| 345 | the \cw{127.*.*.*} range, and all of these are loopback addresses |
| 346 | available only to the local machine. So if you forward (for |
| 347 | example) \c{127.0.0.5:79} to a remote machine's \cw{finger} port, |
| 348 | then you should be able to run commands such as \c{finger |
| 349 | fred@127.0.0.5}. This can be useful if the program connecting to |
| 350 | the forwarded port doesn't allow you to change the port number it |
| 351 | uses. This feature is available for local-to-remote forwarded |
| 352 | ports; SSH1 is unable to support it for remote-to-local ports, |
| 353 | while SSH2 can support it in theory but servers will not |
| 354 | necessarily cooperate. |
| 355 | |
| 356 | \H{using-rawprot} Making raw TCP connections |
| 357 | |
| 358 | A lot of Internet protocols are composed of commands and responses |
| 359 | in plain text. For example, SMTP (the protocol used to transfer |
| 360 | e-mail), NNTP (the protocol used to transfer Usenet news), and HTTP |
| 361 | (the protocol used to serve Web pages) all consist of commands in |
| 362 | readable plain text. |
| 363 | |
| 364 | Sometimes it can be useful to connect directly to one of these |
| 365 | services and speak the protocol \q{by hand}, by typing protocol |
| 366 | commands and watching the responses. On Unix machines, you can do |
| 367 | this using the system's \c{telnet} command to connect to the right |
| 368 | port number. For example, \c{telnet mailserver.example.com 25} might |
| 369 | enable you to talk directly to the SMTP service running on a mail |
| 370 | server. |
| 371 | |
| 372 | Although the Unix \c{telnet} program provides this functionality, |
| 373 | the protocol being used is not really Telnet. Really there is no |
| 374 | actual protocol at all; the bytes sent down the connection are |
| 375 | exactly the ones you type, and the bytes shown on the screen are |
| 376 | exactly the ones sent by the server. Unix \c{telnet} will attempt to |
| 377 | detect or guess whether the service it is talking to is a real |
| 378 | Telnet service or not; PuTTY prefers to be told for certain. |
| 379 | |
| 380 | In order to make a debugging connection to a service of this type, |
| 381 | you simply select the fourth protocol name, \q{Raw}, from the |
| 382 | \q{Protocol} buttons in the \q{Session} configuration panel. (See |
| 383 | \k{config-hostname}.) You can then enter a host name and a port |
| 384 | number, and make the connection. |
| 385 | |
| 386 | \H{using-cmdline} The PuTTY command line |
| 387 | |
| 388 | PuTTY can be made to do various things without user intervention by |
| 389 | supplying command-line arguments (e.g., from a command prompt window, |
| 390 | or a Windows shortcut). |
| 391 | |
| 392 | \S{using-cmdline-session} Starting a session from the command line |
| 393 | |
| 394 | These options allow you to bypass the configuration window and launch |
| 395 | straight into a session. |
| 396 | |
| 397 | To start a connection to a server called \c{host}: |
| 398 | |
| 399 | \c putty.exe [-ssh | -telnet | -rlogin | -raw] [user@]host |
| 400 | |
| 401 | If this syntax is used, settings are taken from the Default Settings |
| 402 | (see \k{config-saving}); \c{user} overrides these settings if |
| 403 | supplied. Also, you can specify a protocol, which will override the |
| 404 | default protocol (see \k{using-cmdline-protocol}). |
| 405 | |
| 406 | For telnet sessions, the following alternative syntax is supported |
| 407 | (this makes PuTTY suitable for use as a URL handler for telnet URLs in |
| 408 | web browsers): |
| 409 | |
| 410 | \c putty.exe telnet://host[:port]/ |
| 411 | |
| 412 | In order to start an existing saved session called \c{sessionname}, |
| 413 | use the \c{-load} option (described in \k{using-cmdline-load}). |
| 414 | |
| 415 | \c putty.exe -load "session name" |
| 416 | |
| 417 | \S{using-cleanup} \c{-cleanup} |
| 418 | |
| 419 | If invoked with the \c{-cleanup} option, rather than running as |
| 420 | normal, PuTTY will remove its registry entries and random seed file |
| 421 | from the local machine (after confirming with the user). |
| 422 | |
| 423 | \S{using-general-opts} Standard command-line options |
| 424 | |
| 425 | PuTTY and its associated tools support a range of command-line |
| 426 | options, most of which are consistent across all the tools. This |
| 427 | section lists the available options in all tools. Options which are |
| 428 | specific to a particular tool are covered in the chapter about that |
| 429 | tool. |
| 430 | |
| 431 | \S2{using-cmdline-load} \c{-load}: load a saved session |
| 432 | |
| 433 | The \c{-load} option causes PuTTY to load configuration details out |
| 434 | of a saved session. If these details include a host name, then this |
| 435 | option is all you need to make PuTTY start a session (although Plink |
| 436 | still requires an explicitly specified host name). |
| 437 | |
| 438 | You need double quotes around the session name if it contains spaces. |
| 439 | |
| 440 | If you want to create a Windows shortcut to start a PuTTY saved |
| 441 | session, this is the option you should use: your shortcut should |
| 442 | call something like |
| 443 | |
| 444 | \c d:\path\to\putty.exe -load "my session" |
| 445 | |
| 446 | (Note that PuTTY itself supports an alternative form of this option, |
| 447 | for backwards compatibility. If you execute \c{putty @sessionname} |
| 448 | it will have the same effect as \c{putty -load "sessionname"}. With |
| 449 | the \c{@} form, no double quotes are required, and the \c{@} sign |
| 450 | must be the very first thing on the command line. This form of the |
| 451 | option is deprecated.) |
| 452 | |
| 453 | \S2{using-cmdline-protocol} Selecting a protocol: \c{-ssh}, |
| 454 | \c{-telnet}, \c{-rlogin}, \c{-raw} |
| 455 | |
| 456 | To choose which protocol you want to connect with, you can use one |
| 457 | of these options: |
| 458 | |
| 459 | \b \c{-ssh} selects the SSH protocol. |
| 460 | |
| 461 | \b \c{-telnet} selects the Telnet protocol. |
| 462 | |
| 463 | \b \c{-rlogin} selects the Rlogin protocol. |
| 464 | |
| 465 | \b \c{-raw} selects the raw protocol. |
| 466 | |
| 467 | These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and |
| 468 | PSFTP (which only work with the SSH protocol). |
| 469 | |
| 470 | These options are equivalent to the protocol selection buttons in |
| 471 | the Session panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see |
| 472 | \k{config-hostname}). |
| 473 | |
| 474 | \S2{using-cmdline-v} \c{-v}: increase verbosity |
| 475 | |
| 476 | Most of the PuTTY tools can be made to tell you more about what they |
| 477 | are doing by supplying the \c{-v} option. If you are having trouble |
| 478 | when making a connection, or you're simply curious, you can turn |
| 479 | this switch on and hope to find out more about what is happening. |
| 480 | |
| 481 | \S2{using-cmdline-l} \c{-l}: specify a login name |
| 482 | |
| 483 | You can specify the user name to log in as on the remote server |
| 484 | using the \c{-l} option. For example, \c{plink login.example.com -l |
| 485 | fred}. |
| 486 | |
| 487 | These options are equivalent to the username selection box in the |
| 488 | Connection panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see |
| 489 | \k{config-username}). |
| 490 | |
| 491 | \S2{using-cmdline-portfwd} \c{-L}, \c{-R} and \c{-D}: set up port forwardings |
| 492 | |
| 493 | As well as setting up port forwardings in the PuTTY configuration |
| 494 | (see \k{config-ssh-portfwd}), you can also set up forwardings on the |
| 495 | command line. The command-line options work just like the ones in |
| 496 | Unix \c{ssh} programs. |
| 497 | |
| 498 | To forward a local port (say 5110) to a remote destination (say |
| 499 | \cw{popserver.example.com} port 110), you can write something like |
| 500 | one of these: |
| 501 | |
| 502 | \c putty -L 5110:popserver.example.com:110 -load mysession |
| 503 | \c plink mysession -L 5110:popserver.example.com:110 |
| 504 | |
| 505 | To forward a remote port to a local destination, just use the \c{-R} |
| 506 | option instead of \c{-L}: |
| 507 | |
| 508 | \c putty -R 5023:mytelnetserver.myhouse.org:23 -load mysession |
| 509 | \c plink mysession -R 5023:mytelnetserver.myhouse.org:23 |
| 510 | |
| 511 | To specify an IP address for the listening end of the tunnel, |
| 512 | prepend it to the argument: |
| 513 | |
| 514 | \c plink -L 127.0.0.5:23:localhost:23 myhost |
| 515 | |
| 516 | To set up SOCKS-based dynamic port forwarding on a local port, use |
| 517 | the \c{-D} option. For this one you only have to pass the port |
| 518 | number: |
| 519 | |
| 520 | \c putty -D 4096 -load mysession |
| 521 | |
| 522 | For general information on port forwarding, see |
| 523 | \k{using-port-forwarding}. |
| 524 | |
| 525 | These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and |
| 526 | PSFTP. |
| 527 | |
| 528 | \S2{using-cmdline-m} \c{-m}: read a remote command or script from a |
| 529 | file |
| 530 | |
| 531 | The \c{-m} option performs a similar function to the \q{Remote |
| 532 | command} box in the SSH panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see |
| 533 | \k{config-command}). However, the \c{-m} option expects to be given |
| 534 | a local file name, and it will read a command from that file. On most Unix |
| 535 | systems, you can even put multiple lines in this file and execute |
| 536 | more than one command in sequence, or a whole shell script. |
| 537 | |
| 538 | This option is not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and |
| 539 | PSFTP. |
| 540 | |
| 541 | \S2{using-cmdline-p} \c{-P}: specify a port number |
| 542 | |
| 543 | The \c{-P} option is used to specify the port number to connect to. If |
| 544 | you have a Telnet server running on port 9696 of a machine instead of |
| 545 | port 23, for example: |
| 546 | |
| 547 | \c putty -telnet -P 9696 host.name |
| 548 | \c plink -telnet -P 9696 host.name |
| 549 | |
| 550 | (Note that this option is more useful in Plink than in PuTTY, |
| 551 | because in PuTTY you can write \c{putty -telnet host.name 9696} in |
| 552 | any case.) |
| 553 | |
| 554 | These options are equivalent to the protocol selection buttons in |
| 555 | the Session panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see |
| 556 | \k{config-hostname}). |
| 557 | |
| 558 | \S2{using-cmdline-pw} \c{-pw}: specify a password |
| 559 | |
| 560 | A simple way to automate a remote login is to supply your password |
| 561 | on the command line. This is \e{not recommended} for reasons of |
| 562 | security. If you possibly can, we recommend you set up public-key |
| 563 | authentication instead. See \k{pubkey} for details. |
| 564 | |
| 565 | Note that the \c{-pw} option only works when you are using the SSH |
| 566 | protocol. Due to fundamental limitations of Telnet and Rlogin, these |
| 567 | protocols do not support automated password authentication. |
| 568 | |
| 569 | \S2{using-cmdline-agent} \c{-A} and \c{-a}: control agent forwarding |
| 570 | |
| 571 | The \c{-A} option turns on SSH agent forwarding, and \c{-a} turns it |
| 572 | off. These options are only meaningful if you are using SSH. |
| 573 | |
| 574 | See \k{pageant} for general information on Pageant, and |
| 575 | \k{pageant-forward} for information on agent forwarding. Note that |
| 576 | there is a security risk involved with enabling this option; see |
| 577 | \k{pageant-security} for details. |
| 578 | |
| 579 | These options are equivalent to the agent forwarding checkbox in the |
| 580 | Auth panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see \k{config-ssh-agentfwd}). |
| 581 | |
| 582 | These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and |
| 583 | PSFTP. |
| 584 | |
| 585 | \S2{using-cmdline-x11} \c{-X} and \c{-x}: control X11 forwarding |
| 586 | |
| 587 | The \c{-X} option turns on X11 forwarding in SSH, and \c{-x} turns |
| 588 | it off. These options are only meaningful if you are using SSH. |
| 589 | |
| 590 | For information on X11 forwarding, see \k{using-x-forwarding}. |
| 591 | |
| 592 | These options are equivalent to the X11 forwarding checkbox in the |
| 593 | Tunnels panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see |
| 594 | \k{config-ssh-x11}). |
| 595 | |
| 596 | These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and |
| 597 | PSFTP. |
| 598 | |
| 599 | \S2{using-cmdline-pty} \c{-t} and \c{-T}: control pseudo-terminal |
| 600 | allocation |
| 601 | |
| 602 | The \c{-t} option ensures PuTTY attempts to allocate a |
| 603 | pseudo-terminal at the server, and \c{-T} stops it from allocating |
| 604 | one. These options are only meaningful if you are using SSH. |
| 605 | |
| 606 | These options are equivalent to the \q{Don't allocate a |
| 607 | pseudo-terminal} checkbox in the SSH panel of the PuTTY |
| 608 | configuration box (see \k{config-ssh-pty}). |
| 609 | |
| 610 | These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and |
| 611 | PSFTP. |
| 612 | |
| 613 | \S2{using-cmdline-compress} \c{-C}: enable compression |
| 614 | |
| 615 | The \c{-C} option enables compression of the data sent across the |
| 616 | network. This option is only meaningful if you are using SSH. |
| 617 | |
| 618 | This option is equivalent to the \q{Enable compression} checkbox in |
| 619 | the SSH panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see |
| 620 | \k{config-ssh-comp}). |
| 621 | |
| 622 | \S2{using-cmdline-sshprot} \c{-1} and \c{-2}: specify an SSH protocol |
| 623 | version |
| 624 | |
| 625 | The \c{-1} and \c{-2} options force PuTTY to use version 1 or |
| 626 | version 2 of the SSH protocol. These options are only meaningful if |
| 627 | you are using SSH. |
| 628 | |
| 629 | These options are equivalent to selecting your preferred SSH |
| 630 | protocol version as \q{1 only} or \q{2 only} in the SSH panel of the |
| 631 | PuTTY configuration box (see \k{config-ssh-prot}). |
| 632 | |
| 633 | \S2{using-cmdline-identity} \c{-i}: specify an SSH private key |
| 634 | |
| 635 | The \c{-i} option allows you to specify the name of a private key |
| 636 | file in \c{*.PPK} format which PuTTY will use to authenticate with the |
| 637 | server. This option is only meaningful if you are using SSH. |
| 638 | |
| 639 | For general information on public-key authentication, see \k{pubkey}. |
| 640 | |
| 641 | This option is equivalent to the \q{Private key file for |
| 642 | authentication} box in the Auth panel of the PuTTY configuration box |
| 643 | (see \k{config-ssh-privkey}). |