-\versionid $Id: faq.but,v 1.36 2002/10/10 14:39:35 jacob Exp $
+\versionid $Id: faq.but,v 1.44 2003/02/15 18:47:22 jacob Exp $
\A{faq} PuTTY FAQ
development snapshots, in which case testing will be very welcome.
\b try the
-\W{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/wishlist.html}{Wishlist
+\W{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/wishlist/}{Wishlist
page}, and see if you can find the feature there. If it's on there,
-it probably \e{hasn't} been implemented.
+and not in the \q{Recently fixed} section, it probably \e{hasn't} been
+implemented.
\S{faq-ssh2}{Question} Does PuTTY support SSH v2?
Yes. SSH v2 support has been available in PuTTY since version 0.50.
However, currently the \e{default} SSH protocol is v1; to select SSH
v2 if your server supports both, go to the SSH panel and change the
-\e{Preferred SSH protocol version} option.
+\e{Preferred SSH protocol version} option. (The factory default will
+\W{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/wishlist/ssh2-default.html}{change to v2}
+in the next full release.)
Public key authentication (both RSA and DSA) in SSH v2 is new in
version 0.52.
\H{faq-ports} Ports to other operating systems
The eventual goal is for PuTTY to be a multi-platform program, able
-to run on at least Windows, MacOS and Unix. Whether this will
-actually ever happen I have no idea, but it is the plan. A Mac port
-has been started, but is only half-finished and currently not moving
-very fast.
+to run on at least Windows, Mac OS and Unix.
Porting will become easier once PuTTY has a generalised porting
layer, drawing a clear line between platform-dependent and
-platform-independent code. The general intention is for this porting
-layer to evolve naturally as part of the process of doing the first
-port. One particularly nasty part of this will be separating the
-many configuration options into platform-dependent and
-platform-independent ones; for example, the options controlling when
-the Windows System menu appears will be pretty much meaningless
-under X11 or perhaps other windowing systems, whereas Telnet Passive
-Mode is universal and shouldn't need to be specified once for each
-platform.
+platform-independent code. The general intention was for this
+porting layer to evolve naturally as part of the process of doing
+the first port; a Unix port is now under way and the plan seems to
+be working so far.
\S{faq-ports-general}{Question} What ports of PuTTY exist?
-Currently, PuTTY only runs on full Win32 systems. This includes
-Windows 95, 98, and ME, and it includes Windows NT, Windows 2000 and
-Windows XP.
+Currently, release versions of PuTTY only run on full Win32 systems.
+This includes Windows 95, 98, and ME, and it includes Windows NT,
+Windows 2000 and Windows XP. In the development code, partial ports
+to Unix (see \k{faq-unix}) and the Mac OS (see \k{faq-mac-port}).
+are under way.
-It does \e{not} include Windows CE (see \k{faq-wince}), and it does
-not quite include the Win32s environment under Windows 3.1 (see
-\k{faq-win31}).
+Currently PuTTY does \e{not} run on Windows CE (see \k{faq-wince}),
+and it does not quite run on the Win32s environment under Windows
+3.1 (see \k{faq-win31}).
-We do not have ports for any other systems at the present time. If
-anyone told you we had a Unix port, or an iPaq port, or any other
-port of PuTTY, they were mistaken. We don't.
+We do not have release-quality ports for any other systems at the
+present time. If anyone told you we had a Mac port, or an iPaq port,
+or any other port of PuTTY, they were mistaken. We don't.
+
+\S{faq-unix}{Question} Will there be a port to Unix?
+
+It's currently being worked on. If you look at the nightly source
+snapshots, you should find a \c{unix} subdirectory, which should
+build you a Unix port of Plink, and also \c{pterm} - an
+\cw{xterm}-type program which supports the same terminal emulation
+as PuTTY.
+
+It isn't yet clear whether we will bother combining the terminal
+emulator and network back end into the same process, to provide a
+Unix port of the full GUI form of PuTTY. It wouldn't be as useful a
+thing on Unix as it would be on Windows; its major value would
+probably be as a pathfinding effort for other ports. If anyone
+really wants it, we'd be interested to know why :-)
\S{faq-wince}{Question} Will there be a port to Windows CE or PocketPC?
\S{faq-mac-port}{Question} Will there be a port to the Mac?
-A Mac port was started once and is half-finished, but development
-has been static for some time and the main PuTTY code has moved on,
-so it's not clear how quickly development would resume even if
-developer effort were available.
-
-\S{faq-unix}{Question} Will there be a port to Unix?
-
-I hope so, if only so that I can have an \cw{xterm}-like program
-that supports exactly the same terminal emulation as PuTTY. If and
-when we do do a Unix port, it will have a local-terminal back end so
-it can be used like an \cw{xterm}, rather than only being usable as
-a network utility.
+Eventually. The terminal emulation code has been ported, as has the
+saved-settings infrastructure, but networking and a configuration GUI
+still need to be done before the port will be of any use.
\S{faq-epoc}{Question} Will there be a port to EPOC?
Putting them in more general files such as \c{.bashrc} or \c{.cshrc}
is liable to lead to problems.
-\S{faq-psftp-slow} PSFTP transfers files much slower than PSCP.
+\S{faq-psftp-slow}{Question} PSFTP transfers files much slower than PSCP.
We believe this is because the SFTP and SSH2 protocols are less
efficient at bulk data transfer than SCP and SSH1, because every
To connect using SSH 2 to a server that supports both versions, you
need to change the configuration from the default (see \k{faq-ssh2}).
+\S{faq-rh8-utf8}{Question} When I'm connected to a Red Hat Linux 8.0
+system, some characters don't display properly.
+
+A common complaint is that hyphens in man pages show up as a-acute.
+
+With release 8.0, Red Hat appear to have made UTF-8 the default
+character set. There appears to be no way for terminal emulators such
+as PuTTY to know this (as far as we know, the appropriate escape
+sequence to switch into UTF-8 mode isn't sent).
+
+A fix is to configure sessions to RH8 systems to use UTF-8
+translation - see \k{config-charset} in the documentation. (Note that
+if you use \q{Change Settings}, changes may not take place immediately
+- see \k{faq-resetterm}.)
+
+If you really want to change the character set used by the server, the
+right place is \c{/etc/sysconfig/i18n}, but this shouldn't be
+necessary.
+
\H{faq-secure} Security questions
\S{faq-publicpc}{Question} Is it safe for me to download PuTTY and
There isn't one, that we know of.
-If someone else wants to set up a mailing list for PuTTY users to
-help each other with common problems, that would be fine with us;
-but the PuTTY team would almost certainly not have the time to read
-it, so any questions the list couldn't answer would have to be
-forwarded on to us by the questioner. In any case, it's probably
-better to use the established newsgroup \cw{comp.security.ssh} for
-this purpose.
+If someone else wants to set up a mailing list or other forum for
+PuTTY users to help each other with common problems, that would be
+fine with us, though the PuTTY team would almost certainly not have the
+time to read it. It's probably better to use the established
+newsgroup \cw{comp.security.ssh} for this purpose.
\S{faq-donations}{Question} How can I donate to PuTTY development?
~mdw / sgt / putty / blobdiff