1 \versionid $Id: using.but,v 1.31 2004/09/20 22:10:09 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
139 \b \I{Erase Line, Telnet special command}Erase Line
141 \b \I{Go Ahead, Telnet special command}Go Ahead
143 \b \I{No Operation, Telnet special command}No Operation
146 Should have no effect.
149 \b \I{Abort Process, Telnet special command}Abort Process
151 \b \I{Abort Output, Telnet special command}Abort Output
153 \b \I{Interrupt Process, Telnet special command}Interrupt Process
155 \b \I{Suspend Process, Telnet special command}Suspend Process
157 \b \I{End Of Record, Telnet special command}End Of Record
159 \b \I{End Of File, Telnet special command}End Of File
161 In an SSH connection, the following special commands are available:
163 \b \I{Break, SSH special command}Break
166 Optional extension; may not be supported by server. PuTTY requests the
167 server's default break length.
170 \b \I{IGNORE message, SSH special command}\I{No-op, in SSH}IGNORE message
173 Should have no effect.
176 \S2{using-newsession} Starting new sessions
178 PuTTY's system menu provides some shortcut ways to start new
181 \b Selecting \i{\q{New Session}} will start a completely new
182 instance of PuTTY, and bring up the configuration box as normal.
184 \b Selecting \i{\q{Duplicate Session}} will start a session with
185 precisely the same options as your current one - connecting to the
186 same host using the same protocol, with all the same terminal
187 settings and everything.
189 \b The \i{\q{Saved Sessions} submenu} gives you quick access to any
190 sets of stored session details you have previously saved. See
191 \k{config-saving} for details of how to create saved sessions.
193 \S2{using-changesettings} \I{settings, changing}Changing your
196 If you select \i{\q{Change Settings}} from the system menu, PuTTY will
197 display a cut-down version of its initial configuration box. This
198 allows you to adjust most properties of your current session. You
199 can change the terminal size, the font, the actions of various
200 keypresses, the colours, and so on.
202 Some of the options that are available in the main configuration box
203 are not shown in the cut-down Change Settings box. These are usually
204 options which don't make sense to change in the middle of a session
205 (for example, you can't switch from SSH to Telnet in mid-session).
207 \S2{using-copyall} \i{Copy All to Clipboard}
209 This system menu option provides a convenient way to copy the whole
210 contents of the terminal screen (up to the last nonempty line) and
211 scrollback to the \i{clipboard} in one go.
213 \S2{reset-terminal} \I{scrollback, clearing}Clearing and
214 \I{terminal, resetting}resetting the terminal
216 The \i{\q{Clear Scrollback}} option on the system menu tells PuTTY
217 to discard all the lines of text that have been kept after they
218 scrolled off the top of the screen. This might be useful, for
219 example, if you displayed sensitive information and wanted to make
220 sure nobody could look over your shoulder and see it. (Note that
221 this only prevents a casual user from using the scrollbar to view
222 the information; the text is not guaranteed not to still be in
225 The \i{\q{Reset Terminal}} option causes a full reset of the
226 terminal emulation. A VT-series terminal is a complex piece of
227 software and can easily get into a state where all the text printed
228 becomes unreadable. (This can happen, for example, if you
229 accidentally output a binary file to your terminal.) If this
230 happens, selecting Reset Terminal should sort it out.
232 \S2{using-fullscreen} \ii{Full screen} mode
234 If you find the title bar on a maximised window to be ugly or
235 distracting, you can select Full Screen mode to maximise PuTTY
236 \q{even more}. When you select this, PuTTY will expand to fill the
237 whole screen and its borders, title bar and scrollbar will
238 disappear. (You can configure the scrollbar not to disappear in
239 full-screen mode if you want to keep it; see \k{config-scrollback}.)
241 When you are in full-screen mode, you can still access the system
242 menu if you click the left mouse button in the \e{extreme} top left
243 corner of the screen.
245 \H{using-logging} Creating a \i{log file} of your \I{session
248 For some purposes you may find you want to log everything that
249 appears on your screen. You can do this using the \i{\q{Logging}
250 panel} in the configuration box.
252 To begin a session log, select \q{Change Settings} from the system
253 menu and go to the Logging panel. Enter a log file name, and select
254 a logging mode. (You can log all session output including the
255 terminal control sequences, or you can just log the printable text.
256 It depends what you want the log for.) Click \q{Apply} and your log
257 will be started. Later on, you can go back to the Logging panel and
258 select \q{Logging turned off completely} to stop logging; then PuTTY
259 will close the log file and you can safely read it.
261 See \k{config-logging} for more details and options.
263 \H{using-translation} Altering your \i{character set} configuration
265 If you find that special characters (\i{accented characters}, for
266 example) are not being displayed correctly in your PuTTY session, it
267 may be that PuTTY is interpreting the characters sent by the server
268 according to the wrong \e{character set}. There are a lot of
269 different character sets available, so it's entirely possible for
272 If you click \q{Change Settings} and look at the \i{\q{Translation}
273 panel}, you should see a large number of character sets which you
274 can select. Now all you need is to find out which of them you want!
276 \H{using-x-forwarding} Using \i{X11 forwarding} in SSH
278 The SSH protocol has the ability to securely forward X Window System
279 applications over your encrypted SSH connection, so that you can run
280 an application on the SSH server machine and have it put its windows
281 up on your local machine without sending any X network traffic in
284 In order to use this feature, you will need an X display server for
285 your Windows machine, such as X-Win32 or Exceed. This will probably
286 install itself as display number 0 on your local machine; if it
287 doesn't, the manual for the \i{X server} should tell you what it
290 You should then tick the \q{Enable X11 forwarding} box in the
291 Tunnels panel (see \k{config-ssh-x11}) before starting your SSH
292 session. The \q{X display location} box reads \c{localhost:0} by
293 default, which is the usual display location where your X server
294 will be installed. If that needs changing, then change it.
296 Now you should be able to log in to the SSH server as normal. To
297 check that X forwarding has been successfully negotiated during
298 connection startup, you can check the PuTTY Event Log (see
299 \k{using-eventlog}). It should say something like this:
301 \c 2001-12-05 17:22:01 Requesting X11 forwarding
302 \c 2001-12-05 17:22:02 X11 forwarding enabled
304 If the remote system is Unix or Unix-like, you should also be able
305 to see that the \i{\c{DISPLAY} environment variable} has been set to
306 point at display 10 or above on the SSH server machine itself:
308 \c fred@unixbox:~$ echo $DISPLAY
311 If this works, you should then be able to run X applications in the
312 remote session and have them display their windows on your PC.
314 Note that if your PC X server requires authentication to connect,
315 then PuTTY cannot currently support it. If this is a problem for
316 you, you should mail the PuTTY authors \#{FIXME} and give details
319 For more options relating to X11 forwarding, see \k{config-ssh-x11}.
321 \H{using-port-forwarding} Using \i{port forwarding} in SSH
323 The SSH protocol has the ability to forward arbitrary network
324 connections over your encrypted SSH connection, to avoid the network
325 traffic being sent in clear. For example, you could use this to
326 connect from your home computer to a POP-3 server on a remote
327 machine without your POP-3 password being visible to network
330 In order to use port forwarding to connect from your local machine
331 to a port on a remote server, you need to:
333 \b Choose a port number on your local machine where PuTTY should
334 listen for incoming connections. There are likely to be plenty of
335 unused port numbers above 3000. (You can also use a local loopback
336 address here; see below for more details.)
338 \b Now, before you start your SSH connection, go to the Tunnels
339 panel (see \k{config-ssh-portfwd}). Make sure the \q{Local} radio
340 button is set. Enter the local port number into the \q{Source port}
341 box. Enter the destination host name and port number into the
342 \q{Destination} box, separated by a colon (for example,
343 \c{popserver.example.com:110} to connect to a POP-3 server).
345 \b Now click the \q{Add} button. The details of your port forwarding
346 should appear in the list box.
348 Now start your session and log in. (Port forwarding will not be
349 enabled until after you have logged in; otherwise it would be easy
350 to perform completely anonymous network attacks, and gain access to
351 anyone's virtual private network). To check that PuTTY has set up
352 the port forwarding correctly, you can look at the PuTTY Event Log
353 (see \k{using-eventlog}). It should say something like this:
355 \c 2001-12-05 17:22:10 Local port 3110 forwarding to
356 \c popserver.example.com:110
358 Now if you connect to the source port number on your local PC, you
359 should find that it answers you exactly as if it were the service
360 running on the destination machine. So in this example, you could
361 then configure an e-mail client to use \c{localhost:3110} as a POP-3
362 server instead of \c{popserver.example.com:110}. (Of course, the
363 forwarding will stop happening when your PuTTY session closes down.)
365 You can also forward ports in the other direction: arrange for a
366 particular port number on the \e{server} machine to be forwarded
367 back to your PC as a connection to a service on your PC or near it.
368 To do this, just select the \q{Remote} radio button instead of the
369 \q{Local} one. The \q{Source port} box will now specify a port
370 number on the \e{server} (note that most servers will not allow you
371 to use port numbers under 1024 for this purpose).
373 An alternative way to forward local connections to remote hosts is
374 to use \I{dynamic port forwarding}dynamic \I{SOCKS} proxying. For
375 this, you will need to select the \q{Dynamic} radio button instead
376 of \q{Local}, and then you should not enter anything into the
377 \q{Destination} box (it will be ignored). This will cause PuTTY to
378 listen on the port you have specified, and provide a SOCKS proxy
379 service to any programs which connect to that port. So, in
380 particular, you can forward other PuTTY connections through it by
381 setting up the Proxy control panel (see \k{config-proxy} for
384 The source port for a forwarded connection usually does not accept
385 connections from any machine except the SSH client or server machine
386 itself (for local and remote forwardings respectively). There are
387 controls in the Tunnels panel to change this:
389 \b The \q{Local ports accept connections from other hosts} option
390 allows you to set up local-to-remote port forwardings (including
391 dynamic port forwardings) in such a way that machines other than
392 your client PC can connect to the forwarded port.
394 \b The \q{Remote ports do the same} option does the same thing for
395 remote-to-local port forwardings (so that machines other than the
396 SSH server machine can connect to the forwarded port.) Note that
397 this feature is only available in the SSH 2 protocol, and not all
398 SSH 2 servers honour it (in OpenSSH, for example, it's usually
399 disabled by default).
401 You can also specify an \i{IP address} to listen on. Typically a
402 Windows machine can be asked to listen on any single IP address in
403 the \cw{127.*.*.*} range, and all of these are loopback addresses
404 available only to the local machine. So if you forward (for example)
405 \c{127.0.0.5:79} to a remote machine's \cw{finger} port, then you
406 should be able to run commands such as \c{finger fred@127.0.0.5}.
407 This can be useful if the program connecting to the forwarded port
408 doesn't allow you to change the port number it uses. This feature is
409 available for local-to-remote forwarded ports; SSH1 is unable to
410 support it for remote-to-local ports, while SSH2 can support it in
411 theory but servers will not necessarily cooperate.
413 (Note that if you're using Windows XP Service Pack 2, you may need
414 to obtain a fix from Microsoft in order to use addresses like
415 \cw{127.0.0.5} - see \k{faq-alternate-localhost}.)
417 \H{using-rawprot} Making \i{raw TCP connections}
419 A lot of \I{debugging Internet protocols}Internet protocols are
420 composed of commands and responses in plain text. For example,
421 \i{SMTP} (the protocol used to transfer e-mail), \i{NNTP} (the
422 protocol used to transfer Usenet news), and \i{HTTP} (the protocol
423 used to serve Web pages) all consist of commands in readable plain
426 Sometimes it can be useful to connect directly to one of these
427 services and speak the protocol \q{by hand}, by typing protocol
428 commands and watching the responses. On Unix machines, you can do
429 this using the system's \c{telnet} command to connect to the right
430 port number. For example, \c{telnet mailserver.example.com 25} might
431 enable you to talk directly to the SMTP service running on a mail
434 Although the Unix \c{telnet} program provides this functionality,
435 the protocol being used is not really Telnet. Really there is no
436 actual protocol at all; the bytes sent down the connection are
437 exactly the ones you type, and the bytes shown on the screen are
438 exactly the ones sent by the server. Unix \c{telnet} will attempt to
439 detect or guess whether the service it is talking to is a real
440 Telnet service or not; PuTTY prefers to be told for certain.
442 In order to make a debugging connection to a service of this type,
443 you simply select the fourth protocol name, \I{\q{Raw}
444 protocol}\q{Raw}, from the \q{Protocol} buttons in the \q{Session}
445 configuration panel. (See \k{config-hostname}.) You can then enter a
446 host name and a port number, and make the connection.
448 \H{using-cmdline} The PuTTY command line
450 PuTTY can be made to do various things without user intervention by
451 supplying \i{command-line arguments} (e.g., from a \i{command prompt
452 window}, or a \i{Windows shortcut}).
454 \S{using-cmdline-session} Starting a session from the command line
456 \I\c{-ssh}\I\c{-telnet}\I\c{-rlogin}\I\c{-raw}These options allow
457 you to bypass the configuration window and launch straight into a
460 To start a connection to a server called \c{host}:
462 \c putty.exe [-ssh | -telnet | -rlogin | -raw] [user@]host
464 If this syntax is used, settings are taken from the Default Settings
465 (see \k{config-saving}); \c{user} overrides these settings if
466 supplied. Also, you can specify a protocol, which will override the
467 default protocol (see \k{using-cmdline-protocol}).
469 For telnet sessions, the following alternative syntax is supported
470 (this makes PuTTY suitable for use as a URL handler for \i{telnet
471 URLs} in web browsers):
473 \c putty.exe telnet://host[:port]/
475 In order to start an existing saved session called \c{sessionname},
476 use the \c{-load} option (described in \k{using-cmdline-load}).
478 \c putty.exe -load "session name"
480 \S{using-cleanup} \i\c{-cleanup}
482 If invoked with the \c{-cleanup} option, rather than running as
483 normal, PuTTY will remove its registry entries and random seed file
484 from the local machine (after confirming with the user).
486 \S{using-general-opts} Standard command-line options
488 PuTTY and its associated tools support a range of command-line
489 options, most of which are consistent across all the tools. This
490 section lists the available options in all tools. Options which are
491 specific to a particular tool are covered in the chapter about that
494 \S2{using-cmdline-load} \i\c{-load}: load a saved session
496 \I{saved sessions, loading from command line}The \c{-load} option
497 causes PuTTY to load configuration details out of a saved session.
498 If these details include a host name, then this option is all you
499 need to make PuTTY start a session.
501 You need double quotes around the session name if it contains spaces.
503 If you want to create a Windows shortcut to start a PuTTY saved
504 session, this is the option you should use: your shortcut should
507 \c d:\path\to\putty.exe -load "my session"
509 (Note that PuTTY itself supports an alternative form of this option,
510 for backwards compatibility. If you execute \c{putty @sessionname}
511 it will have the same effect as \c{putty -load "sessionname"}. With
512 the \c{@} form, no double quotes are required, and the \c{@} sign
513 must be the very first thing on the command line. This form of the
514 option is deprecated.)
516 \S2{using-cmdline-protocol} Selecting a protocol: \c{-ssh},
517 \c{-telnet}, \c{-rlogin}, \c{-raw}
519 To choose which protocol you want to connect with, you can use one
522 \b \i\c{-ssh} selects the SSH protocol.
524 \b \i\c{-telnet} selects the Telnet protocol.
526 \b \i\c{-rlogin} selects the Rlogin protocol.
528 \b \i\c{-raw} selects the raw protocol.
530 These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
531 PSFTP (which only work with the SSH protocol).
533 These options are equivalent to the \i{protocol selection} buttons
534 in the Session panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
535 \k{config-hostname}).
537 \S2{using-cmdline-v} \i\c{-v}: increase verbosity
539 \I{verbose mode}Most of the PuTTY tools can be made to tell you more
540 about what they are doing by supplying the \c{-v} option. If you are
541 having trouble when making a connection, or you're simply curious,
542 you can turn this switch on and hope to find out more about what is
545 \S2{using-cmdline-l} \i\c{-l}: specify a \i{login name}
547 You can specify the user name to log in as on the remote server
548 using the \c{-l} option. For example, \c{plink login.example.com -l
551 These options are equivalent to the username selection box in the
552 Connection panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
553 \k{config-username}).
555 \S2{using-cmdline-portfwd} \I{-L-upper}\c{-L}, \I{-R-upper}\c{-R}
556 and \I{-D-upper}\c{-D}: set up \i{port forwardings}
558 As well as setting up port forwardings in the PuTTY configuration
559 (see \k{config-ssh-portfwd}), you can also set up forwardings on the
560 command line. The command-line options work just like the ones in
561 Unix \c{ssh} programs.
563 To forward a local port (say 5110) to a remote destination (say
564 \cw{popserver.example.com} port 110), you can write something like
567 \c putty -L 5110:popserver.example.com:110 -load mysession
568 \c plink mysession -L 5110:popserver.example.com:110
570 To forward a remote port to a local destination, just use the \c{-R}
571 option instead of \c{-L}:
573 \c putty -R 5023:mytelnetserver.myhouse.org:23 -load mysession
574 \c plink mysession -R 5023:mytelnetserver.myhouse.org:23
576 To specify an IP address for the listening end of the tunnel,
577 prepend it to the argument:
579 \c plink -L 127.0.0.5:23:localhost:23 myhost
581 To set up SOCKS-based dynamic port forwarding on a local port, use
582 the \c{-D} option. For this one you only have to pass the port
585 \c putty -D 4096 -load mysession
587 For general information on port forwarding, see
588 \k{using-port-forwarding}.
590 These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
593 \S2{using-cmdline-m} \i\c{-m}: read a remote command or script from
596 The \i\c{-m} option performs a similar function to the \q{Remote
597 command} box in the SSH panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
598 \k{config-command}). However, the \c{-m} option expects to be given
599 a local file name, and it will read a command from that file. On
600 most Unix systems, you can even put multiple lines in this file and
601 execute more than one command in sequence, or a whole shell script;
602 but this will not work on all servers (and is known not to work
603 with certain \q{embedded} servers such as routers).
605 This option is not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
608 \S2{using-cmdline-p} \I{-P-upper}\c{-P}: specify a \i{port number}
610 The \c{-P} option is used to specify the port number to connect to. If
611 you have a Telnet server running on port 9696 of a machine instead of
612 port 23, for example:
614 \c putty -telnet -P 9696 host.name
615 \c plink -telnet -P 9696 host.name
617 (Note that this option is more useful in Plink than in PuTTY,
618 because in PuTTY you can write \c{putty -telnet host.name 9696} in
621 This option is equivalent to the port number control in the Session
622 panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see \k{config-hostname}).
624 \S2{using-cmdline-pw} \i\c{-pw}: specify a \i{password}
626 A simple way to automate a remote login is to supply your password
627 on the command line. This is \e{not recommended} for reasons of
628 security. If you possibly can, we recommend you set up public-key
629 authentication instead. See \k{pubkey} for details.
631 Note that the \c{-pw} option only works when you are using the SSH
632 protocol. Due to fundamental limitations of Telnet and Rlogin, these
633 protocols do not support automated password authentication.
635 \S2{using-cmdline-agent} \I{-A-upper}\c{-A} and \i\c{-a}: control \i{agent
638 The \c{-A} option turns on SSH agent forwarding, and \c{-a} turns it
639 off. These options are only meaningful if you are using SSH.
641 See \k{pageant} for general information on \i{Pageant}, and
642 \k{pageant-forward} for information on agent forwarding. Note that
643 there is a security risk involved with enabling this option; see
644 \k{pageant-security} for details.
646 These options are equivalent to the agent forwarding checkbox in the
647 Auth panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see \k{config-ssh-agentfwd}).
649 These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
652 \S2{using-cmdline-x11} \I{-X-upper}\c{-X} and \i\c{-x}: control \i{X11
655 The \c{-X} option turns on X11 forwarding in SSH, and \c{-x} turns
656 it off. These options are only meaningful if you are using SSH.
658 For information on X11 forwarding, see \k{using-x-forwarding}.
660 These options are equivalent to the X11 forwarding checkbox in the
661 Tunnels panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
664 These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
667 \S2{using-cmdline-pty} \i\c{-t} and \I{-T-upper}\c{-T}: control
668 \i{pseudo-terminal allocation}
670 The \c{-t} option ensures PuTTY attempts to allocate a
671 pseudo-terminal at the server, and \c{-T} stops it from allocating
672 one. These options are only meaningful if you are using SSH.
674 These options are equivalent to the \q{Don't allocate a
675 pseudo-terminal} checkbox in the SSH panel of the PuTTY
676 configuration box (see \k{config-ssh-pty}).
678 These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
681 \S2{using-cmdline-compress} \I{-C-upper}\c{-C}: enable \i{compression}
683 The \c{-C} option enables compression of the data sent across the
684 network. This option is only meaningful if you are using SSH.
686 This option is equivalent to the \q{Enable compression} checkbox in
687 the SSH panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
688 \k{config-ssh-comp}).
690 \S2{using-cmdline-sshprot} \i\c{-1} and \i\c{-2}: specify an \i{SSH
693 The \c{-1} and \c{-2} options force PuTTY to use version \I{SSH1}1
694 or version \I{SSH2}2 of the SSH protocol. These options are only
695 meaningful if you are using SSH.
697 These options are equivalent to selecting your preferred SSH
698 protocol version as \q{1 only} or \q{2 only} in the SSH panel of the
699 PuTTY configuration box (see \k{config-ssh-prot}).
701 \S2{using-cmdline-identity} \i\c{-i}: specify an SSH \i{private key}
703 The \c{-i} option allows you to specify the name of a private key
704 file in \c{*.PPK} format which PuTTY will use to authenticate with the
705 server. This option is only meaningful if you are using SSH.
707 For general information on \i{public-key authentication}, see
710 This option is equivalent to the \q{Private key file for
711 authentication} box in the Auth panel of the PuTTY configuration box
712 (see \k{config-ssh-privkey}).