PuTTY
What is PuTTY used for?
How do you download and install PuTTY?
How do you use PuTTY?
How do you configure and customize PuTTY?
What is PuTTY used for?
PuTTY is a free Windows 32 Platform Telnet/SSH (Secure Shell) Client. PuTTY allows you to initiate a SSH (a high-security internet protocol that utilizes encryption) session with a host or multi-user system. At JMU, this can include host systems such as Peregrin, WWW, or SecureWeb. Once logged in you can perform tasks such as:
- Changing your password
- Changing permissions of files
- Creating directories and sub-directories
- And perform many other tasks!
How do you download and install PuTTY?
PuTTY is provided free of charge to all members of the JMU community here.
Once at the site, click on the link "PuTTY 0.55". A dialog box will appear asking you
to save putty055.exe to your hard drive.
Click Save
Double-click on putty055.exe to start the installation of the program.
The PuTTY installation program will only prompt you for where you would like PuTTY to be installed.
After choosing where you would like PuTTY to be installed, simply click on the Next button to finish the installation.
The configuration window comes up upon completing installation. Unless you desire to make a change, you can simply close the window and begin using PuTTY.
PuTTY creates shortcut items in your Start menu that look similar to this.
How do you use PuTTY?
PuTTY already comes pre-configured for use at JMU. As you can see in the example below, the
most popular sessions already have their own shortcuts. If you would like to connect to one
of these host systems, click on the icon and log in with your e-ID and password.
Help can be found for Peregrin at http://peregrin.jmu.edu.
Additional help with basic Unix commands used in PuTTY is available at http://peregrin.jmu.edu/basic.shtml.
If you would like to connect to a host system other than Peregrin, WWW, or SecureWeb, click on the PuTTY icon for a particular session. Then, click on monitors in the upper left hand corner of the window on the title bar, and select New Session... from the menu.
The PuTTY configuration window will then appear.
If you would like to make a new connection to a host, just type the host name in the respective field. Note that if you are connecting through a SSH session, you simply click the SSH radio button in the protocol area.
If this is a connection you are using often, you may want to store the settings so that you may easily access it at a later time. To do this,
- Make sure you have the correct host name and port number in their respective fields.
- Type in a name in the "Saved Sessions" field.
Note: This is an arbitrary name for your use only, you may name the session anything you desire, but it may be easier to keep the session name the same or similar to the host name. - Then click on the "Save" button to save the session.
(The session name you entered should now appear under Saved Sessions) - You may now load that session by either selecting the session and clicking on the load button, or by double-clicking on the session name.
How do you configure and customize PuTTY?
PuTTY can be configured and customized in almost every imaginable way. You may scroll through the PuTTY configuration options by clicking on the various options in the "Category" box. You may change things such as the way PuTTY responds to keyboard commands, the default size of the PuTTY window, and the colors PuTTY uses during a session.
As you can see almost all display colors of PuTTY can be modified to your liking.
For additional information, documentation or frequently asked questions (FAQs), please see http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/