Integrate unfix.org's IPv6 patches up to level 10, with rather a lot
[u/mdw/putty] / doc / using.but
1 \define{versionidusing} \versionid $Id$
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 \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.
25
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.
34
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.)
46
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
53 sequence of lines.
54
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.)
61
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.
68
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
74 it.
75
76 \S{using-scrollback} \I{scrollback}Scrolling the screen back
77
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.
83
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.
88
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}.
92
93 \S{using-sysmenu} The \i{System menu}
94
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.
99
100 PuTTY's system menu contains extra program features in addition to
101 the Windows standard options. These extra menu commands are
102 described below.
103
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.)
107
108 \S2{using-eventlog} The PuTTY \i{Event Log}
109
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.
115
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.
120
121 \S2{using-specials} \ii{Special commands}
122
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.
128
129 The following special commands are available in Telnet:
130
131 \b \I{Are You There, Telnet special command}Are You There
132
133 \b \I{Break, Telnet special command}Break
134
135 \b \I{Synch, Telnet special command}Synch
136
137 \b \I{Erase Character, Telnet special command}Erase Character
138
139 \lcont{
140 PuTTY can also be configured to send this when the Backspace key is
141 pressed; see \k{config-telnetkey}.
142 }
143
144 \b \I{Erase Line, Telnet special command}Erase Line
145
146 \b \I{Go Ahead, Telnet special command}Go Ahead
147
148 \b \I{No Operation, Telnet special command}No Operation
149
150 \lcont{
151 Should have no effect.
152 }
153
154 \b \I{Abort Process, Telnet special command}Abort Process
155
156 \b \I{Abort Output, Telnet special command}Abort Output
157
158 \b \I{Interrupt Process, Telnet special command}Interrupt Process
159
160 \lcont{
161 PuTTY can also be configured to send this when Ctrl-C is typed; see
162 \k{config-telnetkey}.
163 }
164
165 \b \I{Suspend Process, Telnet special command}Suspend Process
166
167 \lcont{
168 PuTTY can also be configured to send this when Ctrl-Z is typed; see
169 \k{config-telnetkey}.
170 }
171
172 \b \I{End Of Record, Telnet special command}End Of Record
173
174 \b \I{End Of File, Telnet special command}End Of File
175
176 In an SSH connection, the following special commands are available:
177
178 \b \I{IGNORE message, SSH special command}\I{No-op, in SSH}IGNORE message
179
180 \lcont{
181 Should have no effect.
182 }
183
184 \b \I{Repeat key exchange, SSH special command}Repeat key exchange
185
186 \lcont{
187 Only available in SSH-2. Forces a repeat key exchange immediately (and
188 resets associated timers and counters). For more information about
189 repeat key exchanges, see \k{config-ssh-kex-rekey}.
190 }
191
192 \b \I{Break, SSH special command}Break
193
194 \lcont{
195 Only available in SSH-2, and only during a session. Optional
196 extension; may not be supported by server. PuTTY requests the server's
197 default break length.
198 }
199
200 \b \I{Signal, SSH special command}Signals (SIGINT, SIGTERM etc)
201
202 \lcont{
203 Only available in SSH-2, and only during a session. Sends various
204 POSIX signals. Not honoured by all servers.
205 }
206
207 \S2{using-newsession} Starting new sessions
208
209 PuTTY's system menu provides some shortcut ways to start new
210 sessions:
211
212 \b Selecting \i{\q{New Session}} will start a completely new
213 instance of PuTTY, and bring up the configuration box as normal.
214
215 \b Selecting \i{\q{Duplicate Session}} will start a session in a
216 new window with precisely the same options as your current one -
217 connecting to the same host using the same protocol, with all the
218 same terminal settings and everything.
219
220 \b In an inactive window, selecting \i{\q{Restart Session}} will
221 do the same as \q{Duplicate Session}, but in the current window.
222
223 \b The \i{\q{Saved Sessions} submenu} gives you quick access to any
224 sets of stored session details you have previously saved. See
225 \k{config-saving} for details of how to create saved sessions.
226
227 \S2{using-changesettings} \I{settings, changing}Changing your
228 session settings
229
230 If you select \i{\q{Change Settings}} from the system menu, PuTTY will
231 display a cut-down version of its initial configuration box. This
232 allows you to adjust most properties of your current session. You
233 can change the terminal size, the font, the actions of various
234 keypresses, the colours, and so on.
235
236 Some of the options that are available in the main configuration box
237 are not shown in the cut-down Change Settings box. These are usually
238 options which don't make sense to change in the middle of a session
239 (for example, you can't switch from SSH to Telnet in mid-session).
240
241 \S2{using-copyall} \i{Copy All to Clipboard}
242
243 This system menu option provides a convenient way to copy the whole
244 contents of the terminal screen (up to the last nonempty line) and
245 scrollback to the \i{clipboard} in one go.
246
247 \S2{reset-terminal} \I{scrollback, clearing}Clearing and
248 \I{terminal, resetting}resetting the terminal
249
250 The \i{\q{Clear Scrollback}} option on the system menu tells PuTTY
251 to discard all the lines of text that have been kept after they
252 scrolled off the top of the screen. This might be useful, for
253 example, if you displayed sensitive information and wanted to make
254 sure nobody could look over your shoulder and see it. (Note that
255 this only prevents a casual user from using the scrollbar to view
256 the information; the text is not guaranteed not to still be in
257 PuTTY's memory.)
258
259 The \i{\q{Reset Terminal}} option causes a full reset of the
260 terminal emulation. A VT-series terminal is a complex piece of
261 software and can easily get into a state where all the text printed
262 becomes unreadable. (This can happen, for example, if you
263 accidentally output a binary file to your terminal.) If this
264 happens, selecting Reset Terminal should sort it out.
265
266 \S2{using-fullscreen} \ii{Full screen} mode
267
268 If you find the title bar on a maximised window to be ugly or
269 distracting, you can select Full Screen mode to maximise PuTTY
270 \q{even more}. When you select this, PuTTY will expand to fill the
271 whole screen and its borders, title bar and scrollbar will
272 disappear. (You can configure the scrollbar not to disappear in
273 full-screen mode if you want to keep it; see \k{config-scrollback}.)
274
275 When you are in full-screen mode, you can still access the system
276 menu if you click the left mouse button in the \e{extreme} top left
277 corner of the screen.
278
279 \H{using-logging} Creating a \i{log file} of your \I{session
280 log}session
281
282 For some purposes you may find you want to log everything that
283 appears on your screen. You can do this using the \i{\q{Logging}
284 panel} in the configuration box.
285
286 To begin a session log, select \q{Change Settings} from the system
287 menu and go to the Logging panel. Enter a log file name, and select
288 a logging mode. (You can log all session output including the
289 terminal control sequences, or you can just log the printable text.
290 It depends what you want the log for.) Click \q{Apply} and your log
291 will be started. Later on, you can go back to the Logging panel and
292 select \q{Logging turned off completely} to stop logging; then PuTTY
293 will close the log file and you can safely read it.
294
295 See \k{config-logging} for more details and options.
296
297 \H{using-translation} Altering your \i{character set} configuration
298
299 If you find that special characters (\i{accented characters}, for
300 example, or \i{line-drawing characters}) are not being displayed
301 correctly in your PuTTY session, it may be that PuTTY is interpreting
302 the characters sent by the server according to the wrong \e{character
303 set}. There are a lot of different character sets available, so it's
304 entirely possible for this to happen.
305
306 If you click \q{Change Settings} and look at the \i{\q{Translation}
307 panel}, you should see a large number of character sets which you can
308 select, and other related options. Now all you need is to find out
309 which of them you want! (See \k{config-translation} for more
310 information.)
311
312 \H{using-x-forwarding} Using \i{X11 forwarding} in SSH
313
314 The SSH protocol has the ability to securely forward X Window System
315 applications over your encrypted SSH connection, so that you can run
316 an application on the SSH server machine and have it put its windows
317 up on your local machine without sending any X network traffic in
318 the clear.
319
320 In order to use this feature, you will need an X display server for
321 your Windows machine, such as X-Win32 or Exceed. This will probably
322 install itself as display number 0 on your local machine; if it
323 doesn't, the manual for the \i{X server} should tell you what it
324 does do.
325
326 You should then tick the \q{Enable X11 forwarding} box in the
327 Tunnels panel (see \k{config-ssh-x11}) before starting your SSH
328 session. The \q{X display location} box is blank by default, which
329 means that PuTTY will try to use a sensible default such as \c{:0},
330 which is the usual display location where your X server will be
331 installed. If that needs changing, then change it.
332
333 Now you should be able to log in to the SSH server as normal. To
334 check that X forwarding has been successfully negotiated during
335 connection startup, you can check the PuTTY Event Log (see
336 \k{using-eventlog}). It should say something like this:
337
338 \c 2001-12-05 17:22:01 Requesting X11 forwarding
339 \c 2001-12-05 17:22:02 X11 forwarding enabled
340
341 If the remote system is Unix or Unix-like, you should also be able
342 to see that the \i{\c{DISPLAY} environment variable} has been set to
343 point at display 10 or above on the SSH server machine itself:
344
345 \c fred@unixbox:~$ echo $DISPLAY
346 \c unixbox:10.0
347
348 If this works, you should then be able to run X applications in the
349 remote session and have them display their windows on your PC.
350
351 Note that if your PC X server requires authentication to connect,
352 then PuTTY cannot currently support it. If this is a problem for
353 you, you should mail the PuTTY authors \#{FIXME} and give details
354 (see \k{feedback}).
355
356 For more options relating to X11 forwarding, see \k{config-ssh-x11}.
357
358 \H{using-port-forwarding} Using \i{port forwarding} in SSH
359
360 The SSH protocol has the ability to forward arbitrary network
361 connections over your encrypted SSH connection, to avoid the network
362 traffic being sent in clear. For example, you could use this to
363 connect from your home computer to a POP-3 server on a remote
364 machine without your POP-3 password being visible to network
365 sniffers.
366
367 In order to use port forwarding to connect from your local machine
368 to a port on a remote server, you need to:
369
370 \b Choose a port number on your local machine where PuTTY should
371 listen for incoming connections. There are likely to be plenty of
372 unused port numbers above 3000. (You can also use a local loopback
373 address here; see below for more details.)
374
375 \b Now, before you start your SSH connection, go to the Tunnels
376 panel (see \k{config-ssh-portfwd}). Make sure the \q{Local} radio
377 button is set. Enter the local port number into the \q{Source port}
378 box. Enter the destination host name and port number into the
379 \q{Destination} box, separated by a colon (for example,
380 \c{popserver.example.com:110} to connect to a POP-3 server).
381
382 \b Now click the \q{Add} button. The details of your port forwarding
383 should appear in the list box.
384
385 Now start your session and log in. (Port forwarding will not be
386 enabled until after you have logged in; otherwise it would be easy
387 to perform completely anonymous network attacks, and gain access to
388 anyone's virtual private network). To check that PuTTY has set up
389 the port forwarding correctly, you can look at the PuTTY Event Log
390 (see \k{using-eventlog}). It should say something like this:
391
392 \c 2001-12-05 17:22:10 Local port 3110 forwarding to
393 \c popserver.example.com:110
394
395 Now if you connect to the source port number on your local PC, you
396 should find that it answers you exactly as if it were the service
397 running on the destination machine. So in this example, you could
398 then configure an e-mail client to use \c{localhost:3110} as a POP-3
399 server instead of \c{popserver.example.com:110}. (Of course, the
400 forwarding will stop happening when your PuTTY session closes down.)
401
402 You can also forward ports in the other direction: arrange for a
403 particular port number on the \e{server} machine to be forwarded
404 back to your PC as a connection to a service on your PC or near it.
405 To do this, just select the \q{Remote} radio button instead of the
406 \q{Local} one. The \q{Source port} box will now specify a port
407 number on the \e{server} (note that most servers will not allow you
408 to use port numbers under 1024 for this purpose).
409
410 An alternative way to forward local connections to remote hosts is
411 to use \I{dynamic port forwarding}dynamic \I{SOCKS} proxying. For
412 this, you will need to select the \q{Dynamic} radio button instead
413 of \q{Local}, and then you should not enter anything into the
414 \q{Destination} box (it will be ignored). This will cause PuTTY to
415 listen on the port you have specified, and provide a SOCKS proxy
416 service to any programs which connect to that port. So, in
417 particular, you can forward other PuTTY connections through it by
418 setting up the Proxy control panel (see \k{config-proxy} for
419 details).
420
421 The source port for a forwarded connection usually does not accept
422 connections from any machine except the SSH client or server machine
423 itself (for local and remote forwardings respectively). There are
424 controls in the Tunnels panel to change this:
425
426 \b The \q{Local ports accept connections from other hosts} option
427 allows you to set up local-to-remote port forwardings (including
428 dynamic port forwardings) in such a way that machines other than
429 your client PC can connect to the forwarded port.
430
431 \b The \q{Remote ports do the same} option does the same thing for
432 remote-to-local port forwardings (so that machines other than the
433 SSH server machine can connect to the forwarded port.) Note that
434 this feature is only available in the SSH 2 protocol, and not all
435 SSH 2 servers honour it (in OpenSSH, for example, it's usually
436 disabled by default).
437
438 You can also specify an \i{IP address} to listen on. Typically a
439 Windows machine can be asked to listen on any single IP address in
440 the \cw{127.*.*.*} range, and all of these are loopback addresses
441 available only to the local machine. So if you forward (for example)
442 \c{127.0.0.5:79} to a remote machine's \cw{finger} port, then you
443 should be able to run commands such as \c{finger fred@127.0.0.5}.
444 This can be useful if the program connecting to the forwarded port
445 doesn't allow you to change the port number it uses. This feature is
446 available for local-to-remote forwarded ports; SSH1 is unable to
447 support it for remote-to-local ports, while SSH2 can support it in
448 theory but servers will not necessarily cooperate.
449
450 (Note that if you're using Windows XP Service Pack 2, you may need
451 to obtain a fix from Microsoft in order to use addresses like
452 \cw{127.0.0.5} - see \k{faq-alternate-localhost}.)
453
454 \H{using-rawprot} Making \i{raw TCP connections}
455
456 A lot of \I{debugging Internet protocols}Internet protocols are
457 composed of commands and responses in plain text. For example,
458 \i{SMTP} (the protocol used to transfer e-mail), \i{NNTP} (the
459 protocol used to transfer Usenet news), and \i{HTTP} (the protocol
460 used to serve Web pages) all consist of commands in readable plain
461 text.
462
463 Sometimes it can be useful to connect directly to one of these
464 services and speak the protocol \q{by hand}, by typing protocol
465 commands and watching the responses. On Unix machines, you can do
466 this using the system's \c{telnet} command to connect to the right
467 port number. For example, \c{telnet mailserver.example.com 25} might
468 enable you to talk directly to the SMTP service running on a mail
469 server.
470
471 Although the Unix \c{telnet} program provides this functionality,
472 the protocol being used is not really Telnet. Really there is no
473 actual protocol at all; the bytes sent down the connection are
474 exactly the ones you type, and the bytes shown on the screen are
475 exactly the ones sent by the server. Unix \c{telnet} will attempt to
476 detect or guess whether the service it is talking to is a real
477 Telnet service or not; PuTTY prefers to be told for certain.
478
479 In order to make a debugging connection to a service of this type,
480 you simply select the fourth protocol name, \I{\q{Raw}
481 protocol}\q{Raw}, from the \q{Protocol} buttons in the \q{Session}
482 configuration panel. (See \k{config-hostname}.) You can then enter a
483 host name and a port number, and make the connection.
484
485 \H{using-cmdline} The PuTTY command line
486
487 PuTTY can be made to do various things without user intervention by
488 supplying \i{command-line arguments} (e.g., from a \i{command prompt
489 window}, or a \i{Windows shortcut}).
490
491 \S{using-cmdline-session} Starting a session from the command line
492
493 \I\c{-ssh}\I\c{-telnet}\I\c{-rlogin}\I\c{-raw}These options allow
494 you to bypass the configuration window and launch straight into a
495 session.
496
497 To start a connection to a server called \c{host}:
498
499 \c putty.exe [-ssh | -telnet | -rlogin | -raw] [user@]host
500
501 If this syntax is used, settings are taken from the Default Settings
502 (see \k{config-saving}); \c{user} overrides these settings if
503 supplied. Also, you can specify a protocol, which will override the
504 default protocol (see \k{using-cmdline-protocol}).
505
506 For telnet sessions, the following alternative syntax is supported
507 (this makes PuTTY suitable for use as a URL handler for \i{telnet
508 URLs} in web browsers):
509
510 \c putty.exe telnet://host[:port]/
511
512 In order to start an existing saved session called \c{sessionname},
513 use the \c{-load} option (described in \k{using-cmdline-load}).
514
515 \c putty.exe -load "session name"
516
517 \S{using-cleanup} \i\c{-cleanup}
518
519 If invoked with the \c{-cleanup} option, rather than running as
520 normal, PuTTY will remove its \I{removing registry entries}registry
521 entries and \I{random seed file} from the local machine (after
522 confirming with the user).
523
524 \S{using-general-opts} Standard command-line options
525
526 PuTTY and its associated tools support a range of command-line
527 options, most of which are consistent across all the tools. This
528 section lists the available options in all tools. Options which are
529 specific to a particular tool are covered in the chapter about that
530 tool.
531
532 \S2{using-cmdline-load} \i\c{-load}: load a saved session
533
534 \I{saved sessions, loading from command line}The \c{-load} option
535 causes PuTTY to load configuration details out of a saved session.
536 If these details include a host name, then this option is all you
537 need to make PuTTY start a session.
538
539 You need double quotes around the session name if it contains spaces.
540
541 If you want to create a Windows shortcut to start a PuTTY saved
542 session, this is the option you should use: your shortcut should
543 call something like
544
545 \c d:\path\to\putty.exe -load "my session"
546
547 (Note that PuTTY itself supports an alternative form of this option,
548 for backwards compatibility. If you execute \i\c{putty @sessionname}
549 it will have the same effect as \c{putty -load "sessionname"}. With
550 the \c{@} form, no double quotes are required, and the \c{@} sign
551 must be the very first thing on the command line. This form of the
552 option is deprecated.)
553
554 \S2{using-cmdline-protocol} Selecting a protocol: \c{-ssh},
555 \c{-telnet}, \c{-rlogin}, \c{-raw}
556
557 To choose which protocol you want to connect with, you can use one
558 of these options:
559
560 \b \i\c{-ssh} selects the SSH protocol.
561
562 \b \i\c{-telnet} selects the Telnet protocol.
563
564 \b \i\c{-rlogin} selects the Rlogin protocol.
565
566 \b \i\c{-raw} selects the raw protocol.
567
568 These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
569 PSFTP (which only work with the SSH protocol).
570
571 These options are equivalent to the \i{protocol selection} buttons
572 in the Session panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
573 \k{config-hostname}).
574
575 \S2{using-cmdline-v} \i\c{-v}: increase verbosity
576
577 \I{verbose mode}Most of the PuTTY tools can be made to tell you more
578 about what they are doing by supplying the \c{-v} option. If you are
579 having trouble when making a connection, or you're simply curious,
580 you can turn this switch on and hope to find out more about what is
581 happening.
582
583 \S2{using-cmdline-l} \i\c{-l}: specify a \i{login name}
584
585 You can specify the user name to log in as on the remote server
586 using the \c{-l} option. For example, \c{plink login.example.com -l
587 fred}.
588
589 These options are equivalent to the username selection box in the
590 Connection panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
591 \k{config-username}).
592
593 \S2{using-cmdline-portfwd} \I{-L-upper}\c{-L}, \I{-R-upper}\c{-R}
594 and \I{-D-upper}\c{-D}: set up \i{port forwardings}
595
596 As well as setting up port forwardings in the PuTTY configuration
597 (see \k{config-ssh-portfwd}), you can also set up forwardings on the
598 command line. The command-line options work just like the ones in
599 Unix \c{ssh} programs.
600
601 To forward a local port (say 5110) to a remote destination (say
602 \cw{popserver.example.com} port 110), you can write something like
603 one of these:
604
605 \c putty -L 5110:popserver.example.com:110 -load mysession
606 \c plink mysession -L 5110:popserver.example.com:110
607
608 To forward a remote port to a local destination, just use the \c{-R}
609 option instead of \c{-L}:
610
611 \c putty -R 5023:mytelnetserver.myhouse.org:23 -load mysession
612 \c plink mysession -R 5023:mytelnetserver.myhouse.org:23
613
614 To specify an IP address for the listening end of the tunnel,
615 prepend it to the argument:
616
617 \c plink -L 127.0.0.5:23:localhost:23 myhost
618
619 To set up SOCKS-based dynamic port forwarding on a local port, use
620 the \c{-D} option. For this one you only have to pass the port
621 number:
622
623 \c putty -D 4096 -load mysession
624
625 For general information on port forwarding, see
626 \k{using-port-forwarding}.
627
628 These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
629 PSFTP.
630
631 \S2{using-cmdline-m} \i\c{-m}: read a remote command or script from
632 a file
633
634 The \i\c{-m} option performs a similar function to the \q{Remote
635 command} box in the SSH panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
636 \k{config-command}). However, the \c{-m} option expects to be given
637 a local file name, and it will read a command from that file. On
638 most Unix systems, you can even put multiple lines in this file and
639 execute more than one command in sequence, or a whole shell script;
640 but this will not work on all servers (and is known not to work
641 with certain \q{embedded} servers such as routers).
642
643 This option is not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
644 PSFTP.
645
646 \S2{using-cmdline-p} \I{-P-upper}\c{-P}: specify a \i{port number}
647
648 The \c{-P} option is used to specify the port number to connect to. If
649 you have a Telnet server running on port 9696 of a machine instead of
650 port 23, for example:
651
652 \c putty -telnet -P 9696 host.name
653 \c plink -telnet -P 9696 host.name
654
655 (Note that this option is more useful in Plink than in PuTTY,
656 because in PuTTY you can write \c{putty -telnet host.name 9696} in
657 any case.)
658
659 This option is equivalent to the port number control in the Session
660 panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see \k{config-hostname}).
661
662 \S2{using-cmdline-pw} \i\c{-pw}: specify a \i{password}
663
664 A simple way to automate a remote login is to supply your password
665 on the command line. This is \e{not recommended} for reasons of
666 security. If you possibly can, we recommend you set up public-key
667 authentication instead. See \k{pubkey} for details.
668
669 Note that the \c{-pw} option only works when you are using the SSH
670 protocol. Due to fundamental limitations of Telnet and Rlogin, these
671 protocols do not support automated password authentication.
672
673 \S2{using-cmdline-agent} \I{-A-upper}\c{-A} and \i\c{-a}: control \i{agent
674 forwarding}
675
676 The \c{-A} option turns on SSH agent forwarding, and \c{-a} turns it
677 off. These options are only meaningful if you are using SSH.
678
679 See \k{pageant} for general information on \i{Pageant}, and
680 \k{pageant-forward} for information on agent forwarding. Note that
681 there is a security risk involved with enabling this option; see
682 \k{pageant-security} for details.
683
684 These options are equivalent to the agent forwarding checkbox in the
685 Auth panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see \k{config-ssh-agentfwd}).
686
687 These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
688 PSFTP.
689
690 \S2{using-cmdline-x11} \I{-X-upper}\c{-X} and \i\c{-x}: control \i{X11
691 forwarding}
692
693 The \c{-X} option turns on X11 forwarding in SSH, and \c{-x} turns
694 it off. These options are only meaningful if you are using SSH.
695
696 For information on X11 forwarding, see \k{using-x-forwarding}.
697
698 These options are equivalent to the X11 forwarding checkbox in the
699 Tunnels panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
700 \k{config-ssh-x11}).
701
702 These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
703 PSFTP.
704
705 \S2{using-cmdline-pty} \i\c{-t} and \I{-T-upper}\c{-T}: control
706 \i{pseudo-terminal allocation}
707
708 The \c{-t} option ensures PuTTY attempts to allocate a
709 pseudo-terminal at the server, and \c{-T} stops it from allocating
710 one. These options are only meaningful if you are using SSH.
711
712 These options are equivalent to the \q{Don't allocate a
713 pseudo-terminal} checkbox in the SSH panel of the PuTTY
714 configuration box (see \k{config-ssh-pty}).
715
716 These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
717 PSFTP.
718
719 \S2{using-cmdline-noshell} \I{-N-upper}\c{-N}: suppress starting a
720 \I{suppressing remote shell}shell or command
721
722 The \c{-N} option prevents PuTTY from attempting to start a shell or
723 command on the remote server. You might want to use this option if
724 you are only using the SSH connection for port forwarding, and your
725 user account on the server does not have the ability to run a shell.
726
727 This feature is only available in SSH protocol version 2 (since the
728 version 1 protocol assumes you will always want to run a shell).
729
730 This option is equivalent to the \q{Don't start a shell or command
731 at all} checkbox in the SSH panel of the PuTTY configuration box
732 (see \k{config-ssh-noshell}).
733
734 This option is not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
735 PSFTP.
736
737 \S2{using-cmdline-compress} \I{-C-upper}\c{-C}: enable \i{compression}
738
739 The \c{-C} option enables compression of the data sent across the
740 network. This option is only meaningful if you are using SSH.
741
742 This option is equivalent to the \q{Enable compression} checkbox in
743 the SSH panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
744 \k{config-ssh-comp}).
745
746 \S2{using-cmdline-sshprot} \i\c{-1} and \i\c{-2}: specify an \i{SSH
747 protocol version}
748
749 The \c{-1} and \c{-2} options force PuTTY to use version \I{SSH1}1
750 or version \I{SSH2}2 of the SSH protocol. These options are only
751 meaningful if you are using SSH.
752
753 These options are equivalent to selecting your preferred SSH
754 protocol version as \q{1 only} or \q{2 only} in the SSH panel of the
755 PuTTY configuration box (see \k{config-ssh-prot}).
756
757 \S2{using-cmdline-ipversion} \i\c{-4} and \i\c{-6}: specify an
758 \i{Internet protocol version}
759
760 The \c{-4} and \c{-6} options force PuTTY to use the older Internet
761 protocol \i{IPv4} or the newer \i{IPv6}.
762
763 These options are equivalent to selecting your preferred Internet
764 protocol version as \q{IPv4} or \q{IPv6} in the Connection panel of
765 the PuTTY configuration box (see \k{config-address-family}).
766
767 \S2{using-cmdline-identity} \i\c{-i}: specify an SSH \i{private key}
768
769 The \c{-i} option allows you to specify the name of a private key
770 file in \c{*.PPK} format which PuTTY will use to authenticate with the
771 server. This option is only meaningful if you are using SSH.
772
773 For general information on \i{public-key authentication}, see
774 \k{pubkey}.
775
776 This option is equivalent to the \q{Private key file for
777 authentication} box in the Auth panel of the PuTTY configuration box
778 (see \k{config-ssh-privkey}).