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[sgt/putty] / doc / using.but
1 \versionid $Id: using.but,v 1.37 2004/10/24 16:48:43 jacob Exp $
2
3 \C{using} Using PuTTY
4
5 This chapter provides a general introduction to some more advanced
6 features of PuTTY. For extreme detail and reference purposes,
7 \k{config} is likely to contain more information.
8
9 \H{using-session} During your session
10
11 A lot of PuTTY's complexity and features are in the configuration
12 panel. Once you have worked your way through that and started
13 a session, things should be reasonably simple after that.
14 Nevertheless, there are a few more useful features available.
15
16 \S{using-selection} Copying and pasting text
17
18 \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{Break, SSH special command}Break
185
186 \lcont{
187 Only available in SSH-2, and only during a session. Optional
188 extension; may not be supported by server. PuTTY requests the server's
189 default break length.
190 }
191
192 \b \I{Signal, SSH special command}Signals (SIGINT, SIGTERM etc)
193
194 \lcont{
195 Only available in SSH-2, and only during a session. Sends various
196 POSIX signals. Not honoured by all servers.
197 }
198
199 \S2{using-newsession} Starting new sessions
200
201 PuTTY's system menu provides some shortcut ways to start new
202 sessions:
203
204 \b Selecting \i{\q{New Session}} will start a completely new
205 instance of PuTTY, and bring up the configuration box as normal.
206
207 \b Selecting \i{\q{Duplicate Session}} will start a session in a
208 new window with precisely the same options as your current one -
209 connecting to the same host using the same protocol, with all the
210 same terminal settings and everything.
211
212 \b In an inactive window, selecting \i{\q{Restart Session}} will
213 do the same as \q{Duplicate Session}, but in the current window.
214
215 \b The \i{\q{Saved Sessions} submenu} gives you quick access to any
216 sets of stored session details you have previously saved. See
217 \k{config-saving} for details of how to create saved sessions.
218
219 \S2{using-changesettings} \I{settings, changing}Changing your
220 session settings
221
222 If you select \i{\q{Change Settings}} from the system menu, PuTTY will
223 display a cut-down version of its initial configuration box. This
224 allows you to adjust most properties of your current session. You
225 can change the terminal size, the font, the actions of various
226 keypresses, the colours, and so on.
227
228 Some of the options that are available in the main configuration box
229 are not shown in the cut-down Change Settings box. These are usually
230 options which don't make sense to change in the middle of a session
231 (for example, you can't switch from SSH to Telnet in mid-session).
232
233 \S2{using-copyall} \i{Copy All to Clipboard}
234
235 This system menu option provides a convenient way to copy the whole
236 contents of the terminal screen (up to the last nonempty line) and
237 scrollback to the \i{clipboard} in one go.
238
239 \S2{reset-terminal} \I{scrollback, clearing}Clearing and
240 \I{terminal, resetting}resetting the terminal
241
242 The \i{\q{Clear Scrollback}} option on the system menu tells PuTTY
243 to discard all the lines of text that have been kept after they
244 scrolled off the top of the screen. This might be useful, for
245 example, if you displayed sensitive information and wanted to make
246 sure nobody could look over your shoulder and see it. (Note that
247 this only prevents a casual user from using the scrollbar to view
248 the information; the text is not guaranteed not to still be in
249 PuTTY's memory.)
250
251 The \i{\q{Reset Terminal}} option causes a full reset of the
252 terminal emulation. A VT-series terminal is a complex piece of
253 software and can easily get into a state where all the text printed
254 becomes unreadable. (This can happen, for example, if you
255 accidentally output a binary file to your terminal.) If this
256 happens, selecting Reset Terminal should sort it out.
257
258 \S2{using-fullscreen} \ii{Full screen} mode
259
260 If you find the title bar on a maximised window to be ugly or
261 distracting, you can select Full Screen mode to maximise PuTTY
262 \q{even more}. When you select this, PuTTY will expand to fill the
263 whole screen and its borders, title bar and scrollbar will
264 disappear. (You can configure the scrollbar not to disappear in
265 full-screen mode if you want to keep it; see \k{config-scrollback}.)
266
267 When you are in full-screen mode, you can still access the system
268 menu if you click the left mouse button in the \e{extreme} top left
269 corner of the screen.
270
271 \H{using-logging} Creating a \i{log file} of your \I{session
272 log}session
273
274 For some purposes you may find you want to log everything that
275 appears on your screen. You can do this using the \i{\q{Logging}
276 panel} in the configuration box.
277
278 To begin a session log, select \q{Change Settings} from the system
279 menu and go to the Logging panel. Enter a log file name, and select
280 a logging mode. (You can log all session output including the
281 terminal control sequences, or you can just log the printable text.
282 It depends what you want the log for.) Click \q{Apply} and your log
283 will be started. Later on, you can go back to the Logging panel and
284 select \q{Logging turned off completely} to stop logging; then PuTTY
285 will close the log file and you can safely read it.
286
287 See \k{config-logging} for more details and options.
288
289 \H{using-translation} Altering your \i{character set} configuration
290
291 If you find that special characters (\i{accented characters}, for
292 example, or \i{line-drawing characters}) are not being displayed
293 correctly in your PuTTY session, it may be that PuTTY is interpreting
294 the characters sent by the server according to the wrong \e{character
295 set}. There are a lot of different character sets available, so it's
296 entirely possible for this to happen.
297
298 If you click \q{Change Settings} and look at the \i{\q{Translation}
299 panel}, you should see a large number of character sets which you can
300 select, and other related options. Now all you need is to find out
301 which of them you want! (See \k{config-translation} for more
302 information.)
303
304 \H{using-x-forwarding} Using \i{X11 forwarding} in SSH
305
306 The SSH protocol has the ability to securely forward X Window System
307 applications over your encrypted SSH connection, so that you can run
308 an application on the SSH server machine and have it put its windows
309 up on your local machine without sending any X network traffic in
310 the clear.
311
312 In order to use this feature, you will need an X display server for
313 your Windows machine, such as X-Win32 or Exceed. This will probably
314 install itself as display number 0 on your local machine; if it
315 doesn't, the manual for the \i{X server} should tell you what it
316 does do.
317
318 You should then tick the \q{Enable X11 forwarding} box in the
319 Tunnels panel (see \k{config-ssh-x11}) before starting your SSH
320 session. The \q{X display location} box is blank by default, which
321 means that PuTTY will try to use a sensible default such as \c{:0},
322 which is the usual display location where your X server will be
323 installed. If that needs changing, then change it.
324
325 Now you should be able to log in to the SSH server as normal. To
326 check that X forwarding has been successfully negotiated during
327 connection startup, you can check the PuTTY Event Log (see
328 \k{using-eventlog}). It should say something like this:
329
330 \c 2001-12-05 17:22:01 Requesting X11 forwarding
331 \c 2001-12-05 17:22:02 X11 forwarding enabled
332
333 If the remote system is Unix or Unix-like, you should also be able
334 to see that the \i{\c{DISPLAY} environment variable} has been set to
335 point at display 10 or above on the SSH server machine itself:
336
337 \c fred@unixbox:~$ echo $DISPLAY
338 \c unixbox:10.0
339
340 If this works, you should then be able to run X applications in the
341 remote session and have them display their windows on your PC.
342
343 Note that if your PC X server requires authentication to connect,
344 then PuTTY cannot currently support it. If this is a problem for
345 you, you should mail the PuTTY authors \#{FIXME} and give details
346 (see \k{feedback}).
347
348 For more options relating to X11 forwarding, see \k{config-ssh-x11}.
349
350 \H{using-port-forwarding} Using \i{port forwarding} in SSH
351
352 The SSH protocol has the ability to forward arbitrary network
353 connections over your encrypted SSH connection, to avoid the network
354 traffic being sent in clear. For example, you could use this to
355 connect from your home computer to a POP-3 server on a remote
356 machine without your POP-3 password being visible to network
357 sniffers.
358
359 In order to use port forwarding to connect from your local machine
360 to a port on a remote server, you need to:
361
362 \b Choose a port number on your local machine where PuTTY should
363 listen for incoming connections. There are likely to be plenty of
364 unused port numbers above 3000. (You can also use a local loopback
365 address here; see below for more details.)
366
367 \b Now, before you start your SSH connection, go to the Tunnels
368 panel (see \k{config-ssh-portfwd}). Make sure the \q{Local} radio
369 button is set. Enter the local port number into the \q{Source port}
370 box. Enter the destination host name and port number into the
371 \q{Destination} box, separated by a colon (for example,
372 \c{popserver.example.com:110} to connect to a POP-3 server).
373
374 \b Now click the \q{Add} button. The details of your port forwarding
375 should appear in the list box.
376
377 Now start your session and log in. (Port forwarding will not be
378 enabled until after you have logged in; otherwise it would be easy
379 to perform completely anonymous network attacks, and gain access to
380 anyone's virtual private network). To check that PuTTY has set up
381 the port forwarding correctly, you can look at the PuTTY Event Log
382 (see \k{using-eventlog}). It should say something like this:
383
384 \c 2001-12-05 17:22:10 Local port 3110 forwarding to
385 \c popserver.example.com:110
386
387 Now if you connect to the source port number on your local PC, you
388 should find that it answers you exactly as if it were the service
389 running on the destination machine. So in this example, you could
390 then configure an e-mail client to use \c{localhost:3110} as a POP-3
391 server instead of \c{popserver.example.com:110}. (Of course, the
392 forwarding will stop happening when your PuTTY session closes down.)
393
394 You can also forward ports in the other direction: arrange for a
395 particular port number on the \e{server} machine to be forwarded
396 back to your PC as a connection to a service on your PC or near it.
397 To do this, just select the \q{Remote} radio button instead of the
398 \q{Local} one. The \q{Source port} box will now specify a port
399 number on the \e{server} (note that most servers will not allow you
400 to use port numbers under 1024 for this purpose).
401
402 An alternative way to forward local connections to remote hosts is
403 to use \I{dynamic port forwarding}dynamic \I{SOCKS} proxying. For
404 this, you will need to select the \q{Dynamic} radio button instead
405 of \q{Local}, and then you should not enter anything into the
406 \q{Destination} box (it will be ignored). This will cause PuTTY to
407 listen on the port you have specified, and provide a SOCKS proxy
408 service to any programs which connect to that port. So, in
409 particular, you can forward other PuTTY connections through it by
410 setting up the Proxy control panel (see \k{config-proxy} for
411 details).
412
413 The source port for a forwarded connection usually does not accept
414 connections from any machine except the SSH client or server machine
415 itself (for local and remote forwardings respectively). There are
416 controls in the Tunnels panel to change this:
417
418 \b The \q{Local ports accept connections from other hosts} option
419 allows you to set up local-to-remote port forwardings (including
420 dynamic port forwardings) in such a way that machines other than
421 your client PC can connect to the forwarded port.
422
423 \b The \q{Remote ports do the same} option does the same thing for
424 remote-to-local port forwardings (so that machines other than the
425 SSH server machine can connect to the forwarded port.) Note that
426 this feature is only available in the SSH 2 protocol, and not all
427 SSH 2 servers honour it (in OpenSSH, for example, it's usually
428 disabled by default).
429
430 You can also specify an \i{IP address} to listen on. Typically a
431 Windows machine can be asked to listen on any single IP address in
432 the \cw{127.*.*.*} range, and all of these are loopback addresses
433 available only to the local machine. So if you forward (for example)
434 \c{127.0.0.5:79} to a remote machine's \cw{finger} port, then you
435 should be able to run commands such as \c{finger fred@127.0.0.5}.
436 This can be useful if the program connecting to the forwarded port
437 doesn't allow you to change the port number it uses. This feature is
438 available for local-to-remote forwarded ports; SSH1 is unable to
439 support it for remote-to-local ports, while SSH2 can support it in
440 theory but servers will not necessarily cooperate.
441
442 (Note that if you're using Windows XP Service Pack 2, you may need
443 to obtain a fix from Microsoft in order to use addresses like
444 \cw{127.0.0.5} - see \k{faq-alternate-localhost}.)
445
446 \H{using-rawprot} Making \i{raw TCP connections}
447
448 A lot of \I{debugging Internet protocols}Internet protocols are
449 composed of commands and responses in plain text. For example,
450 \i{SMTP} (the protocol used to transfer e-mail), \i{NNTP} (the
451 protocol used to transfer Usenet news), and \i{HTTP} (the protocol
452 used to serve Web pages) all consist of commands in readable plain
453 text.
454
455 Sometimes it can be useful to connect directly to one of these
456 services and speak the protocol \q{by hand}, by typing protocol
457 commands and watching the responses. On Unix machines, you can do
458 this using the system's \c{telnet} command to connect to the right
459 port number. For example, \c{telnet mailserver.example.com 25} might
460 enable you to talk directly to the SMTP service running on a mail
461 server.
462
463 Although the Unix \c{telnet} program provides this functionality,
464 the protocol being used is not really Telnet. Really there is no
465 actual protocol at all; the bytes sent down the connection are
466 exactly the ones you type, and the bytes shown on the screen are
467 exactly the ones sent by the server. Unix \c{telnet} will attempt to
468 detect or guess whether the service it is talking to is a real
469 Telnet service or not; PuTTY prefers to be told for certain.
470
471 In order to make a debugging connection to a service of this type,
472 you simply select the fourth protocol name, \I{\q{Raw}
473 protocol}\q{Raw}, from the \q{Protocol} buttons in the \q{Session}
474 configuration panel. (See \k{config-hostname}.) You can then enter a
475 host name and a port number, and make the connection.
476
477 \H{using-cmdline} The PuTTY command line
478
479 PuTTY can be made to do various things without user intervention by
480 supplying \i{command-line arguments} (e.g., from a \i{command prompt
481 window}, or a \i{Windows shortcut}).
482
483 \S{using-cmdline-session} Starting a session from the command line
484
485 \I\c{-ssh}\I\c{-telnet}\I\c{-rlogin}\I\c{-raw}These options allow
486 you to bypass the configuration window and launch straight into a
487 session.
488
489 To start a connection to a server called \c{host}:
490
491 \c putty.exe [-ssh | -telnet | -rlogin | -raw] [user@]host
492
493 If this syntax is used, settings are taken from the Default Settings
494 (see \k{config-saving}); \c{user} overrides these settings if
495 supplied. Also, you can specify a protocol, which will override the
496 default protocol (see \k{using-cmdline-protocol}).
497
498 For telnet sessions, the following alternative syntax is supported
499 (this makes PuTTY suitable for use as a URL handler for \i{telnet
500 URLs} in web browsers):
501
502 \c putty.exe telnet://host[:port]/
503
504 In order to start an existing saved session called \c{sessionname},
505 use the \c{-load} option (described in \k{using-cmdline-load}).
506
507 \c putty.exe -load "session name"
508
509 \S{using-cleanup} \i\c{-cleanup}
510
511 If invoked with the \c{-cleanup} option, rather than running as
512 normal, PuTTY will remove its registry entries and random seed file
513 from the local machine (after confirming with the user).
514
515 \S{using-general-opts} Standard command-line options
516
517 PuTTY and its associated tools support a range of command-line
518 options, most of which are consistent across all the tools. This
519 section lists the available options in all tools. Options which are
520 specific to a particular tool are covered in the chapter about that
521 tool.
522
523 \S2{using-cmdline-load} \i\c{-load}: load a saved session
524
525 \I{saved sessions, loading from command line}The \c{-load} option
526 causes PuTTY to load configuration details out of a saved session.
527 If these details include a host name, then this option is all you
528 need to make PuTTY start a session.
529
530 You need double quotes around the session name if it contains spaces.
531
532 If you want to create a Windows shortcut to start a PuTTY saved
533 session, this is the option you should use: your shortcut should
534 call something like
535
536 \c d:\path\to\putty.exe -load "my session"
537
538 (Note that PuTTY itself supports an alternative form of this option,
539 for backwards compatibility. If you execute \c{putty @sessionname}
540 it will have the same effect as \c{putty -load "sessionname"}. With
541 the \c{@} form, no double quotes are required, and the \c{@} sign
542 must be the very first thing on the command line. This form of the
543 option is deprecated.)
544
545 \S2{using-cmdline-protocol} Selecting a protocol: \c{-ssh},
546 \c{-telnet}, \c{-rlogin}, \c{-raw}
547
548 To choose which protocol you want to connect with, you can use one
549 of these options:
550
551 \b \i\c{-ssh} selects the SSH protocol.
552
553 \b \i\c{-telnet} selects the Telnet protocol.
554
555 \b \i\c{-rlogin} selects the Rlogin protocol.
556
557 \b \i\c{-raw} selects the raw protocol.
558
559 These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
560 PSFTP (which only work with the SSH protocol).
561
562 These options are equivalent to the \i{protocol selection} buttons
563 in the Session panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
564 \k{config-hostname}).
565
566 \S2{using-cmdline-v} \i\c{-v}: increase verbosity
567
568 \I{verbose mode}Most of the PuTTY tools can be made to tell you more
569 about what they are doing by supplying the \c{-v} option. If you are
570 having trouble when making a connection, or you're simply curious,
571 you can turn this switch on and hope to find out more about what is
572 happening.
573
574 \S2{using-cmdline-l} \i\c{-l}: specify a \i{login name}
575
576 You can specify the user name to log in as on the remote server
577 using the \c{-l} option. For example, \c{plink login.example.com -l
578 fred}.
579
580 These options are equivalent to the username selection box in the
581 Connection panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
582 \k{config-username}).
583
584 \S2{using-cmdline-portfwd} \I{-L-upper}\c{-L}, \I{-R-upper}\c{-R}
585 and \I{-D-upper}\c{-D}: set up \i{port forwardings}
586
587 As well as setting up port forwardings in the PuTTY configuration
588 (see \k{config-ssh-portfwd}), you can also set up forwardings on the
589 command line. The command-line options work just like the ones in
590 Unix \c{ssh} programs.
591
592 To forward a local port (say 5110) to a remote destination (say
593 \cw{popserver.example.com} port 110), you can write something like
594 one of these:
595
596 \c putty -L 5110:popserver.example.com:110 -load mysession
597 \c plink mysession -L 5110:popserver.example.com:110
598
599 To forward a remote port to a local destination, just use the \c{-R}
600 option instead of \c{-L}:
601
602 \c putty -R 5023:mytelnetserver.myhouse.org:23 -load mysession
603 \c plink mysession -R 5023:mytelnetserver.myhouse.org:23
604
605 To specify an IP address for the listening end of the tunnel,
606 prepend it to the argument:
607
608 \c plink -L 127.0.0.5:23:localhost:23 myhost
609
610 To set up SOCKS-based dynamic port forwarding on a local port, use
611 the \c{-D} option. For this one you only have to pass the port
612 number:
613
614 \c putty -D 4096 -load mysession
615
616 For general information on port forwarding, see
617 \k{using-port-forwarding}.
618
619 These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
620 PSFTP.
621
622 \S2{using-cmdline-m} \i\c{-m}: read a remote command or script from
623 a file
624
625 The \i\c{-m} option performs a similar function to the \q{Remote
626 command} box in the SSH panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
627 \k{config-command}). However, the \c{-m} option expects to be given
628 a local file name, and it will read a command from that file. On
629 most Unix systems, you can even put multiple lines in this file and
630 execute more than one command in sequence, or a whole shell script;
631 but this will not work on all servers (and is known not to work
632 with certain \q{embedded} servers such as routers).
633
634 This option is not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
635 PSFTP.
636
637 \S2{using-cmdline-p} \I{-P-upper}\c{-P}: specify a \i{port number}
638
639 The \c{-P} option is used to specify the port number to connect to. If
640 you have a Telnet server running on port 9696 of a machine instead of
641 port 23, for example:
642
643 \c putty -telnet -P 9696 host.name
644 \c plink -telnet -P 9696 host.name
645
646 (Note that this option is more useful in Plink than in PuTTY,
647 because in PuTTY you can write \c{putty -telnet host.name 9696} in
648 any case.)
649
650 This option is equivalent to the port number control in the Session
651 panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see \k{config-hostname}).
652
653 \S2{using-cmdline-pw} \i\c{-pw}: specify a \i{password}
654
655 A simple way to automate a remote login is to supply your password
656 on the command line. This is \e{not recommended} for reasons of
657 security. If you possibly can, we recommend you set up public-key
658 authentication instead. See \k{pubkey} for details.
659
660 Note that the \c{-pw} option only works when you are using the SSH
661 protocol. Due to fundamental limitations of Telnet and Rlogin, these
662 protocols do not support automated password authentication.
663
664 \S2{using-cmdline-agent} \I{-A-upper}\c{-A} and \i\c{-a}: control \i{agent
665 forwarding}
666
667 The \c{-A} option turns on SSH agent forwarding, and \c{-a} turns it
668 off. These options are only meaningful if you are using SSH.
669
670 See \k{pageant} for general information on \i{Pageant}, and
671 \k{pageant-forward} for information on agent forwarding. Note that
672 there is a security risk involved with enabling this option; see
673 \k{pageant-security} for details.
674
675 These options are equivalent to the agent forwarding checkbox in the
676 Auth panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see \k{config-ssh-agentfwd}).
677
678 These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
679 PSFTP.
680
681 \S2{using-cmdline-x11} \I{-X-upper}\c{-X} and \i\c{-x}: control \i{X11
682 forwarding}
683
684 The \c{-X} option turns on X11 forwarding in SSH, and \c{-x} turns
685 it off. These options are only meaningful if you are using SSH.
686
687 For information on X11 forwarding, see \k{using-x-forwarding}.
688
689 These options are equivalent to the X11 forwarding checkbox in the
690 Tunnels panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
691 \k{config-ssh-x11}).
692
693 These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
694 PSFTP.
695
696 \S2{using-cmdline-pty} \i\c{-t} and \I{-T-upper}\c{-T}: control
697 \i{pseudo-terminal allocation}
698
699 The \c{-t} option ensures PuTTY attempts to allocate a
700 pseudo-terminal at the server, and \c{-T} stops it from allocating
701 one. These options are only meaningful if you are using SSH.
702
703 These options are equivalent to the \q{Don't allocate a
704 pseudo-terminal} checkbox in the SSH panel of the PuTTY
705 configuration box (see \k{config-ssh-pty}).
706
707 These options are not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
708 PSFTP.
709
710 \S2{using-cmdline-noshell} \I{-N-upper}\c{-N}: suppress starting a
711 shell or command
712
713 The \c{-N} option prevents PuTTY from attempting to start a shell or
714 command on the remote server. You might want to use this option if
715 you are only using the SSH connection for port forwarding, and your
716 user account on the server does not have the ability to run a shell.
717
718 This feature is only available in SSH protocol version 2 (since the
719 version 1 protocol assumes you will always want to run a shell).
720
721 This option is equivalent to the \q{Don't start a shell or command
722 at all} checkbox in the SSH panel of the PuTTY configuration box
723 (see \k{config-ssh-noshell}).
724
725 This option is not available in the file transfer tools PSCP and
726 PSFTP.
727
728 \S2{using-cmdline-compress} \I{-C-upper}\c{-C}: enable \i{compression}
729
730 The \c{-C} option enables compression of the data sent across the
731 network. This option is only meaningful if you are using SSH.
732
733 This option is equivalent to the \q{Enable compression} checkbox in
734 the SSH panel of the PuTTY configuration box (see
735 \k{config-ssh-comp}).
736
737 \S2{using-cmdline-sshprot} \i\c{-1} and \i\c{-2}: specify an \i{SSH
738 protocol version}
739
740 The \c{-1} and \c{-2} options force PuTTY to use version \I{SSH1}1
741 or version \I{SSH2}2 of the SSH protocol. These options are only
742 meaningful if you are using SSH.
743
744 These options are equivalent to selecting your preferred SSH
745 protocol version as \q{1 only} or \q{2 only} in the SSH panel of the
746 PuTTY configuration box (see \k{config-ssh-prot}).
747
748 \S2{using-cmdline-identity} \i\c{-i}: specify an SSH \i{private key}
749
750 The \c{-i} option allows you to specify the name of a private key
751 file in \c{*.PPK} format which PuTTY will use to authenticate with the
752 server. This option is only meaningful if you are using SSH.
753
754 For general information on \i{public-key authentication}, see
755 \k{pubkey}.
756
757 This option is equivalent to the \q{Private key file for
758 authentication} box in the Auth panel of the PuTTY configuration box
759 (see \k{config-ssh-privkey}).