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1\versionid $Id: using.but,v 1.36 2004/10/19 13:54:50 jacob Exp $
2
3\C{using} Using PuTTY
4
5This chapter provides a general introduction to some more advanced
6features 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
11A lot of PuTTY's complexity and features are in the configuration
12panel. Once you have worked your way through that and started
13a session, things should be reasonably simple after that.
14Nevertheless, 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
19your terminal screen which you want to type in again. Like most
20other terminal emulators, PuTTY allows you to copy and paste the
21text rather than having to type it again. Also, copy and paste uses
22the \I{Windows clipboard}Windows \i{clipboard}, so that you can
23paste (for example) URLs into a web browser, or paste from a word
24processor or spreadsheet into your terminal session.
25
26PuTTY's copy and paste works entirely with the \i{mouse}. In order
27to copy text to the clipboard, you just click the \i{left mouse
28button} in the terminal window, and drag to \I{selecting text}select
29text. When you let go of the button, the text is \e{automatically}
30copied to the clipboard. You do not need to press Ctrl-C or
31Ctrl-Ins; in fact, if you do press Ctrl-C, PuTTY will send a Ctrl-C
32character down your session to the server where it will probably
33cause a process to be interrupted.
34
35Pasting is done using the right button (or the middle mouse button,
36if you have a three-button mouse and have set it up; see
37\k{config-mouse}). (Pressing \i{Shift-Ins}, or selecting \q{Paste}
38from the Ctrl+right-click context menu, have the same effect.) When
39you click the \i{right mouse button}, PuTTY will read whatever is in
40the Windows clipboard and paste it into your session, \e{exactly} as
41if it had been typed at the keyboard. (Therefore, be careful of
42pasting formatted text into an editor that does automatic indenting;
43you may find that the spaces pasted from the clipboard plus the
44spaces added by the editor add up to too many spaces and ruin the
45formatting. There is nothing PuTTY can do about this.)
46
47If you \i{double-click} the left mouse button, PuTTY will select a
48whole word. If you double-click, hold down the second click, and
49drag the mouse, PuTTY will select a sequence of whole words. (You
50can 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
53sequence of lines.
54
55If you want to select a \I{rectangular selection}rectangular region
56instead of selecting to the end of each line, you can do this by
57holding down Alt when you make your selection. (You can also
58configure rectangular selection to be the default, and then holding
59down Alt gives the normal behaviour instead. See
60\k{config-rectselect} for details.)
61
62If you have a \i{middle mouse button}, then you can use it to
63\I{adjusting a selection}adjust an existing selection if you
64selected something slightly wrong. (If you have configured the
65middle mouse button to paste, then the right mouse button does this
66instead.) Click the button on the screen, and you can pick up the
67nearest end of the selection and drag it to somewhere else.
68
69It's possible for the server to ask to handle mouse clicks in the
70PuTTY window itself. If this happens, the mouse cursor will turn
71into an arrow, and using the mouse to copy and paste will only work if
72you hold down Shift. See \k{config-features-mouse} and
73\k{config-mouseshift} for details of this feature and how to configure
74it.
75
76\S{using-scrollback} \I{scrollback}Scrolling the screen back
77
78PuTTY keeps track of text that has scrolled up off the top of the
79terminal. So if something appears on the screen that you want to
80read, but it scrolls too fast and it's gone by the time you try to
81look for it, you can use the scrollbar on the right side of the
82window to look back up the session \i{history} and find it again.
83
84As well as using the scrollbar, you can also page the scrollback up
85and down by pressing \i{Shift-PgUp} and \i{Shift-PgDn}. You can
86scroll a line at a time using \i{Ctrl-PgUp} and \i{Ctrl-PgDn}. These
87are still available if you configure the scrollbar to be invisible.
88
89By default the last 200 lines scrolled off the top are
90preserved for you to look at. You can increase (or decrease) this
91value using the configuration box; see \k{config-scrollback}.
92
93\S{using-sysmenu} The \i{System menu}
94
95If you click the left mouse button on the icon in the top left
96corner of PuTTY's terminal window, or click the right mouse button
97on the title bar, you will see the standard Windows system menu
98containing items like Minimise, Move, Size and Close.
99
100PuTTY's system menu contains extra program features in addition to
101the Windows standard options. These extra menu commands are
102described below.
103
104(These options are also available in a context menu brought up
105by holding Ctrl and clicking with the right mouse button anywhere
106in the PuTTY window.)
107
108\S2{using-eventlog} The PuTTY \i{Event Log}
109
110If you choose \q{Event Log} from the system menu, a small window
111will pop up in which PuTTY logs significant events during the
112connection. Most of the events in the log will probably take place
113during session startup, but a few can occur at any point in the
114session, and one or two occur right at the end.
115
116You can use the mouse to select one or more lines of the Event Log,
117and hit the Copy button to copy them to the \i{clipboard}. If you
118are reporting a bug, it's often useful to paste the contents of the
119Event Log into your bug report.
120
121\S2{using-specials} \ii{Special commands}
122
123Depending on the protocol used for the current session, there may be
124a submenu of \q{special commands}. These are protocol-specific
125tokens, such as a \i{\q{break} signal}, that can be sent down a
126connection in addition to normal data. Their precise effect is usually
127up to the server. Currently only Telnet and SSH have special commands.
128
129The 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{
140PuTTY can also be configured to send this when the Backspace key is
141pressed; 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{
151Should 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{
161PuTTY 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{
168PuTTY 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
176In 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{
181Should have no effect.
182}
183
184\b \I{Break, SSH special command}Break
185
186\lcont{
187Only available in SSH-2, and only during a session. Optional
188extension; may not be supported by server. PuTTY requests the server's
189default break length.
190}
191
192\b \I{Signal, SSH special command}Signals (SIGINT, SIGTERM etc)
193
194\lcont{
195Only available in SSH-2, and only during a session. Sends various
196POSIX signals. Not honoured by all servers.
197}
198
199\S2{using-newsession} Starting new sessions
200
201PuTTY's system menu provides some shortcut ways to start new
202sessions:
203
204\b Selecting \i{\q{New Session}} will start a completely new
205instance of PuTTY, and bring up the configuration box as normal.
206
207\b Selecting \i{\q{Duplicate Session}} will start a session with
208precisely the same options as your current one - connecting to the
209same host using the same protocol, with all the same terminal
210settings and everything.
211
212\b The \i{\q{Saved Sessions} submenu} gives you quick access to any
213sets of stored session details you have previously saved. See
214\k{config-saving} for details of how to create saved sessions.
215
216\S2{using-changesettings} \I{settings, changing}Changing your
217session settings
218
219If you select \i{\q{Change Settings}} from the system menu, PuTTY will
220display a cut-down version of its initial configuration box. This
221allows you to adjust most properties of your current session. You
222can change the terminal size, the font, the actions of various
223keypresses, the colours, and so on.
224
225Some of the options that are available in the main configuration box
226are not shown in the cut-down Change Settings box. These are usually
227options 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).
229
230\S2{using-copyall} \i{Copy All to Clipboard}
231
232This system menu option provides a convenient way to copy the whole
233contents of the terminal screen (up to the last nonempty line) and
234scrollback to the \i{clipboard} in one go.
235
236\S2{reset-terminal} \I{scrollback, clearing}Clearing and
237\I{terminal, resetting}resetting the terminal
238
239The \i{\q{Clear Scrollback}} option on the system menu tells PuTTY
240to discard all the lines of text that have been kept after they
241scrolled off the top of the screen. This might be useful, for
242example, if you displayed sensitive information and wanted to make
243sure nobody could look over your shoulder and see it. (Note that
244this only prevents a casual user from using the scrollbar to view
245the information; the text is not guaranteed not to still be in
246PuTTY's memory.)
247
248The \i{\q{Reset Terminal}} option causes a full reset of the
249terminal emulation. A VT-series terminal is a complex piece of
250software and can easily get into a state where all the text printed
251becomes unreadable. (This can happen, for example, if you
252accidentally output a binary file to your terminal.) If this
253happens, selecting Reset Terminal should sort it out.
254
255\S2{using-fullscreen} \ii{Full screen} mode
256
257If you find the title bar on a maximised window to be ugly or
258distracting, you can select Full Screen mode to maximise PuTTY
259\q{even more}. When you select this, PuTTY will expand to fill the
260whole screen and its borders, title bar and scrollbar will
261disappear. (You can configure the scrollbar not to disappear in
262full-screen mode if you want to keep it; see \k{config-scrollback}.)
263
264When you are in full-screen mode, you can still access the system
265menu if you click the left mouse button in the \e{extreme} top left
266corner of the screen.
267
268\H{using-logging} Creating a \i{log file} of your \I{session
269log}session
270
271For some purposes you may find you want to log everything that
272appears on your screen. You can do this using the \i{\q{Logging}
273panel} in the configuration box.
274
275To begin a session log, select \q{Change Settings} from the system
276menu and go to the Logging panel. Enter a log file name, and select
277a logging mode. (You can log all session output including the
278terminal control sequences, or you can just log the printable text.
279It depends what you want the log for.) Click \q{Apply} and your log
280will be started. Later on, you can go back to the Logging panel and
281select \q{Logging turned off completely} to stop logging; then PuTTY
282will close the log file and you can safely read it.
283
284See \k{config-logging} for more details and options.
285
286\H{using-translation} Altering your \i{character set} configuration
287
288If you find that special characters (\i{accented characters}, for
289example, or \i{line-drawing characters}) are not being displayed
290correctly in your PuTTY session, it may be that PuTTY is interpreting
291the characters sent by the server according to the wrong \e{character
292set}. There are a lot of different character sets available, so it's
293entirely possible for this to happen.
294
295If you click \q{Change Settings} and look at the \i{\q{Translation}
296panel}, you should see a large number of character sets which you can
297select, and other related options. Now all you need is to find out
298which of them you want! (See \k{config-translation} for more
299information.)
300
301\H{using-x-forwarding} Using \i{X11 forwarding} in SSH
302
303The SSH protocol has the ability to securely forward X Window System
304applications over your encrypted SSH connection, so that you can run
305an application on the SSH server machine and have it put its windows
306up on your local machine without sending any X network traffic in
307the clear.
308
309In order to use this feature, you will need an X display server for
310your Windows machine, such as X-Win32 or Exceed. This will probably
311install itself as display number 0 on your local machine; if it
312doesn't, the manual for the \i{X server} should tell you what it
313does do.
314
315You should then tick the \q{Enable X11 forwarding} box in the
316Tunnels panel (see \k{config-ssh-x11}) before starting your SSH
317session. The \q{X display location} box is blank by default, which
318means that PuTTY will try to use a sensible default such as \c{:0},
319which is the usual display location where your X server will be
320installed. If that needs changing, then change it.
321
322Now you should be able to log in to the SSH server as normal. To
323check that X forwarding has been successfully negotiated during
324connection startup, you can check the PuTTY Event Log (see
325\k{using-eventlog}). It should say something like this:
326
327\c 2001-12-05 17:22:01 Requesting X11 forwarding
328\c 2001-12-05 17:22:02 X11 forwarding enabled
329
330If the remote system is Unix or Unix-like, you should also be able
331to see that the \i{\c{DISPLAY} environment variable} has been set to
332point at display 10 or above on the SSH server machine itself:
333
334\c fred@unixbox:~$ echo $DISPLAY
335\c unixbox:10.0
336
337If this works, you should then be able to run X applications in the
338remote session and have them display their windows on your PC.
339
340Note that if your PC X server requires authentication to connect,
341then PuTTY cannot currently support it. If this is a problem for
342you, you should mail the PuTTY authors \#{FIXME} and give details
343(see \k{feedback}).
344
345For more options relating to X11 forwarding, see \k{config-ssh-x11}.
346
347\H{using-port-forwarding} Using \i{port forwarding} in SSH
348
349The SSH protocol has the ability to forward arbitrary network
350connections over your encrypted SSH connection, to avoid the network
351traffic being sent in clear. For example, you could use this to
352connect from your home computer to a POP-3 server on a remote
353machine without your POP-3 password being visible to network
354sniffers.
355
356In order to use port forwarding to connect from your local machine
357to a port on a remote server, you need to:
358
359\b Choose a port number on your local machine where PuTTY should
360listen for incoming connections. There are likely to be plenty of
361unused port numbers above 3000. (You can also use a local loopback
362address here; see below for more details.)
363
364\b Now, before you start your SSH connection, go to the Tunnels
365panel (see \k{config-ssh-portfwd}). Make sure the \q{Local} radio
366button is set. Enter the local port number into the \q{Source port}
367box. Enter the destination host name and port number into the
368\q{Destination} box, separated by a colon (for example,
369\c{popserver.example.com:110} to connect to a POP-3 server).
370
371\b Now click the \q{Add} button. The details of your port forwarding
372should appear in the list box.
373
374Now start your session and log in. (Port forwarding will not be
375enabled until after you have logged in; otherwise it would be easy
376to perform completely anonymous network attacks, and gain access to
377anyone's virtual private network). To check that PuTTY has set up
378the port forwarding correctly, you can look at the PuTTY Event Log
379(see \k{using-eventlog}). It should say something like this:
380
381\c 2001-12-05 17:22:10 Local port 3110 forwarding to
382\c popserver.example.com:110
383
384Now if you connect to the source port number on your local PC, you
385should find that it answers you exactly as if it were the service
386running on the destination machine. So in this example, you could
387then configure an e-mail client to use \c{localhost:3110} as a POP-3
388server instead of \c{popserver.example.com:110}. (Of course, the
389forwarding will stop happening when your PuTTY session closes down.)
390
391You can also forward ports in the other direction: arrange for a
392particular port number on the \e{server} machine to be forwarded
393back to your PC as a connection to a service on your PC or near it.
394To do this, just select the \q{Remote} radio button instead of the
395\q{Local} one. The \q{Source port} box will now specify a port
396number on the \e{server} (note that most servers will not allow you
397to use port numbers under 1024 for this purpose).
398
399An alternative way to forward local connections to remote hosts is
400to use \I{dynamic port forwarding}dynamic \I{SOCKS} proxying. For
401this, you will need to select the \q{Dynamic} radio button instead
402of \q{Local}, and then you should not enter anything into the
403\q{Destination} box (it will be ignored). This will cause PuTTY to
404listen on the port you have specified, and provide a SOCKS proxy
405service to any programs which connect to that port. So, in
406particular, you can forward other PuTTY connections through it by
407setting up the Proxy control panel (see \k{config-proxy} for
408details).
409
410The source port for a forwarded connection usually does not accept
411connections from any machine except the SSH client or server machine
412itself (for local and remote forwardings respectively). There are
413controls in the Tunnels panel to change this:
414
415\b The \q{Local ports accept connections from other hosts} option
416allows you to set up local-to-remote port forwardings (including
417dynamic port forwardings) in such a way that machines other than
418your client PC can connect to the forwarded port.
419
420\b The \q{Remote ports do the same} option does the same thing for
421remote-to-local port forwardings (so that machines other than the
422SSH server machine can connect to the forwarded port.) Note that
423this feature is only available in the SSH 2 protocol, and not all
424SSH 2 servers honour it (in OpenSSH, for example, it's usually
425disabled by default).
426
427You can also specify an \i{IP address} to listen on. Typically a
428Windows machine can be asked to listen on any single IP address in
429the \cw{127.*.*.*} range, and all of these are loopback addresses
430available only to the local machine. So if you forward (for example)
431\c{127.0.0.5:79} to a remote machine's \cw{finger} port, then you
432should be able to run commands such as \c{finger fred@127.0.0.5}.
433This can be useful if the program connecting to the forwarded port
434doesn't allow you to change the port number it uses. This feature is
435available for local-to-remote forwarded ports; SSH1 is unable to
436support it for remote-to-local ports, while SSH2 can support it in
437theory but servers will not necessarily cooperate.
438
439(Note that if you're using Windows XP Service Pack 2, you may need
440to obtain a fix from Microsoft in order to use addresses like
441\cw{127.0.0.5} - see \k{faq-alternate-localhost}.)
442
443\H{using-rawprot} Making \i{raw TCP connections}
444
445A lot of \I{debugging Internet protocols}Internet protocols are
446composed of commands and responses in plain text. For example,
447\i{SMTP} (the protocol used to transfer e-mail), \i{NNTP} (the
448protocol used to transfer Usenet news), and \i{HTTP} (the protocol
449used to serve Web pages) all consist of commands in readable plain
450text.
451
452Sometimes it can be useful to connect directly to one of these
453services and speak the protocol \q{by hand}, by typing protocol
454commands and watching the responses. On Unix machines, you can do
455this using the system's \c{telnet} command to connect to the right
456port number. For example, \c{telnet mailserver.example.com 25} might
457enable you to talk directly to the SMTP service running on a mail
458server.
459
460Although the Unix \c{telnet} program provides this functionality,
461the protocol being used is not really Telnet. Really there is no
462actual protocol at all; the bytes sent down the connection are
463exactly the ones you type, and the bytes shown on the screen are
464exactly the ones sent by the server. Unix \c{telnet} will attempt to
465detect or guess whether the service it is talking to is a real
466Telnet service or not; PuTTY prefers to be told for certain.
467
468In order to make a debugging connection to a service of this type,
469you simply select the fourth protocol name, \I{\q{Raw}
470protocol}\q{Raw}, from the \q{Protocol} buttons in the \q{Session}
471configuration panel. (See \k{config-hostname}.) You can then enter a
472host name and a port number, and make the connection.
473
474\H{using-cmdline} The PuTTY command line
475
476PuTTY can be made to do various things without user intervention by
477supplying \i{command-line arguments} (e.g., from a \i{command prompt
478window}, or a \i{Windows shortcut}).
479
480\S{using-cmdline-session} Starting a session from the command line
481
482\I\c{-ssh}\I\c{-telnet}\I\c{-rlogin}\I\c{-raw}These options allow
483you to bypass the configuration window and launch straight into a
484session.
485
486To start a connection to a server called \c{host}:
487
488\c putty.exe [-ssh | -telnet | -rlogin | -raw] [user@]host
489
490If this syntax is used, settings are taken from the Default Settings
491(see \k{config-saving}); \c{user} overrides these settings if
492supplied. Also, you can specify a protocol, which will override the
493default protocol (see \k{using-cmdline-protocol}).
494
495For telnet sessions, the following alternative syntax is supported
496(this makes PuTTY suitable for use as a URL handler for \i{telnet
497URLs} in web browsers):
498
499\c putty.exe telnet://host[:port]/
500
501In order to start an existing saved session called \c{sessionname},
502use the \c{-load} option (described in \k{using-cmdline-load}).
503
504\c putty.exe -load "session name"
505
506\S{using-cleanup} \i\c{-cleanup}
507
508If invoked with the \c{-cleanup} option, rather than running as
509normal, PuTTY will remove its registry entries and random seed file
510from the local machine (after confirming with the user).
511
512\S{using-general-opts} Standard command-line options
513
514PuTTY and its associated tools support a range of command-line
515options, most of which are consistent across all the tools. This
516section lists the available options in all tools. Options which are
517specific to a particular tool are covered in the chapter about that
518tool.
519
520\S2{using-cmdline-load} \i\c{-load}: load a saved session
521
522\I{saved sessions, loading from command line}The \c{-load} option
523causes PuTTY to load configuration details out of a saved session.
524If these details include a host name, then this option is all you
525need to make PuTTY start a session.
526
527You need double quotes around the session name if it contains spaces.
528
529If you want to create a Windows shortcut to start a PuTTY saved
530session, this is the option you should use: your shortcut should
531call something like
532
533\c d:\path\to\putty.exe -load "my session"
534
535(Note that PuTTY itself supports an alternative form of this option,
536for backwards compatibility. If you execute \c{putty @sessionname}
537it will have the same effect as \c{putty -load "sessionname"}. With
538the \c{@} form, no double quotes are required, and the \c{@} sign
539must be the very first thing on the command line. This form of the
540option is deprecated.)
541
542\S2{using-cmdline-protocol} Selecting a protocol: \c{-ssh},
543\c{-telnet}, \c{-rlogin}, \c{-raw}
544
545To choose which protocol you want to connect with, you can use one
546of these options:
547
548\b \i\c{-ssh} selects the SSH protocol.
549
550\b \i\c{-telnet} selects the Telnet protocol.
551
552\b \i\c{-rlogin} selects the Rlogin protocol.
553
554\b \i\c{-raw} selects the raw protocol.
555
556These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
557PSFTP (which only work with the SSH protocol).
558
559These options are equivalent to the \i{protocol selection} buttons
560in the Session panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
561\k{config-hostname}).
562
563\S2{using-cmdline-v} \i\c{-v}: increase verbosity
564
565\I{verbose mode}Most of the PuTTY tools can be made to tell you more
566about what they are doing by supplying the \c{-v} option. If you are
567having trouble when making a connection, or you're simply curious,
568you can turn this switch on and hope to find out more about what is
569happening.
570
571\S2{using-cmdline-l} \i\c{-l}: specify a \i{login name}
572
573You can specify the user name to log in as on the remote server
574using the \c{-l} option. For example, \c{plink login.example.com -l
575fred}.
576
577These options are equivalent to the username selection box in the
578Connection panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
579\k{config-username}).
580
581\S2{using-cmdline-portfwd} \I{-L-upper}\c{-L}, \I{-R-upper}\c{-R}
582and \I{-D-upper}\c{-D}: set up \i{port forwardings}
583
584As well as setting up port forwardings in the PuTTY configuration
585(see \k{config-ssh-portfwd}), you can also set up forwardings on the
586command line. The command-line options work just like the ones in
587Unix \c{ssh} programs.
588
589To forward a local port (say 5110) to a remote destination (say
590\cw{popserver.example.com} port 110), you can write something like
591one of these:
592
593\c putty -L 5110:popserver.example.com:110 -load mysession
594\c plink mysession -L 5110:popserver.example.com:110
595
596To forward a remote port to a local destination, just use the \c{-R}
597option instead of \c{-L}:
598
599\c putty -R 5023:mytelnetserver.myhouse.org:23 -load mysession
600\c plink mysession -R 5023:mytelnetserver.myhouse.org:23
601
602To specify an IP address for the listening end of the tunnel,
603prepend it to the argument:
604
605\c plink -L 127.0.0.5:23:localhost:23 myhost
606
607To set up SOCKS-based dynamic port forwarding on a local port, use
608the \c{-D} option. For this one you only have to pass the port
609number:
610
611\c putty -D 4096 -load mysession
612
613For general information on port forwarding, see
614\k{using-port-forwarding}.
615
616These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
617PSFTP.
618
619\S2{using-cmdline-m} \i\c{-m}: read a remote command or script from
620a file
621
622The \i\c{-m} option performs a similar function to the \q{Remote
623command} box in the SSH panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
624\k{config-command}). However, the \c{-m} option expects to be given
625a local file name, and it will read a command from that file. On
626most Unix systems, you can even put multiple lines in this file and
627execute more than one command in sequence, or a whole shell script;
628but this will not work on all servers (and is known not to work
629with certain \q{embedded} servers such as routers).
630
631This option is not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
632PSFTP.
633
634\S2{using-cmdline-p} \I{-P-upper}\c{-P}: specify a \i{port number}
635
636The \c{-P} option is used to specify the port number to connect to. If
637you have a Telnet server running on port 9696 of a machine instead of
638port 23, for example:
639
640\c putty -telnet -P 9696 host.name
641\c plink -telnet -P 9696 host.name
642
643(Note that this option is more useful in Plink than in PuTTY,
644because in PuTTY you can write \c{putty -telnet host.name 9696} in
645any case.)
646
647This option is equivalent to the port number control in the Session
648panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see \k{config-hostname}).
649
650\S2{using-cmdline-pw} \i\c{-pw}: specify a \i{password}
651
652A simple way to automate a remote login is to supply your password
653on the command line. This is \e{not recommended} for reasons of
654security. If you possibly can, we recommend you set up public-key
655authentication instead. See \k{pubkey} for details.
656
657Note that the \c{-pw} option only works when you are using the SSH
658protocol. Due to fundamental limitations of Telnet and Rlogin, these
659protocols do not support automated password authentication.
660
661\S2{using-cmdline-agent} \I{-A-upper}\c{-A} and \i\c{-a}: control \i{agent
662forwarding}
663
664The \c{-A} option turns on SSH agent forwarding, and \c{-a} turns it
665off. These options are only meaningful if you are using SSH.
666
667See \k{pageant} for general information on \i{Pageant}, and
668\k{pageant-forward} for information on agent forwarding. Note that
669there is a security risk involved with enabling this option; see
670\k{pageant-security} for details.
671
672These options are equivalent to the agent forwarding checkbox in the
673Auth panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see \k{config-ssh-agentfwd}).
674
675These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
676PSFTP.
677
678\S2{using-cmdline-x11} \I{-X-upper}\c{-X} and \i\c{-x}: control \i{X11
679forwarding}
680
681The \c{-X} option turns on X11 forwarding in SSH, and \c{-x} turns
682it off. These options are only meaningful if you are using SSH.
683
684For information on X11 forwarding, see \k{using-x-forwarding}.
685
686These options are equivalent to the X11 forwarding checkbox in the
687Tunnels panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
688\k{config-ssh-x11}).
689
690These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
691PSFTP.
692
693\S2{using-cmdline-pty} \i\c{-t} and \I{-T-upper}\c{-T}: control
694\i{pseudo-terminal allocation}
695
696The \c{-t} option ensures PuTTY attempts to allocate a
697pseudo-terminal at the server, and \c{-T} stops it from allocating
698one. These options are only meaningful if you are using SSH.
699
700These options are equivalent to the \q{Don't allocate a
701pseudo-terminal} checkbox in the SSH panel of the PuTTY
702configuration box (see \k{config-ssh-pty}).
703
704These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
705PSFTP.
706
707\S2{using-cmdline-noshell} \I{-N-upper}\c{-N}: suppress starting a
708shell or command
709
710The \c{-N} option prevents PuTTY from attempting to start a shell or
711command on the remote server. You might want to use this option if
712you are only using the SSH connection for port forwarding, and your
713user account on the server does not have the ability to run a shell.
714
715This feature is only available in SSH protocol version 2 (since the
716version 1 protocol assumes you will always want to run a shell).
717
718This option is equivalent to the \q{Don't start a shell or command
719at all} checkbox in the SSH panel of the PuTTY configuration box
720(see \k{config-ssh-noshell}).
721
722These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
723PSFTP.
724
725\S2{using-cmdline-compress} \I{-C-upper}\c{-C}: enable \i{compression}
726
727The \c{-C} option enables compression of the data sent across the
728network. This option is only meaningful if you are using SSH.
729
730This option is equivalent to the \q{Enable compression} checkbox in
731the SSH panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
732\k{config-ssh-comp}).
733
734\S2{using-cmdline-sshprot} \i\c{-1} and \i\c{-2}: specify an \i{SSH
735protocol version}
736
737The \c{-1} and \c{-2} options force PuTTY to use version \I{SSH1}1
738or version \I{SSH2}2 of the SSH protocol. These options are only
739meaningful if you are using SSH.
740
741These options are equivalent to selecting your preferred SSH
742protocol version as \q{1 only} or \q{2 only} in the SSH panel of the
743PuTTY configuration box (see \k{config-ssh-prot}).
744
745\S2{using-cmdline-identity} \i\c{-i}: specify an SSH \i{private key}
746
747The \c{-i} option allows you to specify the name of a private key
748file in \c{*.PPK} format which PuTTY will use to authenticate with the
749server. This option is only meaningful if you are using SSH.
750
751For general information on \i{public-key authentication}, see
752\k{pubkey}.
753
754This option is equivalent to the \q{Private key file for
755authentication} box in the Auth panel of the PuTTY configuration box
756(see \k{config-ssh-privkey}).