1 \versionid $Id: using.but,v 1.35 2004/10/17 21:22:22 jacob Exp $
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.
9 \H{using-session} During your session
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.
16 \S{using-selection} Copying and pasting text
18 \I{copy and paste}Often in a PuTTY session you will find text on
19 your terminal screen which you want to type in again. Like most
20 other terminal emulators, PuTTY allows you to copy and paste the
21 text rather than having to type it again. Also, copy and paste uses
22 the \I{Windows clipboard}Windows \i{clipboard}, so that you can
23 paste (for example) URLs into a web browser, or paste from a word
24 processor or spreadsheet into your terminal session.
26 PuTTY's copy and paste works entirely with the \i{mouse}. In order
27 to copy text to the clipboard, you just click the \i{left mouse
28 button} in the terminal window, and drag to \I{selecting text}select
29 text. When you let go of the button, the text is \e{automatically}
30 copied to the clipboard. You do not need to press Ctrl-C or
31 Ctrl-Ins; in fact, if you do press Ctrl-C, PuTTY will send a Ctrl-C
32 character down your session to the server where it will probably
33 cause a process to be interrupted.
35 Pasting is done using the right button (or the middle mouse button,
36 if you have a three-button mouse and have set it up; see
37 \k{config-mouse}). (Pressing \i{Shift-Ins}, or selecting \q{Paste}
38 from the Ctrl+right-click context menu, have the same effect.) When
39 you click the \i{right mouse button}, PuTTY will read whatever is in
40 the Windows clipboard and paste it into your session, \e{exactly} as
41 if it had been typed at the keyboard. (Therefore, be careful of
42 pasting formatted text into an editor that does automatic indenting;
43 you may find that the spaces pasted from the clipboard plus the
44 spaces added by the editor add up to too many spaces and ruin the
45 formatting. There is nothing PuTTY can do about this.)
47 If you \i{double-click} the left mouse button, PuTTY will select a
48 whole word. If you double-click, hold down the second click, and
49 drag the mouse, PuTTY will select a sequence of whole words. (You
50 can adjust precisely what PuTTY considers to be part of a word; see
51 \k{config-charclasses}.) If you \e{triple}-click, or
52 \i{triple-click} and drag, then PuTTY will select a whole line or
55 If you want to select a \I{rectangular selection}rectangular region
56 instead of selecting to the end of each line, you can do this by
57 holding down Alt when you make your selection. (You can also
58 configure rectangular selection to be the default, and then holding
59 down Alt gives the normal behaviour instead. See
60 \k{config-rectselect} for details.)
62 If you have a \i{middle mouse button}, then you can use it to
63 \I{adjusting a selection}adjust an existing selection if you
64 selected something slightly wrong. (If you have configured the
65 middle mouse button to paste, then the right mouse button does this
66 instead.) Click the button on the screen, and you can pick up the
67 nearest end of the selection and drag it to somewhere else.
69 It's possible for the server to ask to handle mouse clicks in the
70 PuTTY window itself. If this happens, the mouse cursor will turn
71 into an arrow, and using the mouse to copy and paste will only work if
72 you hold down Shift. See \k{config-features-mouse} and
73 \k{config-mouseshift} for details of this feature and how to configure
76 \S{using-scrollback} \I{scrollback}Scrolling the screen back
78 PuTTY keeps track of text that has scrolled up off the top of the
79 terminal. So if something appears on the screen that you want to
80 read, but it scrolls too fast and it's gone by the time you try to
81 look for it, you can use the scrollbar on the right side of the
82 window to look back up the session \i{history} and find it again.
84 As well as using the scrollbar, you can also page the scrollback up
85 and down by pressing \i{Shift-PgUp} and \i{Shift-PgDn}. You can
86 scroll a line at a time using \i{Ctrl-PgUp} and \i{Ctrl-PgDn}. These
87 are still available if you configure the scrollbar to be invisible.
89 By default the last 200 lines scrolled off the top are
90 preserved for you to look at. You can increase (or decrease) this
91 value using the configuration box; see \k{config-scrollback}.
93 \S{using-sysmenu} The \i{System menu}
95 If you click the left mouse button on the icon in the top left
96 corner of PuTTY's terminal window, or click the right mouse button
97 on the title bar, you will see the standard Windows system menu
98 containing items like Minimise, Move, Size and Close.
100 PuTTY's system menu contains extra program features in addition to
101 the Windows standard options. These extra menu commands are
104 (These options are also available in a context menu brought up
105 by holding Ctrl and clicking with the right mouse button anywhere
106 in the PuTTY window.)
108 \S2{using-eventlog} The PuTTY \i{Event Log}
110 If you choose \q{Event Log} from the system menu, a small window
111 will pop up in which PuTTY logs significant events during the
112 connection. Most of the events in the log will probably take place
113 during session startup, but a few can occur at any point in the
114 session, and one or two occur right at the end.
116 You can use the mouse to select one or more lines of the Event Log,
117 and hit the Copy button to copy them to the \i{clipboard}. If you
118 are reporting a bug, it's often useful to paste the contents of the
119 Event Log into your bug report.
121 \S2{using-specials} \ii{Special commands}
123 Depending on the protocol used for the current session, there may be
124 a submenu of \q{special commands}. These are protocol-specific
125 tokens, such as a \i{\q{break} signal}, that can be sent down a
126 connection in addition to normal data. Their precise effect is usually
127 up to the server. Currently only Telnet and SSH have special commands.
129 The following special commands are available in Telnet:
131 \b \I{Are You There, Telnet special command}Are You There
133 \b \I{Break, Telnet special command}Break
135 \b \I{Synch, Telnet special command}Synch
137 \b \I{Erase Character, Telnet special command}Erase Character
140 PuTTY can also be configured to send this when the Backspace key is
141 pressed; see \k{config-telnetkey}.
144 \b \I{Erase Line, Telnet special command}Erase Line
146 \b \I{Go Ahead, Telnet special command}Go Ahead
148 \b \I{No Operation, Telnet special command}No Operation
151 Should have no effect.
154 \b \I{Abort Process, Telnet special command}Abort Process
156 \b \I{Abort Output, Telnet special command}Abort Output
158 \b \I{Interrupt Process, Telnet special command}Interrupt Process
161 PuTTY can also be configured to send this when Ctrl-C is typed; see
162 \k{config-telnetkey}.
165 \b \I{Suspend Process, Telnet special command}Suspend Process
168 PuTTY can also be configured to send this when Ctrl-Z is typed; see
169 \k{config-telnetkey}.
172 \b \I{End Of Record, Telnet special command}End Of Record
174 \b \I{End Of File, Telnet special command}End Of File
176 In an SSH connection, the following special commands are available:
178 \b \I{IGNORE message, SSH special command}\I{No-op, in SSH}IGNORE message
181 Should have no effect.
184 \b \I{Break, SSH special command}Break
187 Only available in SSH-2, and only during a session. Optional
188 extension; may not be supported by server. PuTTY requests the server's
189 default break length.
192 \b \I{Signal, SSH special command}Signals (SIGINT, SIGTERM etc)
195 Only available in SSH-2, and only during a session. Sends various
196 POSIX signals. Not honoured by all servers.
199 \S2{using-newsession} Starting new sessions
201 PuTTY's system menu provides some shortcut ways to start new
204 \b Selecting \i{\q{New Session}} will start a completely new
205 instance of PuTTY, and bring up the configuration box as normal.
207 \b Selecting \i{\q{Duplicate Session}} will start a session with
208 precisely the same options as your current one - connecting to the
209 same host using the same protocol, with all the same terminal
210 settings and everything.
212 \b The \i{\q{Saved Sessions} submenu} gives you quick access to any
213 sets of stored session details you have previously saved. See
214 \k{config-saving} for details of how to create saved sessions.
216 \S2{using-changesettings} \I{settings, changing}Changing your
219 If you select \i{\q{Change Settings}} from the system menu, PuTTY will
220 display a cut-down version of its initial configuration box. This
221 allows you to adjust most properties of your current session. You
222 can change the terminal size, the font, the actions of various
223 keypresses, the colours, and so on.
225 Some of the options that are available in the main configuration box
226 are not shown in the cut-down Change Settings box. These are usually
227 options which don't make sense to change in the middle of a session
228 (for example, you can't switch from SSH to Telnet in mid-session).
230 \S2{using-copyall} \i{Copy All to Clipboard}
232 This system menu option provides a convenient way to copy the whole
233 contents of the terminal screen (up to the last nonempty line) and
234 scrollback to the \i{clipboard} in one go.
236 \S2{reset-terminal} \I{scrollback, clearing}Clearing and
237 \I{terminal, resetting}resetting the terminal
239 The \i{\q{Clear Scrollback}} option on the system menu tells PuTTY
240 to discard all the lines of text that have been kept after they
241 scrolled off the top of the screen. This might be useful, for
242 example, if you displayed sensitive information and wanted to make
243 sure nobody could look over your shoulder and see it. (Note that
244 this only prevents a casual user from using the scrollbar to view
245 the information; the text is not guaranteed not to still be in
248 The \i{\q{Reset Terminal}} option causes a full reset of the
249 terminal emulation. A VT-series terminal is a complex piece of
250 software and can easily get into a state where all the text printed
251 becomes unreadable. (This can happen, for example, if you
252 accidentally output a binary file to your terminal.) If this
253 happens, selecting Reset Terminal should sort it out.
255 \S2{using-fullscreen} \ii{Full screen} mode
257 If you find the title bar on a maximised window to be ugly or
258 distracting, you can select Full Screen mode to maximise PuTTY
259 \q{even more}. When you select this, PuTTY will expand to fill the
260 whole screen and its borders, title bar and scrollbar will
261 disappear. (You can configure the scrollbar not to disappear in
262 full-screen mode if you want to keep it; see \k{config-scrollback}.)
264 When you are in full-screen mode, you can still access the system
265 menu if you click the left mouse button in the \e{extreme} top left
266 corner of the screen.
268 \H{using-logging} Creating a \i{log file} of your \I{session
271 For some purposes you may find you want to log everything that
272 appears on your screen. You can do this using the \i{\q{Logging}
273 panel} in the configuration box.
275 To begin a session log, select \q{Change Settings} from the system
276 menu and go to the Logging panel. Enter a log file name, and select
277 a logging mode. (You can log all session output including the
278 terminal control sequences, or you can just log the printable text.
279 It depends what you want the log for.) Click \q{Apply} and your log
280 will be started. Later on, you can go back to the Logging panel and
281 select \q{Logging turned off completely} to stop logging; then PuTTY
282 will close the log file and you can safely read it.
284 See \k{config-logging} for more details and options.
286 \H{using-translation} Altering your \i{character set} configuration
288 If you find that special characters (\i{accented characters}, for
289 example) are not being displayed correctly in your PuTTY session, it
290 may be that PuTTY is interpreting the characters sent by the server
291 according to the wrong \e{character set}. There are a lot of
292 different character sets available, so it's entirely possible for
295 If you click \q{Change Settings} and look at the \i{\q{Translation}
296 panel}, you should see a large number of character sets which you
297 can select. Now all you need is to find out which of them you want!
299 \H{using-x-forwarding} Using \i{X11 forwarding} in SSH
301 The SSH protocol has the ability to securely forward X Window System
302 applications over your encrypted SSH connection, so that you can run
303 an application on the SSH server machine and have it put its windows
304 up on your local machine without sending any X network traffic in
307 In order to use this feature, you will need an X display server for
308 your Windows machine, such as X-Win32 or Exceed. This will probably
309 install itself as display number 0 on your local machine; if it
310 doesn't, the manual for the \i{X server} should tell you what it
313 You should then tick the \q{Enable X11 forwarding} box in the
314 Tunnels panel (see \k{config-ssh-x11}) before starting your SSH
315 session. The \q{X display location} box is blank by default, which
316 means that PuTTY will try to use a sensible default such as \c{:0},
317 which is the usual display location where your X server will be
318 installed. If that needs changing, then change it.
320 Now you should be able to log in to the SSH server as normal. To
321 check that X forwarding has been successfully negotiated during
322 connection startup, you can check the PuTTY Event Log (see
323 \k{using-eventlog}). It should say something like this:
325 \c 2001-12-05 17:22:01 Requesting X11 forwarding
326 \c 2001-12-05 17:22:02 X11 forwarding enabled
328 If the remote system is Unix or Unix-like, you should also be able
329 to see that the \i{\c{DISPLAY} environment variable} has been set to
330 point at display 10 or above on the SSH server machine itself:
332 \c fred@unixbox:~$ echo $DISPLAY
335 If this works, you should then be able to run X applications in the
336 remote session and have them display their windows on your PC.
338 Note that if your PC X server requires authentication to connect,
339 then PuTTY cannot currently support it. If this is a problem for
340 you, you should mail the PuTTY authors \#{FIXME} and give details
343 For more options relating to X11 forwarding, see \k{config-ssh-x11}.
345 \H{using-port-forwarding} Using \i{port forwarding} in SSH
347 The SSH protocol has the ability to forward arbitrary network
348 connections over your encrypted SSH connection, to avoid the network
349 traffic being sent in clear. For example, you could use this to
350 connect from your home computer to a POP-3 server on a remote
351 machine without your POP-3 password being visible to network
354 In order to use port forwarding to connect from your local machine
355 to a port on a remote server, you need to:
357 \b Choose a port number on your local machine where PuTTY should
358 listen for incoming connections. There are likely to be plenty of
359 unused port numbers above 3000. (You can also use a local loopback
360 address here; see below for more details.)
362 \b Now, before you start your SSH connection, go to the Tunnels
363 panel (see \k{config-ssh-portfwd}). Make sure the \q{Local} radio
364 button is set. Enter the local port number into the \q{Source port}
365 box. Enter the destination host name and port number into the
366 \q{Destination} box, separated by a colon (for example,
367 \c{popserver.example.com:110} to connect to a POP-3 server).
369 \b Now click the \q{Add} button. The details of your port forwarding
370 should appear in the list box.
372 Now start your session and log in. (Port forwarding will not be
373 enabled until after you have logged in; otherwise it would be easy
374 to perform completely anonymous network attacks, and gain access to
375 anyone's virtual private network). To check that PuTTY has set up
376 the port forwarding correctly, you can look at the PuTTY Event Log
377 (see \k{using-eventlog}). It should say something like this:
379 \c 2001-12-05 17:22:10 Local port 3110 forwarding to
380 \c popserver.example.com:110
382 Now if you connect to the source port number on your local PC, you
383 should find that it answers you exactly as if it were the service
384 running on the destination machine. So in this example, you could
385 then configure an e-mail client to use \c{localhost:3110} as a POP-3
386 server instead of \c{popserver.example.com:110}. (Of course, the
387 forwarding will stop happening when your PuTTY session closes down.)
389 You can also forward ports in the other direction: arrange for a
390 particular port number on the \e{server} machine to be forwarded
391 back to your PC as a connection to a service on your PC or near it.
392 To do this, just select the \q{Remote} radio button instead of the
393 \q{Local} one. The \q{Source port} box will now specify a port
394 number on the \e{server} (note that most servers will not allow you
395 to use port numbers under 1024 for this purpose).
397 An alternative way to forward local connections to remote hosts is
398 to use \I{dynamic port forwarding}dynamic \I{SOCKS} proxying. For
399 this, you will need to select the \q{Dynamic} radio button instead
400 of \q{Local}, and then you should not enter anything into the
401 \q{Destination} box (it will be ignored). This will cause PuTTY to
402 listen on the port you have specified, and provide a SOCKS proxy
403 service to any programs which connect to that port. So, in
404 particular, you can forward other PuTTY connections through it by
405 setting up the Proxy control panel (see \k{config-proxy} for
408 The source port for a forwarded connection usually does not accept
409 connections from any machine except the SSH client or server machine
410 itself (for local and remote forwardings respectively). There are
411 controls in the Tunnels panel to change this:
413 \b The \q{Local ports accept connections from other hosts} option
414 allows you to set up local-to-remote port forwardings (including
415 dynamic port forwardings) in such a way that machines other than
416 your client PC can connect to the forwarded port.
418 \b The \q{Remote ports do the same} option does the same thing for
419 remote-to-local port forwardings (so that machines other than the
420 SSH server machine can connect to the forwarded port.) Note that
421 this feature is only available in the SSH 2 protocol, and not all
422 SSH 2 servers honour it (in OpenSSH, for example, it's usually
423 disabled by default).
425 You can also specify an \i{IP address} to listen on. Typically a
426 Windows machine can be asked to listen on any single IP address in
427 the \cw{127.*.*.*} range, and all of these are loopback addresses
428 available only to the local machine. So if you forward (for example)
429 \c{127.0.0.5:79} to a remote machine's \cw{finger} port, then you
430 should be able to run commands such as \c{finger fred@127.0.0.5}.
431 This can be useful if the program connecting to the forwarded port
432 doesn't allow you to change the port number it uses. This feature is
433 available for local-to-remote forwarded ports; SSH1 is unable to
434 support it for remote-to-local ports, while SSH2 can support it in
435 theory but servers will not necessarily cooperate.
437 (Note that if you're using Windows XP Service Pack 2, you may need
438 to obtain a fix from Microsoft in order to use addresses like
439 \cw{127.0.0.5} - see \k{faq-alternate-localhost}.)
441 \H{using-rawprot} Making \i{raw TCP connections}
443 A lot of \I{debugging Internet protocols}Internet protocols are
444 composed of commands and responses in plain text. For example,
445 \i{SMTP} (the protocol used to transfer e-mail), \i{NNTP} (the
446 protocol used to transfer Usenet news), and \i{HTTP} (the protocol
447 used to serve Web pages) all consist of commands in readable plain
450 Sometimes it can be useful to connect directly to one of these
451 services and speak the protocol \q{by hand}, by typing protocol
452 commands and watching the responses. On Unix machines, you can do
453 this using the system's \c{telnet} command to connect to the right
454 port number. For example, \c{telnet mailserver.example.com 25} might
455 enable you to talk directly to the SMTP service running on a mail
458 Although the Unix \c{telnet} program provides this functionality,
459 the protocol being used is not really Telnet. Really there is no
460 actual protocol at all; the bytes sent down the connection are
461 exactly the ones you type, and the bytes shown on the screen are
462 exactly the ones sent by the server. Unix \c{telnet} will attempt to
463 detect or guess whether the service it is talking to is a real
464 Telnet service or not; PuTTY prefers to be told for certain.
466 In order to make a debugging connection to a service of this type,
467 you simply select the fourth protocol name, \I{\q{Raw}
468 protocol}\q{Raw}, from the \q{Protocol} buttons in the \q{Session}
469 configuration panel. (See \k{config-hostname}.) You can then enter a
470 host name and a port number, and make the connection.
472 \H{using-cmdline} The PuTTY command line
474 PuTTY can be made to do various things without user intervention by
475 supplying \i{command-line arguments} (e.g., from a \i{command prompt
476 window}, or a \i{Windows shortcut}).
478 \S{using-cmdline-session} Starting a session from the command line
480 \I\c{-ssh}\I\c{-telnet}\I\c{-rlogin}\I\c{-raw}These options allow
481 you to bypass the configuration window and launch straight into a
484 To start a connection to a server called \c{host}:
486 \c putty.exe [-ssh | -telnet | -rlogin | -raw] [user@]host
488 If this syntax is used, settings are taken from the Default Settings
489 (see \k{config-saving}); \c{user} overrides these settings if
490 supplied. Also, you can specify a protocol, which will override the
491 default protocol (see \k{using-cmdline-protocol}).
493 For telnet sessions, the following alternative syntax is supported
494 (this makes PuTTY suitable for use as a URL handler for \i{telnet
495 URLs} in web browsers):
497 \c putty.exe telnet://host[:port]/
499 In order to start an existing saved session called \c{sessionname},
500 use the \c{-load} option (described in \k{using-cmdline-load}).
502 \c putty.exe -load "session name"
504 \S{using-cleanup} \i\c{-cleanup}
506 If invoked with the \c{-cleanup} option, rather than running as
507 normal, PuTTY will remove its registry entries and random seed file
508 from the local machine (after confirming with the user).
510 \S{using-general-opts} Standard command-line options
512 PuTTY and its associated tools support a range of command-line
513 options, most of which are consistent across all the tools. This
514 section lists the available options in all tools. Options which are
515 specific to a particular tool are covered in the chapter about that
518 \S2{using-cmdline-load} \i\c{-load}: load a saved session
520 \I{saved sessions, loading from command line}The \c{-load} option
521 causes PuTTY to load configuration details out of a saved session.
522 If these details include a host name, then this option is all you
523 need to make PuTTY start a session.
525 You need double quotes around the session name if it contains spaces.
527 If you want to create a Windows shortcut to start a PuTTY saved
528 session, this is the option you should use: your shortcut should
531 \c d:\path\to\putty.exe -load "my session"
533 (Note that PuTTY itself supports an alternative form of this option,
534 for backwards compatibility. If you execute \c{putty @sessionname}
535 it will have the same effect as \c{putty -load "sessionname"}. With
536 the \c{@} form, no double quotes are required, and the \c{@} sign
537 must be the very first thing on the command line. This form of the
538 option is deprecated.)
540 \S2{using-cmdline-protocol} Selecting a protocol: \c{-ssh},
541 \c{-telnet}, \c{-rlogin}, \c{-raw}
543 To choose which protocol you want to connect with, you can use one
546 \b \i\c{-ssh} selects the SSH protocol.
548 \b \i\c{-telnet} selects the Telnet protocol.
550 \b \i\c{-rlogin} selects the Rlogin protocol.
552 \b \i\c{-raw} selects the raw protocol.
554 These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
555 PSFTP (which only work with the SSH protocol).
557 These options are equivalent to the \i{protocol selection} buttons
558 in the Session panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
559 \k{config-hostname}).
561 \S2{using-cmdline-v} \i\c{-v}: increase verbosity
563 \I{verbose mode}Most of the PuTTY tools can be made to tell you more
564 about what they are doing by supplying the \c{-v} option. If you are
565 having trouble when making a connection, or you're simply curious,
566 you can turn this switch on and hope to find out more about what is
569 \S2{using-cmdline-l} \i\c{-l}: specify a \i{login name}
571 You can specify the user name to log in as on the remote server
572 using the \c{-l} option. For example, \c{plink login.example.com -l
575 These options are equivalent to the username selection box in the
576 Connection panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
577 \k{config-username}).
579 \S2{using-cmdline-portfwd} \I{-L-upper}\c{-L}, \I{-R-upper}\c{-R}
580 and \I{-D-upper}\c{-D}: set up \i{port forwardings}
582 As well as setting up port forwardings in the PuTTY configuration
583 (see \k{config-ssh-portfwd}), you can also set up forwardings on the
584 command line. The command-line options work just like the ones in
585 Unix \c{ssh} programs.
587 To forward a local port (say 5110) to a remote destination (say
588 \cw{popserver.example.com} port 110), you can write something like
591 \c putty -L 5110:popserver.example.com:110 -load mysession
592 \c plink mysession -L 5110:popserver.example.com:110
594 To forward a remote port to a local destination, just use the \c{-R}
595 option instead of \c{-L}:
597 \c putty -R 5023:mytelnetserver.myhouse.org:23 -load mysession
598 \c plink mysession -R 5023:mytelnetserver.myhouse.org:23
600 To specify an IP address for the listening end of the tunnel,
601 prepend it to the argument:
603 \c plink -L 127.0.0.5:23:localhost:23 myhost
605 To set up SOCKS-based dynamic port forwarding on a local port, use
606 the \c{-D} option. For this one you only have to pass the port
609 \c putty -D 4096 -load mysession
611 For general information on port forwarding, see
612 \k{using-port-forwarding}.
614 These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
617 \S2{using-cmdline-m} \i\c{-m}: read a remote command or script from
620 The \i\c{-m} option performs a similar function to the \q{Remote
621 command} box in the SSH panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
622 \k{config-command}). However, the \c{-m} option expects to be given
623 a local file name, and it will read a command from that file. On
624 most Unix systems, you can even put multiple lines in this file and
625 execute more than one command in sequence, or a whole shell script;
626 but this will not work on all servers (and is known not to work
627 with certain \q{embedded} servers such as routers).
629 This option is not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
632 \S2{using-cmdline-p} \I{-P-upper}\c{-P}: specify a \i{port number}
634 The \c{-P} option is used to specify the port number to connect to. If
635 you have a Telnet server running on port 9696 of a machine instead of
636 port 23, for example:
638 \c putty -telnet -P 9696 host.name
639 \c plink -telnet -P 9696 host.name
641 (Note that this option is more useful in Plink than in PuTTY,
642 because in PuTTY you can write \c{putty -telnet host.name 9696} in
645 This option is equivalent to the port number control in the Session
646 panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see \k{config-hostname}).
648 \S2{using-cmdline-pw} \i\c{-pw}: specify a \i{password}
650 A simple way to automate a remote login is to supply your password
651 on the command line. This is \e{not recommended} for reasons of
652 security. If you possibly can, we recommend you set up public-key
653 authentication instead. See \k{pubkey} for details.
655 Note that the \c{-pw} option only works when you are using the SSH
656 protocol. Due to fundamental limitations of Telnet and Rlogin, these
657 protocols do not support automated password authentication.
659 \S2{using-cmdline-agent} \I{-A-upper}\c{-A} and \i\c{-a}: control \i{agent
662 The \c{-A} option turns on SSH agent forwarding, and \c{-a} turns it
663 off. These options are only meaningful if you are using SSH.
665 See \k{pageant} for general information on \i{Pageant}, and
666 \k{pageant-forward} for information on agent forwarding. Note that
667 there is a security risk involved with enabling this option; see
668 \k{pageant-security} for details.
670 These options are equivalent to the agent forwarding checkbox in the
671 Auth panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see \k{config-ssh-agentfwd}).
673 These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
676 \S2{using-cmdline-x11} \I{-X-upper}\c{-X} and \i\c{-x}: control \i{X11
679 The \c{-X} option turns on X11 forwarding in SSH, and \c{-x} turns
680 it off. These options are only meaningful if you are using SSH.
682 For information on X11 forwarding, see \k{using-x-forwarding}.
684 These options are equivalent to the X11 forwarding checkbox in the
685 Tunnels panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
688 These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
691 \S2{using-cmdline-pty} \i\c{-t} and \I{-T-upper}\c{-T}: control
692 \i{pseudo-terminal allocation}
694 The \c{-t} option ensures PuTTY attempts to allocate a
695 pseudo-terminal at the server, and \c{-T} stops it from allocating
696 one. These options are only meaningful if you are using SSH.
698 These options are equivalent to the \q{Don't allocate a
699 pseudo-terminal} checkbox in the SSH panel of the PuTTY
700 configuration box (see \k{config-ssh-pty}).
702 These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
705 \S2{using-cmdline-noshell} \I{-N-upper}\c{-N}: suppress starting a
708 The \c{-N} option prevents PuTTY from attempting to start a shell or
709 command on the remote server. You might want to use this option if
710 you are only using the SSH connection for port forwarding, and your
711 user account on the server does not have the ability to run a shell.
713 This feature is only available in SSH protocol version 2 (since the
714 version 1 protocol assumes you will always want to run a shell).
716 This option is equivalent to the \q{Don't start a shell or command
717 at all} checkbox in the SSH panel of the PuTTY configuration box
718 (see \k{config-ssh-noshell}).
720 These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
723 \S2{using-cmdline-compress} \I{-C-upper}\c{-C}: enable \i{compression}
725 The \c{-C} option enables compression of the data sent across the
726 network. This option is only meaningful if you are using SSH.
728 This option is equivalent to the \q{Enable compression} checkbox in
729 the SSH panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
730 \k{config-ssh-comp}).
732 \S2{using-cmdline-sshprot} \i\c{-1} and \i\c{-2}: specify an \i{SSH
735 The \c{-1} and \c{-2} options force PuTTY to use version \I{SSH1}1
736 or version \I{SSH2}2 of the SSH protocol. These options are only
737 meaningful if you are using SSH.
739 These options are equivalent to selecting your preferred SSH
740 protocol version as \q{1 only} or \q{2 only} in the SSH panel of the
741 PuTTY configuration box (see \k{config-ssh-prot}).
743 \S2{using-cmdline-identity} \i\c{-i}: specify an SSH \i{private key}
745 The \c{-i} option allows you to specify the name of a private key
746 file in \c{*.PPK} format which PuTTY will use to authenticate with the
747 server. This option is only meaningful if you are using SSH.
749 For general information on \i{public-key authentication}, see
752 This option is equivalent to the \q{Private key file for
753 authentication} box in the Auth panel of the PuTTY configuration box
754 (see \k{config-ssh-privkey}).